Docherty and Taormina are 2004 ITU World Champions

New Zealand's Bevan Docherty firmly put any ghosts to rest when he won a pulse-pounding duel to the last breath with Spain's Ivan Raña to win his country's first ITU world title by the narrow margin of just one second, just a few weeks after his claiming his first world cup win in Ishigaki. US athlete Sheila Taormina had with a slightly larger gap on Australia's Loretta Harrop at Sunday's Olympic-distance world championships in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.

Tsukasa Hirano of Japan took a slim lead over Andy Potts of the USA to lead the swimmers out of the water onto the pontoon, followed by Igor Sysoev of Russia in third place. A long line of competitors with strong credentials entered transition in pursuit of the early leaders.

Out onto the first cycle lap, Potts and Frederic Belaubre of France took a slight lead, only to be caught by a large group of around 25 cyclists including Ivan Rana of Spain, Dimitry Gaag of Kazakhstan, Sysoev, New Zealand teammates Shane Reed, Hamish Carter, Bevan Docherty, Rasmus Henning of Denmark, Miles Stewart of Australia, Hirano, and Reto Hug of Switzerland.

This main cycle group then jockeyed for position on the remaining 7 laps, with Greg Bennett leading Bevan Docherty into the second transition.

The lead out onto the run was assumed by Docherty and for most of the four laps on the run with Docherty, Rana, and Dimitry Gaag all running strongly together.
Docherty, ranked No. 2 in the world, began the last lap on the slight Spaniard's elbow. Raña, who won the 2002 ITU world title on the flatlands of Cancun, Mexico, matched the larger Kiwi stride for stride until the very last steps to the finish line. Docherty, who ran the last 10km in 29:54, outran the more renowned Raña by two seconds on the final 10km run. 1999 Champion Dimitry Gaag took the bronze for Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, in the women's race, the United States' Sheila Taormina outran Australian Loretta Harrop on the final lap to win the 2004 ITU Olympic-distance world championship. It was a double celebration for Taormina who also qualified to race for the US Olympic team in Athens where she hopes to repeat her success in the 1996 Atlanta games where she took a gold as part of the 4 x 200 meter swim relay.
This course has been kind to Taormina who out-sprinted fellow country woman Barb Lindquist to win the ITU World Cup here last October.

World No.2 Taormina broke exited the swim with a 19-second lead with a blistering 17:54 time for the 1.5 km swim. Somewhat surprisingly, Lindquist could only manage fourth-best swim, 34 seconds back, and in no position to join Taormina on one of their typical swim-bike breakaways

Riding what she later termed 85-90 percent, Taormina led five of the eight 5km laps on the bike and built a 38-second lead before dropping to the back of a lead pack of nine women to save energy for the run.

Taormina made a swift second transition and emerged on the shoulder of teammate Reback, her key rival for the second U.S. Olympic slot.
After the first lap of the run, Harrop, Reback and Taormina broke to an eight-second lead over Joelle Franzmann of Germany and Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal, with Machiko Nakanishi of Japan and Barb Lindquist of the U.S. another five and eight seconds back.

At the halfway point of the 10km run, Harrop, the 1999 ITU world champion, and Taormina pulled away from the chase pack leaving Reback, Fernandes, Nakanishi, Franzmann and Lindquist behind.

It was elbow to elbow coming into the final lap where Taormina upped the pace and in the end had a convincing lead over Harrop to take the World Championsship gold.