Hannah Drewett took the almighty win in the Olympic distance over two minutes ahead of second placed Cat Jameson and seven minutes ahead of third placed Emma Deary. Hannah stole was first out of the water, moved to second on the bike then stole the show on the run section. A glorious win!
And we have another win at the same race (and another win in a bit!) – Will Cowen took gold at the same race for the men! Will finished a full two and a half minutes ahead of second place – two wins in two consecutive weekends….I am reckoning the week training in Mallorca at Easter has done some good. Will finished in a cracking 2:04:26 – tremendous going Will!
Jack Hall popped an overall 5th in the same race finishing in 2:10:30 – great racing Jack! And welcome to Jackpot Racing with your first (great!) race!
And then! In the Super Sprint, Kathryn Dickinson came home with another win! WIN WIN WIN! Kathryn finished over a minute ahead of second place over the 400m swim, 22k bike and 4k run course. Just superb racing!
Happy – Will and Kathryn – a win and a win!
Still in Blighty – we will get to Ooh la la – Kieran Hill won the Cricklade Sprint Triathlon in a most impressive 55:16 with a 4:34 for the 400m swim, 29:50 for the 11 mile bike and 17:51 for the 5k run. Cracking racing at Cricklade Kieran 🙂
Over to la bella France and Chateauroux for the ETU Sprint Triathlon European Championships. Jess Learmonth was out in action again just two weeks after the ITU race in Leeds – racing tooth and nail against Lucy Hall, Jess finished in a brilliant second place, just one second behind Lucy in 57:49Â – proper racing! Heather Sellars placed 9th in a fast 59:10 (awesome run!) – the figures show just how close this competition is!
Jess Learmonth and Lucy Hall fighting it out tooth and nail!
In the men’s race, Aaron Harris finished in a colossal 13th position, 59 seconds behind the race leader in 52:58 and David Bishop in 18th position in 53:31 – ridiculously fast swims + bikes + runs. The type of swims and bikes and runs I dream of. Wonderful. And a massive well done from your counterparts here at Jackpot HQ.
P.S. Tom Linton-Neal won the Kielder Off Road Triathlon at the weekend and led from start to finish in the race! Distances were 1.5k swim – 20k bike and a 10k trail run. Tom finished 26 seconds ahead of second place – some keen racing there. Many congratulations Tom!
Saturday saw the Dambuster Triathlon (ITU Worlds 2016 qualifier) at Rutland Water and with an ALMIGHTY win from Will Cowen by SEVEN seconds – pure racing right to the end! Will clocked an 18:31 swim over the 1500mm distance, a swift 1:03:20 on the 42k bike and an impressive 34:41 on the run – total time 1:58:21. Absolutely tremendous going Will!
Will – hanging out at the beer tent!
Kathryn Dickinson was robbed of her race with a puncture coming out of T1 and called it a day after a long, slow bike – BUT Kathryn had the 4th fastest ladies swim time 🙂 – next race Lady Kathryn!
Tim Ashelford also popped a podium at Dambuster in his age category (is it rude if I say c. twice the age of Will?!) winning the Vet 50 category beautifully! Stats for Tim: 23:32 swim – 1:09:06 bike – 37:25 speedy run.
Not sure if Tim has drunk the wine and is being propped up here 🙂
Great racing!
Back in Yorkshire we have Craig (to)Boggon unleashing his speed at the Allerthorpe Sprint triathlon – Craig gives us details of the race as follows:
‘I was 4th today in a very competitive Allterthorpe Sprint tri! 1st position races for TFN and is going for the elite race in Liverpool and London! I was a second off him on the run! 17:09! My swim is usually the weakest! And with a mass start I didn’t do too badly! I was 9th out of the water! 11:36. In transition I made 3 more positions. Then out on the bike I made up 2 more! I could see the next two blokes in front of me on the straights! It was flat, fast and there was no wind! I had the 3rd fastest bike. (whoosh!). The run was much the same again! I made one more position before the turn around point! I could see 2nd and 3rd at certain points on the run! I pushed to have the second fastest run time at 17:09. I finished 4th overall! Coincidentally the top for were all 20-24! Hard race today! Very happy with my result and I know where I need to go for the Ripon and Liverpool!’
Best of luck with your next races Craig – tough competition at Allerthorpe – you came back with an excellent result!
Adam Bowden produced an awesome race on home soil at the Leeds World Triathlon Series event, coming home 7th overall, 3rd Brit and 1st Jackpoter in a fantastic time of 1:51:56, just 23 seconds off the podium. Here’s what it looked like from such a lofty position in Adam’s words…
“Swim – Wetsuit swim, which suits me, temperature was fine. I feel that I got off to a great start in the swim was around the first lap in the top 20’s then lost a few places on lap 2. It was a good long run up towards transition which helped the body to get ready for the first challenge, of straight up a sharp incline.
“Bike – I found the hill fairly comfortable keeping a nice fast cadence to keep the legs from feeling up to quickly. The 14k down to the city was fast and furious. Head down full gas. The field was being splintered by the fast pace that was being set at the front. Within 2-3 mins groups were forming which then turned into the chase pack. On reaching the city you could here that it was in Britain the crowds up and around transition were incredible, the noise was deafening but at the same time was a massive up lift.
“T2 – was a little messy, felt like people had forgot which side there bikes were on causing a crash to happen just as we had dismounted our bikes. Luckily I was able to miss it at rack my bike fast as I had a reasonably quick transition.
