TriPurbeck Duathlon 2

What a day for the biggest turn out yet at a junior Tripurbeck event, despite the fact that several juniors were off on their holidays and the weather was, as Guy put it in a masterful example of British under statement, ‘a bit fresh’. Undaunted, and mostly gloved up, the juniors racked their bikes and lined up their helmets while their parents headed for the tea and coffee. With the introduction of the wireless microphone I was giving serious consideration to the idea of commentating from the warmth of the office but then the sun came up and the temperature shot up to a sub tropical 3 degrees.

Not that the Tristart athletes cared, and they shot out of the start on their first run, with the added advantage of no dog hurdling this time around. Into transition first was Callum, closely followed by Aiden and Charlie, with Francesca and Daisy leading out the girls. Callum was never headed despite Connor posting the fastest bike split and ran into the finish shoot to win his second race of the season. Connor came in second with Aiden 3rd and a special mention to Max who came fourth even though he is not yet old enough to compete! Ellie stormed the bike to take the girls race from Daisy M and Charlotte G in 3rd.

The tristar 1 field was packed with talented ahletes and it was George B who headed out the run with a bunch of athletes about 5 secomds behind. Having finished 4th a couple of times, George had a look of determination on his face and this time there was no catching him on the bike. William put in a great bike to move up into 2nd an George R had a solid race to finish 3rd despite having been poorly for most of the week. Georgia came through on the bike in the girls race to take an unassailable lead with Jodie finishing 2nd after some technical issues on the bike. Annie took 3rd place and will still be in this age group next year.

The last race of the day was a combined Tristar 2 and 3 race, which meant that brothers Harry and Sam would go up against each other and see whether they could challenge Jack B who just seems to get faster and faster each time he races. As it turns out, the race was decided on the first run, with Jack taking a 20 second advantage that the others could match but not eat into during the bike and run. So Jack came through to win again and his sportmanship did not go unnoticed as he waited at the finish line to congratulate each competitor as they came into the finish, not moving until everyone was in – possibly the highlight of the day for me. Harry finished next and won the tristar 3 event with brother Sam just behind, taking 2nd in tristar 2. Josh P took 3rd in tristar 2 and then Sam W came in 2nd in tristar 3 (confused yet?). The last medallist of the day was Leanne who took the girls first place in the tristar 3 event.

Brilliant racing from all of the athletes and thank you to all of the marshalls, helpers and parents for braving the cold!

The next TriPurbeck event is the Sika Duathlon – details appear here:

Sika Duathlon details

See you next time, full results with splits appear below…