AN overall victory to Nick North and a second placing for his club in the team standings gave Bathurst Wallabies Triathlon Club an excellent start to their Inter Club Triathlon Series title defence on Sunday.
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North won the race in a time of 51 minutes and 48 seconds. Orange’s Rory Thornhill (52:37) was second and Mudgee’s Matt Webster (52:45) was third.
The race was held in a grand prix format which changed up the legs. The race was a 2.5 kilometre run, a double batch of 200m swims and 9km rides followed by another 2.5km run to finish.
Lauren Kerwick won the women’s race in 57:54 to lead home an all-Orange top five. Jenn Arnold, competing in her first triathlon, was the best of the Bathurst entrants.
Bathurst’s Mark Windsor (54:59, fifth overall) and Stephen Jackson (59:51) were winners of their respective age groups.
Following the opening round’s racing Orange lead the way with five points and Bathurst hold second spot with four points under this season’s revised scoring system for the Inter Club Series.
Hosts Cowra came away with three points, Mudgee with two and Dubbo one.
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North was pleasantly surprised with how well his race panned out considering his limited training schedule.
“I haven’t been doing too much specific training through this season. I just want to compete in the local and inter club series’ this year,” he said.
“To be honest I was very nervous going over to Cowra. I thought I was going to be getting smashed going up against both the younger and older guys who had just competed at the world champs.”
North had to pace himself cautiously over the opening run leg and bide his time for his preferred swim and bike legs.
He caught Webster on the first swim leg then went by Thornhill on two wheels.
From there North held his lead by he was fortunate the closing run didn’t drag on for much longer.
“Coming into the last lap on the bike I would have had nearly a minute and a half on them and I thought that would be enough to get me to the finish,” North said.
“Rory’s such a phenomenal young athlete though and I knew he could run quick. I started my first lap on the run thinking ‘I’ve got this’ but then realised on the second lap he was starting to mow me down.
“One more lap and he might have caught me because I was fading big time.”
In this year’s Inter Club Series the top five finishers in the race receive bonus points for their clubs.
Each age group’s top three finishes receive points and five members from each club, in each age group, receive participation points.
From that a total is calculated, leading to the 5-4-3-2-1 points split.
While it was great for Bathurst to make a strong start in the series North said it was even better to see such large participation numbers.
“It’s unbelievable. We’ve got such a strong group together here now. The club have done well this season with the Women4Tri program and it’s going from strength to strength.
“It’s great to see so many people out there smiling and having fun. It was a big turnout.
“It’s wonderful to see everyone out there supporting each other and helping out the other clubs.”