Aussie triathlete Emma Moffatt relieved to qualify for Rio Olympics after nervy Gold Coast race

EMMA Moffatt has booked a spot at a record third Olympics with her top seven finish in the world triathlon championship series race on the Gold Coast.

HER six-year-old niece was running faster than her in the final run but one of the toughest races of her life has delivered Emma Moffatt a place in history as the first Australian triathlete to make three Olympics teams.

It has also secured Moffatt a seat on the plane to Rio beside boyfriend Daniel Bowker who earned his first selection on an Olympic team at kayaking trials last month.

“I really want to share the whole experience with him,’’ Moffatt said. “It was a huge motivator for me.’’

Who Moffatt, a bronze medallist at the Beijing Olympics, will be sharing a room with in Rio is still to be determined with the final two women to race at the Games at the discretion of selectors.

Moffatt came close to collapsing at the end of the 1.5km swim, 40m cycle and 10km run world championship series race on the Gold Coast after finishing seventh in the race won by British star Helen Jenkins, from American Gwen Jorgensen and New Zealander Andrea Hewitt.

“My nieces were running faster than me in the run. One of them is six. I though, no way,’’ Moffatt laughed after securing the automatic Olympic selection available to the first Australian to finish top 10.

“I had a stitch and it made things really hard.

“It’s such a relief not to have to rely on discretion, to have this locked away,’’ said

The likes of Ashleigh Gentle (15th) and London Olympic bronze medallist Erin Densham (35th) must now rely on the discretion of Australian selectors to take their place on the Rio start-line where Australia has qualified the maximum three athletes in both the men’s and women’s races.

This can be a lottery with major controversial omissions in the past for either world or Olympic Games teams including Sydney Olympic silver medallist Michellie Jones and Australia’s first and only Olympic gold medallist Emma Snowsill.

Snowsill was the most high-profile absentee from the London Olympics just four year’s after her historic gold medal in Beijing.