Gold and Silver again at the European Duathlon Championships

Team TriPurbeck were at it again over the weekend securing medals racing for Great Britain in the Powerman ETU European Duathlon Championships bringing the overall major championship total to 10 medals – pause for thought……….

First up was Fran in the long distance event after securing the gold in the sprint in 2013. She was ‘fairly hesitant’ about the first 15km run due to a lack of any kind of speed training yet this year but pulled out a decent 65min split running well within herself. Denmark’s Melina Olsen was on a mission and disappeared up the road in first place which left our height restricted hero battling for the silver medal with Germany’s Sandra Fuchs. I need to watch my spelling for the rest of this report. Fran put 45secs into the German on the first lap of the bike but hampered by strong cross winds (this is an issue of you are Fran’s size and ride a tt bike with 90mm sections), she was unable to make further inroads. ‘Fuchs’ she kept saying, ‘I just can’t get rid of her’. So unable to relax on the second run, the Franster stayed solid to take the silver by 33 secs – legendary again given Fran’s ‘fondness’ for duathlon!

So on to the sprint in the afternoon and the Bardsleys were primed and ready for action. Both produced exceptional first run splits with Derek under 19 minutes and Sharon just over 20 minutes. She did her best to let the opposition catch up with a lengthy transition – new helmet fastening needed I think – not helped by the kids screaming at her to get a move on! But Sharon still led the field out onto the bike course and blew them away with an excellent ride that meant she could ease home on the second run, beating her time from last year by over 3 minutes despite ‘helmetgate’ and taking the gold medal. An absolutely outstanding performance that makes Sharon the third of the TriPurbeck female athletes to win a European title…… come on chaps!!!!!! Derek also produced a great race in the highly competitive men’s 60-64 category with an excellent 6th place finish and a plan to get himself a timetrial bike for next year – could well make all the difference……