HE is still recovering from shoulder surgery, but the competitive nature of Mark Windsor was the same as always in Sunday's round of the Central West Inter Club Triathlon Series in Bathurst.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
While Windsor tackled the short course event - a 2.5 kilometre run, 200 metres swim, 16km cycle - all male competitors began the race in the same wave.
It meant he was able to test himself against Orange's Tim Guy before the noted cyclist went on to cover the additional 200m swim and 2.5km of the inter club long course.
Guy went on to place seventh in his event, while Windsor won the short course in commanding fashion. He stopped the clock at 37:44, while second went to Tom Press (49:11) and third Miller Rivett (50:57).
"I was worried that I'd lost a lot of speed, but today I felt okay. It was nice to race with Tim to get a bit of fire going. I thought he'd be doing the short too. I can catch him in the swim, but he's too quick in the bike for me," Windsor said.
"It's nice because I'm his coach, but we can still have a good muck around battle."
READ MORE: Bilton is seeking a triathlon world ranking
As Windsor worked his way to victory in was in an Australian skin suit. It was one he was intending to wear at last year's ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Switzerland before he damaged his shoulder and was ruled out.
Still, Windsor felt Sunday's race was a fitting occasion to crack it out.
"I've actually never worn this suit before, this was for Lausanne, it was my Australian kit for there. So it was nice to come out and put it out for Australia Day, I pulled it out of the packet this morning," he said.
"This is a great day, I think a triathlon to start Australia Day, it's a perfect way to do it. You can see it's really developed into that, you can see it by having a lot of Orange people come down."
The women's short course race was won by Bathurst's Melissa Rajkovic (50:52) ahead of Halle Potter (51:28) and Claire Wessell (52:20).
