Rival’s Missed Turn Opens Path to Victory for Lorenzen

Sometimes it pays to be the leader of the pack, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Brent Lorenzen of Irvine won the Pacific Coast sprint-distance triathlon Sunday at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach, getting a break when the apparent leader missed a turn near the end of the three-mile run.

Lorenzen’s age group started in the second wave of athletes, about two minutes after the first wave. The first group was led throughout by Ted Simpkins of Santa Rosa, who had a 1-minute 25-second advantage at the end of the 12-mile bike leg and was later announced as the overall winner when he crossed the finish line in 1 hour 3 minutes and 22 seconds.

But Simpkins, a 1992 graduate of Corona del Mar High, actually finished with the sixth-fastest time. Simpkins said he would have been faster, but lost valuable seconds when he ran past the beach turnoff and continued for about the length of a “football field” before turning back.

Simpkins still crossed the finish line 24 seconds ahead of Lorenzen, but after the elapsed time was subtracted from the first and second waves, Lorenzen was 1:36 faster.

“I was kind of closing in on him, so I think I would have beat him anyway,” said Lorenzen, 31, a Harvard graduate. “But it’s always too bad when that happens.”

Simpkins, 29, said he was familiar with the course. But, he said, the turnoff was not marked clearly and no race officials were present to point him in the right direction. He said he realized that he missed the turn when he heard someone yelling from the cliffs. “At first, I thought he was just cheering me on,” Simpkins said.

Ryan Lahee of Sonora won the women’s competition in 1:09.55, followed by Shari Russell of San Diego (1:11.41) and Christen King of Huntington Beach (1:11.49). Lahee had finished 10th in Saturday’s Pacific Coast International Triathlon Union Olympic-distance race at Crystal Cove.