Author: Dan

We had several members travel over to Hamble Sports Centre for the Chapel Aquathlon, another South Central Series event. And for once it was an afternoon start so we didn’t need to get a ridiculously early ferry! Well done to Benjamin, Martin, Katie, Alex, Phoebe, Jasper, Elsie and Freddie. Elsie came away with 2nd place girl in Tristar 1 and the support all of our members showed for each other was fantastic.

Lottie-Rose and Benjamin took part in this competitive event at Dorney Lake. Lottie achieved a nearly 3 minute PB on the course from the previous year and Ben a whopping 7 minute PB! Amazingly, both of them have qualified to represent GB Under 20 age group in the European Sprint Triathlon Championships in 2023. Congratulations to them both!

The second event in the South Central series saw Martin, Katie, Jasper, Elsie and Emily travelling to Wiltshire for the Oldbury White Horse Children’s Triathlon. This was a pool swim with a cycle and run on grass. Each of them showed some brilliant skills and once again Emily came away with 2nd place girl in Tristar 1.

This was the first event in the British Triathlon South Central Series for Katie, Jasper, Elsie and Emily. Great efforts from all of them in a run, bike, run . Emily was on the podium with a 2nd place in Tristar 1 girls.

April 21st saw the first Wightlink Wightmountain time trial of 2022. A beautiful evening saw Kaitlin, Lottie-Rose, Henry, James, Dan and coaches Simon and Darren compete with other cyclists over the Ningwood 10mile course. Great times and PBs for most of these triathletes made for a good club evening out. Looking forward to the next one in May already.

The Isle Of Wight Triathlon Club entered two teams in Wightlink-Wightmountain charity team time trial event over the hilly terrain of the West Wight.

Tactical riding by “Tom’s Train” consisting of Thomas, Henry and Lottie bought Lottie-Rose home as 1st lady and won a team prize. “Tri Hards” gave the youngsters a ride to aspire to on a brilliant race. A fabulous Sunday morning out raising money for Mountbatten Hospice, Isle of Wight.

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.