Adam Bowden took to the stage in Cape Town at the weekend in the sprint distance race, finishing 16th overall but just 54 seconds behind the winner Fernando Alarza (puts things into perspective doesn’t it – just how fast!) in 55 minutes 6 seconds. Adam put in a 14:53 for the 5k run and was 9th fastest on the run! Ridiculously fast! Wonderful racing! Safe trip home Adam 🙂
Back in Yorkshire and Jackpot maintained their title at the City of York Relay yesterday over the sprint distance putting in a full 6 minutes on next team! Tom Linton-Neal put in a supersonic swim with broken toe (5:35), Dave Morley steamed away on the bike leg (33:27) and China Clarke on the run (20:06 – including an additional 400m after missing the finish line – unofficial time 18:29) – they were 1st in each of the disciplines.
Top dollar racing at York!
Then…guess who…yes, Matt Hallam was racing again! At the Stockton Duathlon over the standard distance. Matt popped an ultra speedy 6th overall and bronze in his age category. Competition was high at Stockton – Matt ran a 35 minute 10k, biked a 59 minute 40k and ran a final 5k in 17 minutes. Absolutely tremendous racing Matt – quite a season you are having already!
An exciting weekend was had over in Germany on Saturday for the ETU Duathlon Championships in Kalkar where two of our Jackpotters had qualified to represent GB both in the standard distance race.
Craig (to)Boggon was first off in the afternoon in the 20-24 age category so narrowly missing a podium…by 8 seconds! But what a phenomenal race – Craig cracked the 2 hour barrier, cruising in in an overall time of 1:59:26. Craig was 3rd Brit home which means he qualifies automatically for next year’s ETU Champs. Cracking race Craig!
Craig – ETU Duathlon Champs
Then the weather turned – just for the ladies – the heavens opened. Claire Pickersgill, racing on a dicey calf, put in a storming performance andsuch a strong bike (can’t wait for the relays!) and punched home as 3rd Brit and 9th in her age group – again, Claire qualifies for the Champs next year.
Top racing both – safe trips home.
Matt Hallam who is making a sterling habit of racing every weekend popped down to Ludlow for the ‘Storm the Castle Duathlon’, sold on the website as follows:
‘Storm The Castle – the UK’s toughest duathlon – will be back in Ludlow on 17th April 2016.
We will be racing over the same course which means the opportunity to test yourself on some of the most stunning terrain that Shropshire has to offer and finish your race in the grounds of Ludlow Castle. Set in the picturesque market town of Ludlow and the stunning surrounding countryside of Shropshire & Herefordshire, it offers a genuine challenge to athletes of all abilities. Both the run and bike course are tough with sections of rolling hills mixed in with some seriously steep sections, making it arguably the UK’s toughest duathlon.’
Matt Hallam racing to podium again!
Matt finished 3rd overall, a whole 3 minutes ahead of 4th position over the 10k – 33k – 5k course!
Missed by me last week (so sorry Matt!), Matt also raced at the Dales Duathlon … and WON! Is there no end to this man’s talents?! I am getting a repetitive strain injury from writing up all your wins and podiums! The race as was a 5k road run, 20k undulating bike and then a 5k hilly trail run over near hull in the Brantingham Dales. Matt killed off the field and was 3 minutes ahead (habit forming!) of second place. Tremendous!
…for the viewer’s as well, as people tuned in at going home time for night clubbers to watch the ITU Gold Coast Race early hours Saturday morning. Tom put in a superb bid for that last spot for the Rio Olympics with a cracking swim just behind Alistair Brownlee…and then…the FASTEST bike of the race…what a move by Tom! He blitzed the field! It made for incredible watching. Hearts were racing and stomachs were twisting watching this breakaway. Hats off to you Tom. It was a momentous moment in that race.
Tom finished 42nd overall and 3rd Brit home. Viewers could see the heat taking it’s toll on athletes including Jonny Brownlee at the end of the run. Tremendous Tom, just tremendous!
Tom – leaving T2 after Benjamin Shaw after a historical bike!
And now to a slightly cooler Halesowen for the sprint triathlon where Chloe Scotchbrook flew the Jackpot flag stealing 5th position and 2nd in age group! Chloe put in the fastest ladies swim of the day by far (how fast?!!!). A great start to the season for Chloe 🙂
Jess Learmonth’s first race this season resulted in an outright win for her at the 2016 Quarteira ETU Triathlon European Cup on Saturday in Portugal. Putting in nearly a full minute on Britain’s Lucy Hall, Jess put in the 2nd fastest swim, THE fastest bike and the 8th fastest run of the race and was deservedly crowned champion. Jackpot team mate Hannah Drewett also had a storming race finishing 12th overall and counting as 4th Brit home – didn’t the girls do well!! Katie Synge was robbed of her race and had been going well until a puncture on the bike section on the 4th of 6 laps. Absolutely fantastic racing ladies – enjoy the sunshine over there – pop the bubbly!
In the men’s race Christopher Perham bolted around the course finishing 20th and just 2.5 minutes behind the leader in a time of 1:52:14 over the standard distance course. Tremendous!
Still in sunny climes, Tom Linton-Neal with broken toe headed to the Xterra race in Malta and STILL podiumed with the toe! Tom had a super swim and bike – the run not as quick as it usually is but Tom still won bronze in his age group (20-24).
Tom – racing on a broken toe!
Let’s head back to Blighty and the Windsor Duathlon where David Bishop raced in the elite race and Ian Gilham in the age group. David finished 15th overall just over a minute behind the race leader Richard Horton over the sprint distance course in an unthinkable time of 55:57 – a cracking time and exciting race!
Ian tells the tale of the Windsor Duathlon for him in his own words 🙂 :
“Great course, all off road, in the Queen’s back garden. Car parking on the Queen’s lawn was nightmare – pretty much everyone’s car got stuck the minute we drove onto the grass – chaos got worse and worse as we got closer to race time with traffic queued up for miles and tractors having to pull cars INTO the car park and athletes sprinting half a mile with their bikes and bags as they were told we’d be starting on time. Ten minutes before the race briefing the start was delayed half an hour which caused mayhem as most athletes had taken pre-race gels and carbs before the delay was announced. We were also told that, as we were delayed, we’d still be on the bike course when the Queen would be going to church in which case we’d have to stop on our bikes to let the her and her mates through!…. and this was the National Champs and race organised by BTF themselves – you couldn’t make it up!! Sure enough I was stopped on my bike to let the Queen through – we were supposed to get some time back but nothing so far…
Despite that I had a good race. Run 1 was partly off road with the bike on a very technical narrow park path which got very crowded following a mass start with everyone on a 4 lap 10k circuit at the same time – quite a few crashes but managed to avoid the worst, stayed upright and even did all the laps this time!. By the time we got to T2 the grass transition area was a sea of mud looking like the end of Glastonbury with folks sliding everywhere. One guy completely lost a run shoe in the deepening mud – oh how we laughed as we ran past!
Somehow got out of there and round in one piece with a time of 2.27, 10th in my age group and automatically qualifying for the world champs in Spain in June. Job done – next stop Japan for the Yokohama triathlon in May – better start swimming….”
Ian’s bike – how wrong is it to see this on a P2?
Finally we have Craig Boggon out again now that he has acclimatised back to the UK climate after his year in Australasia 🙂 Craig finished 3rd overall at the Newent Duathlon (5k-18k-5k) just over a minute behind the race leader and 1st in age group. Craig had the second fastest second run of the day.
