Sika Trail Duathlon Race report and full results

Somehow we managed to engineer the sunshine again – it’s bound to go pear shaped soon!! Great day for racing in the forest and the adult race was full and contained a high quality field. But it was a bit chilly for them early in the morning so the hardcore juniors were up first. The tristart race was up first with a great battle between TriPurbeck’s Arthur Brook and Max Bungay. Max posted a stunning bike split but Arthur had the running legs and won by a few seconds with Josh Lang in 3rd. The girls race was won by Jess Baker with Otilie Emery coming second in her debut race. Special mention here for the underage racers Fin Bungay and George Mahon who were fantastic. The tristar 1 boys race contained one of my standout moments of the day with Ryan Symmington running the last 400m of the bike because his pedal fell off. No quitting for Ryan who fought back to second behind a great performance from Dylan Williams. TriPurbeck’s Callum McDermott picked up 3rd. The girls race was led all the way by Rachel Packard who finished 3rd overall in another great performance. Ellie Stannard came in second with Jade Matthews 3rd. The race of the day was in the girls TS2 race with the lead changing hands constantly, a close finish and only 26secs between the first 5. It was Lily Burnet who had the bike legs and held a slender lead onto the final run. But Megan Lakeman, Isabelle Taylor and Lola Lopez all reeled her in before Lola just out dipped Isabelle on the line to take the win. Absolutely brilliant. Jed Skilton, fresh from success in the World Biathle Championships, took the boys race despite an early tumble captured in glorious HD on the gopro, and George Robson came in second with Kai Luke an excellent 3rd. Final an all boys affair in the TS3 race saw a stunning performance from Northern Spanish Duathlon Champion Sami Brown Araujo who outpaced Johnathan Greenwood in second who in turn just pipped Jake Adams in a high class race.

So by 10.30am the weather had warmed up enough for the adults and they went to work on the Sika course. A slight change to the bike course was needed to avoid losing some expensive gear in a very deep mud pool and the course was running tough due to the recent wet weather. Obviously I didn’t tell anybody that before the race! Local runner Nick Baugniet headed out the first run in an excellent 22min with TriPurbeck’s Justin Matthews, Ben Lang and Chris Wood all about a minute back. Helen Dyke, last years winner, held a significant lead in the ladies race after the run with Jane King next and Rachel Gurney 4 minutes back. But Rachel can ride a bike and she went to work with her 29er (I thought that was a small ice cream but apparently its a wheel size). In fact she posted the 6th fastest bike split of the day to close to within a few seconds of Helen onto the second run. Helen re-established her lead on the run with Rachel an excellent 2nd and Lydia Birch running through strongly to snatch 3rd from Kat Ashley who raced really well to pip Jane King – our 1st female vet. In the men’s race it was Ben Lang and Adam White showing the biking form with Ben taking the lead at the end of lap 3 and posting a fast enough 2nd run split to win in a brilliant 1hr26min. Nick Baugniet never dropped below 2nd to take the vets prize and Tim MacDowell added an excellent 2nd run to a great bike split to take 3rd (2nd MSEN). Adam’s biking had got him up to 4th but Brendan Reese posted the fastest split of the day for the second run to overhaul him and take 3rd senior male. Last prize of the day went to Jordan Symmington who was the first junior athlete and 10th overall.

Finally a special mention to TriPurbeck’s Shirley Shailer who chose a tough race for her first multisport event and produced a fantastic performance – awesome.

Ben Lang on his way to the win.

Full adult results can be found here:

http://www.tripurbeck.com/wp-content/uploads/Sika-Duathlon-Provisional-Adult-Results-Nov-2012.pdf

And the full junior results appear below: