Following on from Saturday’s action at Dorney Lake, the Eton SuperSprint Sunday featured more great racing, fierce competition and excellent performances right across the board. The strong wind turned a traditionally fast course into a leg sapping challenge and gave the swim leg an added dimension with plenty of chop evident on the water.
The day actually started early with a somewhat younger age group than usual due to the first round in the Human Race Scootathlon Series – a scoot, bike, run event designed to introduce four to eight year-olds to the world of multisport. Lining up their scooters at 9.30am were over 100 youngsters who tackled the three-loop course with determination, effort and lots of smiles! The next Scootathlon race in the three event series takes place in exactly one week’s time on Sunday the 22nd May as part of the Tri Challenge at Dorney Lake.
In the women’s race, Leah Walland posted a 01:05:58 to take the win from the 25-29 age group. She was pushed all the way by Charlotte Sinclair whose 01:08:31 shows great promise from a Youth athlete mixing it with the adult competitors. Marianne Clark (Esporta Brighton) took a podium place for the south coast club with a 01:09:19 more than good enough for third place.
For the men, Peter Slijkhuis (Science in Sport) used the only sub-30 minutes bike leg of the day to catapult him to victory in an overall time of 00:54:42 with David Hill coming home second in 00:57:07. The battle for third place saw Julian Fairley (B2P Triathlon Club) use a 00:58:23 to just edge out clubmate Ian Panting by less than 20 seconds. Special mention goes to Charlie White (Southampton Tri), a Junior athlete who recorded a very competitive 01:01:47 from the Male U30 wave for 13th place overall.
The Eton SuperSprint weekend isn’t just about the speed demons though as the day saw many participants successfully complete their first triathlon. In fact, Barbara Stockholm was one happy finisher looking forward to going back to the office tomorrow. “Everyone in work has noticed I’ve been training lots in my lunchtimes and its going to be great to be able to say ‘it’s because I’m a triathlete’ as I didn’t feel I could until I’d completed one!”
The end of Sunday’s action in fact marks just the halfway stage of a packed four days racing for Human Race at Dorney Lake. Next weekend sees the Dorney SuperSprint on Saturday 21st and the Dorney Tri Challenge incorporating the Beijing Qualifier on Sunday 22nd capping four days of fast and furious sprint distance racing to open the 2011 season with a bang.
