6 October 2002, Makuhari, Japan, For immediate release: The heavy fog that covered the Pacific Ocean lifted just before a strong international women's field dove from the pontoon for the start of the Makuhari World Cup. Water temperature was just below 24oC with a gentle breeze from the east.

Nicole Hackett of Australia, triathlon's 2000 World Champion moved to her familiar spot at the front of the swim, with Sharon Donnelly and her Canadian team mate Jill Savege clinging to her toes. The lead stayed in this order through the second lap, with Megan Hall of South Africa and Machiko Nakanishi close behind. Other notables in the lead group were: Christine Jeffries of Canada, Annabel Luxford of Australia, and Lenka Radova of the Czech Republic.

By the end of the second lap, Hackett had pulled ahead slightly to gain a 20 second lead by the time she moved through the swim to bike transition.

The chase group moved through transition quickly as Jill Savege, Saori Omatsu of Japan, Megan Hall, Nina Anisimova and Sharon Donnelly got things organised for the chase to make up the deficit. The second chase pack was led out of transition by Canadian team mates Samantha McGlone and Natasha Filliol along with Kiyomi Niwata of Japan and Olga Generalova of Russia.

Although Nicole Hackett gave it her best out at the front alone, the chase group was too well organised and she was swallowed up before the end of the first lap. Once they caught Hackett, the group of 10 at the front did not let up but continued to put time on the group behind with the lead changing often as Savege, Hackett, Blatchford and Luxford all took a turn at the front.

Australia's Liz Blatchford was first off the bike and onto the run course, with Nicole Hackett and Lauri Hug (USA) at her shoulder. Jill Savege, with a bit of a slow transition, exited in 5th place, but quickly joined up with the leaders.

A group of six ran together at the front and stayed in contact through the first lap, including Jill Savege with a slight lead over Nicole Hackett, followed closely by Blatchford, Donnelly, Nakanishi and Luxford.

By the end second lap, the leaders had broken Donnelly and Luxford with Savege, Hackett and Blatchford still running together at the front. Through the third and final lap, Savege and Hackett pulled away from Blatchford and ran together until the final kilometre when Savege put down the hammer and pulled away to defeat Nicole Hackett by 20 seconds. Liz Blatchford was back another 30 seconds for 3rd. Machiko Nakanishi delighted the local fans with a 4th place finish, and Sharon Donnelly was 5th.

The men's event featured a very large and impressive field, with several World Cup title holders and many others vying for enough points to qualify for the upcoming Cancun ITU World Championships.

After the first turn buoy of the 2 lap, 1500 metre swim, Hamish Carter of New Zealand appeared to be going seriously off course, but in fact had figured out how to take advantage of the the tides and current. He came into the end of the first lap with a 15 metre lead on the rest of the field. Carter managed to keep this lead through to the swim exit. Stefan Bignet of France, returning after an absence from international racing was second out of the water, followed closely by Brent Foster of New Zealand and Hirokatsu Tayama of Japan.

Although the majority of the field was out of the water and through the first transition with less than 40 seconds separation, the Aussie team mates at the front: Miles Stewart, Chris Hill, Courtney Atkinson and Bryce Quick and New Zealand's Hamish Carter soon recognised that they had over 30 seconds on some of the race favourites such as Dimitry Gaag of Kazakhstan, Filip Ospaly of the Czech Republic and Andrew Johns of Great Britain. For a solid kilometre, the lead group hammered and almost doubled the gap to the chase group. They then settled into the hard work of a serious peleton and increased their lead with each of the next six laps. Others in that group included USA team mates Joe Umphenour and Hunter Kemper, as well as Stefan Bignet, Csaba Kuttor of Hungary and Brazilian team mates Juraci Moreira and Paulo Miyashiro.

The hard work of the lead group of 16 paid off, and by the end of the 7-lap 40km course, their lead had built to almost 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Once on the run, the group soon thinned out, with Hamish Carter, Miles Stewart, Chris Hill, Juraci Moreira and Hunter Kemper running shoulder to shoulder through the first of 3 laps. On the second lap, Carter, Stewart and Moreira slowly pulled away from the rest with their sites set on a podium finish.

Into the final lap, the trio at the front continued to pull away, but nothing was settled until 500 metres from the finish when Miles Stewart found that final kick that he is so famous for and he opened up a gap on Moreira and Carter. With less than 6 seconds separating the podium finishers, Miles delighted his many Japanese fans by out-sprinting Hamish Carter and Juraci Moreira in another great World Cup finish.

After the race, Miles Stewart who was delighted with his second World Cup victory of the season said, "It is great to be back in form....my weight has not been this low since I was 12 years old. I have completely changed my diet, thanks to my wife Kate's knowledge of nutrition."

Within a week, the 52 minute Makuhari ITU World Cup television show will be distributed to several hundred million households around the planet.

The 2002 ITU World Cup Series now moves to Funchal, Madeira, Portugal for the last World Cup event of the season on 13 October - the final event before the World Championships in Cancun, Mexico 9, 10 November. For complete results please see www.triathlon.org