Reports

Race One of the Forsyth’s 2012-13 Triathlon was held in Armidale on Sunday the 14th October 2012.

It was a great day for the club with 92 people ranging in age from 5 to 70 having a crack at a triathlon. The day was boosted by the participation of some very promising triathletes from NIAS racing. Credit goes to John Hickey and his team for supporting the event.

The Long course was a well fought out race in the mens. The foursome of Anthony Heeney from Tamworth, Pat McMillan & Mike Hoult from Armidale and sixteen year old Callum Dolby from Inverell being neck and neck at the 10km of the bike leg. Eventually, Heeney proved to be too strong in the run and ran away with the race with a sizzling time of 55.04.

The fifteen year old daughter of Heeney – Sophie won the women’s race followed by Zoe Radford, a fifteen year old all the way from Rowena and local Emma Garraway.

The “Three shades of grey” team won the long course teams event followed by the Barbarians team with the “Two Hundred Team” of Bob Murison, Phil Bookallil & Malcolm Ross coming in third. The name “Two Hundred” is the combined total of their ages which really is a credit to the older generation.

In the short course, Scott Campbell, a NIAS coach from Tamworth stole the show with a 33.38 with local youngsters Ben Sullivan & Matt Haydon making up the placings.

The Ladies short course event was taken out by Freya Weston followed by Jacqui Buntine who had her first triathlon for some time and Karlee McMillan.

It was really encouraging to see so many kids go in the Juniors race and the Kids race.

Kieran blitzed the Juniors Course of a 100m swim, 6km ride and 1km run in less than twenty minutes. Down the placings, there was a great race to the end between the Mighty Chicks team, Jackson Gwynne, Samuel King & Tom Lasshlie who all finished within ten seconds of each other.

There was nineteen kids who took part in the kids race which consists of one lap of the TAS pool, a 400m ride and 400m run.

One of the most pleasing things from the day was the number of people who either raced for the first time or stepped up to a longer race. This improvement is great and is what the club is trying to achieve.

We look forward to seeing a big roll out for race 2 of the Forsyth’s series on Sunday November 4th which will be run in conjunction with the hugely popular Hutchison & Harlow School’s Challenge.