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We had an excellent club turn out to the beautiful grounds of Bowood House for an open water triathlon. The setting was beautiful but all our athletes were faced with a gruelling uphill run out of the swim into transition! The cycle course was a fast, flat circuit but the run was more challenging with plenty of uphills.

The morning started with 9 year olds Elsie and Emily completing a 200m swim, 3km cycle and 1.5 km run in the Tristar 1 event. We are so proud of their efforts for getting their heads in the water in the lake swim, giving their everything to run up the hill in their wetsuits and carrying on to complete a great bike leg and fabulous finishes on the run.

Next off were Katie, Bella and Jasper in the Tristar 2 event for 11-12 year olds (300m swim, 6km cycle and 1.8km run). All of them posted some great individual times and the photos show just how much effort they put into their race. We can’t wait to see how these athletes progress.

15 and 16 year old Ben and Billy took on other youths, juniors and adults in the super sprint race (400m swim, 12km cycle and 2.5km run). Ben came out of his swim wave with not another competitor in sight for quite some time! They both showed what they were capable of on the bike and run and ended up with a fabulous 4th and 6th place in the youth category.

Finally it was the turn of the sprint triathlon which saw Gethin, Thomas, Lottie-Rose, Millie, Jason and Ali take part in a 750m swim, 21km cycle and 5km run. Having to complete 2 laps of that hilly run was an achievement in itself but which most of our athletes took in their stride. Gethin placed 7th youth (and was a fabulous 38th male out of 250 at just 15 years old!). Thomas finished brilliantly as 2nd placed junior. Whilst Millie and Lottie came an incredible 1st and 2nd juniors. Jason posted some great splits but ultimately was beaten by his 16 year old daughter Lottie! Ali was pleased to actually finish but ended up with a pleasing 9th place in the 45-49 age group.

What an amazing set of results but also what amazing camaraderie we saw from our club members and parents. The cheering and encouragement for every one of our triathletes round the course was what made the event so special.

Wightlink Wightmountain Time Trial sees a continued enthusiasm from the Isle of Wight Triathlon club again.

This time six of our amazing young triathletes (James, Millie, Lottie-Rose, Kaitlin, Billy and Gethin) entered the Wightlink Wightmountain Time Trial Series at Colemans on the evening of Thursday 24th June.

Dry conditions with a noticeable sidewind spurred these youngsters on, resulting in more trophies for them on an enjoyable undulating course. Well done to all our club members and our thanks as always to Wightlink Wightmountain for putting on these local events.

The Isle of Wight Triathlon Club held a club aquathlon this week coinciding with The Royal Life Saving Society Drowing Prevention week to try and help raise awareness of the dangers of the sea.

23 members of the club, in ages from 8-18yrs varying in their swimming abilities enjoyed their first 2021 club aquathlon in Totland Bay on Wednesday evening. They swum distances from 100m to 600m then ran distances of 1km to 3km. All did amazing well, including three new younger members who had never done an open water competitive swim before. After watching the more experienced stronger swimmers no one hesitated jumping in and giving it a go…..

One thing they never enter the sea without, is a tow float – these are the most unobtrusive pieces of swim kit no open water swimmer should ever go without, regardless of their abilities or the conditions. The swimmers do not feel them nor do they interfere with their swimming, but they are a life saving piece of kit for many reasons -wearing a brightly coloured tow float makes swimmers easier to locate and increased the chances of being found quickly, helping swimmers mitigate the risk of hypothermia, as we all know, conditions can change rapidly. They also help increase confidence, which is great for inexperienced or younger open water swimmers as they can hold onto the tow floats whilst help is coming. If by doing this the club has saved just one life, we have done a great job.

Wightlink Wightmountain Time Trial gets the IOW triathletes out racing again….

Five of our amazing young triathletes (Millie, Lottie-Rose, Kaitlin, Billy and Gethin) decided to join the cyclists and enter the Wightlink Wightmountain Time Trial Series on Sunday 18 April 2021.

Great conditions for an extremely hilly 20km course over the West Wight didn’t deter these youngsters, who all finished safely with some extremely respectable times, gaining a few trophies amongst them. This gave them really good experience racing alongside the Island’s cycling teams and they are looking forward to the next one in May. Great racing experience ahead of the triathlon season.

3 members of the Isle of Wight triathlon club travelled up to Buckinghamshire to race at the Dorney Lake triathlon. Ben & Lottie-Rose Van der Helstraete along with Millie Williams were all competing in the sprint distance event which consisted of a 750m lake swim, a 20k bike finishing off with a 5 kilometre run.

First up were the two girls with the added pressure that they were both trying to qualify for a place to represent team GB as an age group athlete in the 2022 sprint distance world championship, meaning they had to finish in the top 4 spots in their respective age groups. Both girls swam well with Lottie exiting the water in a swift 12:16 followed by Millie in 13:45, onto their bikes they jumped with both cycling hard and fast averaging over 20MPH for the 20k bike course, into T2 they flew and straight out for the last & fast 5k run both pushing hard having already been racing for nearly an hour but not knowing where they stood in the race for the qualification spots because of the staggered start meant there was no time to let up. Both ran incredibly well with fantastic finish times of 1:16:29 for 18yr old Millie and 1:16:59 for 16 yr old Lottie. Both girls performed amazingly well and gave it everything they had and were rewarded with automatic qualification to represent Team GB as AG athletes at the 2022 World champs.

Next up was Ben. Two days after his 15th birthday Ben competing in his first sprint triathlon was in and out of the swim in a flash with an impressive time of 11:56 which was the 8th fastest swim overall out of the whole field, out onto the bike course and Ben backed up his fast swim with an impressive bike coming into T2 with an avg bike speed of over 30KPH, a really solid run brought ben across the line in 1:22:48 finishing a fantastic 3rd U20 on the day.

Brilliant racing all round.

The Isle of Wight Triathlon Club finally returned to mainland competition with four of their youngest members travelling to the  on Bank Holiday Monday.  All of them took part in a 100m swim, 2km cycle and 1km run.  In the 10/11 age category Katie Bunn came 2nd female and Jasper Jenkinson 5th male.  Emily Bunn came 1st female in the 8/9 category with Elsie Jenkinson 7th.  All four of them really enjoyed the experience. Their coaches said “These were fabulous results after such a long time without competition and having only recently returned to training.  We are very proud of their efforts”. The club are looking forward to more competition this month at Eastbourne Aquathlon and Hever Castle Triathlon.

Still lacking triathlon competition, 8 members of the club eligible to cycle in the local Island time trials watched the ominous stormy clouds whilst heading out to Wellow for another evening of TT fun… Great camaraderie as always between the 14-17yr olds with some impressive performances by all, despite many being on road bikes.

After supporting these youngsters from the side of the road last time, Coach Mark Jenkinson couldn’t resist and joined them and two of their other coaches, Simon Pilcher and Darren Cole, on the course!

Great fun and extremely good training for future triathlon competitions.

After months of lock down and insular training, some members of the IOW Triathlon Club decided to see what TT racing was all about.  Boldly led by two of the coaches, Darren Cole and Simon Pilcher the 14-18 year olds all cycled well against more seasoned cyclists on a TT held on the Isle of Wight, recording times under 30minutes for the 10mile time trial – shows what this lot spent lockdown doing!