“Run – As soon as I got into my running my legs were feeling good, so I decided to push the pace on with Gomez alongside me for company. Within a about 2k me and Gomez had broken the group that headed out with us. My plan now was to keep the hammer down it was a course that took the bounce out of your legs, with some sharp little inclines which was suiting me well. Gomez continued with his fast pace which I was trying to hang onto but failed. The rest of the laps felt tough but I was only over taken by Pier lecore over the last 2 laps. I was certainly feeling the last lap but the crowds kept me strong, so much support for the British athletes. I crossed the line in 7th, it was a great feeling to be back up towards the front end of a WTS field.
“A big thanks to the British supporters. My Girlfriend and mum. All my sponsors. Zone 3, Lane 1, Asics, Jackpot, Beacon bikes and Polaris. You people make the pain of triathlon a lot easier.👌
Grab a pot of tea folks, get comfy, you are in for a good read….
The WTS finally arrived in Leeds over the past weekend (in case you had not noticed!) and what another fantastic show Yorkshire put on (1st one being the Tour de France!). The atmosphere on Sunday morning in the city centre was a happy electric. Conditions were a little humid, damp in places, slippy on the roads in some places. If the elites do not mind we will crack off with the age groupers first as they were out the blocks first. And if the men do not mind we shall start with the ladies first as always should be the case.
Chloe Scotchbrook and Claire Pickersgill wowed the crowds in their eye catching Jackpot kit over the standard distance course. Chloe had the 3rd fastest swim of the entire ladies field and Claire had the 5th fastest bike of the entire ladies race! Chloe finished as 7th lady overall and 2nd in her age group (20-24) – a triumph indeed! Claire finished as 20th lady and 5th in her age group (30-34) – we have since had a chat about her run…not sure what happened there but it was agreed it would not be repeated 😉 TREMENDOUS going ladies, absolutely tremendous.
Chloe clouting the run!
Onto the men and we had one Jackpot athlete in the sprint distance. Richard Knell-Moore clocked a 20th overall and bagged a 1st in his age group! This is just immense! But it did not stop there!
The standard race for the men saw more Jackpot athletes out to battle with yet more podiums in age groups:
Eddie Howarth, 17th overall and 1st in age group (40-44)
Colin Hill, 22nd overall and 1st in age group (45-49)
Tim Ashelford, 37th overall and 2nd in age group (50-54)
Paul Freeman, 155th overall and 24th in age group (45-49)
China Clarke, 180th overall and 31st in age group (35-39) (AWESOME run China!)
John Swallow, 1010th overall and 104th in age group
What a beautiful set of results is that. Many congratulations to you all 🙂
Tim speeding to a podium!The Royal wave from John!
Onto the elites! Jess Learmonth we love your style! 1st out of the water, 1st on the bike – by golly did you work hard on the bike! It made for fantastic watching (thank you!). Jess finished 10th overall – TOP TEN! Three and a half minutes behind Gwen Jorgensen – BRILLIANT!
Adam Bowden and Tom Bishop in the mens race (and what a race!) gave it their everything. The adrenaline was seeping through the television into people’s lounges – spectators including me are still buzzing now! Adam finished 7th overall just two minutes behind Alistair Brownlee with a run of 31 minutes (!!!!!!) and Tom 20th overall just 3 and a half minutes behind Alistair with a run just under 34 cracking minutes. You must be pleased with those performances boys – again, wonderful racing and wonderful watching.
Lastly, we have Matt Hallam back with another win at another duathlon (it’s about time Matt – you haven’t done a race for at least two weeks 😉 – in Matt’s own words:
‘On Sunday I completed my first middle-distance duathlon which is what I’ve been training for the past few months. The race, known as ‘The Little Pig’ is a shorter version of the Pig Ultra Duathlon organised by Brutal Events. The race consists of a 6 mile mountain run, 55 mile rolling bike route and a 10 mile hilly trail run.
The race began at 7am with what was meant to be a 6 mile run (3 miles up, 3 miles down) up to the summit of Cadair Idris and back to transition. However due to rain and thick cloud cover the run had to be shortened to about half a mile from the summit so ended up being about 5 miles in total. I got to the turnaround in first but knew I might struggle to stay in front on the descent. The rain made it very tricky descending on wet rocks with some very steep sections. One of which I lost control on and up running off course through some heather and somehow managed to avoid falling or hitting any big rocks. Just after this I had one minor fall but nothing serious. I got back to T1 in second place about 40 seconds behind the leader.
The bike route was mostly all on main roads but with it being so early there wasn’t much traffic. It was mostly rolling hills which suited me. For most of the first half there was a tail wind but I managed to regain the lead about 10 miles in. At this point the rain started to get heavier and it was really pretty grim, lots of surface water and poor visibility, also regretting not putting on an extra layer in transition. The last half of the bike was mostly into a headwind with more uphill, which was tough but probably helped me build up a bigger lead. Everything seemed to be going ok until about 5 miles from T2 when I got a front puncture. Decided to carry on in the hope I’d have enough time in hand to still be in with a chance of the win. Managed to crawl back to T2 riding on the rim of my front wheel, strongly not advised. I was still in the lead but had no idea by how much.
Started the second run and felt pretty good, still couldn’t see second place so I was confident I could hold on. However as soon as the run went off road I got a bit worried as there were no marshals at all and was relying on spotting arrows which was tricky in fog running through a mixture of fields and off-road paths. In the end I managed to hold on and actually extended my lead on the second run to just over 7 minutes.
Longest event I’ve ever done and by far the toughest.
Total time – 4:49:44, Run 1 – 51:15, T1 – 1:08, Bike – 2:38:00, T2 – 1:09, Run 2 – 1:18:11′
