6th September 2010 - Club dominate at Youghal Triathlon

Last weekend the annual sprint distance triathlon took place in Youghal with almost 200 athletes taking part with 11 our own clubmembers up against them.  The early morning drive from Waterford was ominous as we had our fog lights and fast speed windscreen wipers on but the weather cleared to be a fabulous sunny day.  The sea was still quite rough though, more suited to surfing than swimming so it took a while after the start whistle went for people to actually get out past the waves to swim. 

1st out of the water after the 750m swim, with a clear lead over the rest of the field was our youngest club member, Chris Mintern.  The 20k bike was an out and back course so you see your pursuers very easily on the return leg.  Chris is part of the Triathlon Ireland development squad and, as they don’t encourage the use of Tri bars on the bike, Chris was at a disadvantage here and the gap was closing quite quickly by the time he finished the bike.  He headed out on the 6.5k run, still 1min. in the lead, but got caught a few hundred meters from the finish line, and, after putting up a brave fight, had to settle for 2nd place overall in 1.05.46, also winning his age-group.

Shane Scadding was 16th out of the water with club mates Davin Power and Stefan Green just seconds behind.  Shane posted the 2nd fastest bike split of the day and moved up to 2nd  place heading out on the run, with Davin, who had posted the 7th fastest bike split in 6th place overall.  Davin ran hard to pass a few on the run, including Shane, to finish 4th overall in 1.06.22 with Shane finishing 7th overall in 1.07.11, with them both picking up age-group prizes.  Stefan Green finished 14th overall in 1.10.59, also collecting a prize for 2nd in his age-group.  Michael Bowes, Tom Casey & Andrew Hickey were not far apart throughout the race and finished with Michael collecting a prize for 3rd in his age-group in 1.12.56, Tom winning his age-group in 1.13.39 and Andrew just seconds behind in 1.13.43. 

Siobhán Dunphy and Siobhán Kennedy had pretty good swims despite the tough conditions and weren’t long about passing loads on the bike and run, with Siobhan Dunphy posting the 5th fastest female run time to finish in 1.21.13, and Siobhan Kennedy running the 3rd fastest female split to finish in 1.21.34, both collecting age-group prizes also.  Norma Goggin had almost a 2min lead on clubmate Helen Whyte after the swim and with them both posting the same bike time, the headed out onto the run with the same gap between them.  Helen had a great run to catch Norma just a short distance from the finish so they both finished together in 1.31.42, with Helen getting 2nd prize in her age-group.  A great day out for the club with 8 prizes coming home.

 

 

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