A big Bathurst contingent will head to Huskisson on the South Coast next weekend to compete in one of the premier long course events in Australia, the Jervis Bay Triathlon and Multisport Festival.
The Bathurst Tri Club line-up will join thousands taking part over the two days.
Young athletes Brooke Tuynman and Andrew Knox will join more experienced competitors Keith Tuynman, Mick Stapley, Graham Wheeler, Tom Wilding and Darren Fenton in the grueling contest.
“These are the long course championships. We will have Brooke and Andrew competing in the mini ironman, which is known as a mini-man, Tom is doing the short course race on Saturday and the rest of the guys are in the long course on Sunday,” Bathurst Tri Club secretary Karen Tuynman said.
Tuynman herself will also be heavily involved. She will be busy working for Elite Energy, the company that is responsible for running the Huskisson event as well as countless others around the state.
The company was established by experienced Ironman competitor Mark Emerton and they are also looking into the possibility of running an event in Bathurst in the future.
Tuynman said the experience she was getting there was proving to be very useful in her role as secretary of the Bathurst Tri Club. “I will be down there on the weekend working and it is a major event,” Tuynman said. “Over the two days we will have 4000 competitors so we are really hoping that the weather is favourable.”
“While some of the Bathurst competitors will be racing at Huskisson for the first time, others know exactly what to expect.
“My husband Keith did the race last year and he was keen to go back while Josh and Mick Stapley are doing it for the first time.
“My daughter Brooke finished third last year and Andrew wasn’t far behind her so he would have been in the top 10 as well.
“Elite Energy have events everywhere but this is the biggest one and it is always well supported by the Bathurst group.
“A few more of the guys from here would normally go down but they are getting ready for other events like Ironman New Zealand.”
The seniors competing in the long course event will have to get through a two-kilometre ocean swim, 83-kilometre ride and finish with a 20-kilometre run.
“It’s a fairly undulating course. The swim is pretty hard because it is an ocean swim and the competitors start in waves,” Tuynman said.
“Once they finish that they have to run up the stairs on the cliff wall to get to the transition area for the ride and once they complete the ride they come back for a hard run.
“It’s a challenging event.”
Several other Bathurst triathletes, including Richard Hobson, Terry Roberts and Ryan Sargent, are busy preparing for the New Zealand Ironman that takes place at Taupo early next month.
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