Australian Youth Championships

It is safe to say that the Australian triathlon community is buzzing with action this weekend with two of the biggest races of the year taking place on the same weekend, being the Mooloolaba Triathlon Festival and the Melbourne Ironman.  The Mooloolaba Triathlon Festival has particular significance for many of the DAT Racing athletes as they continue to chase points to go towards World Championship selection.

However, for many of our junior athletes the weekend of racing commenced on the Thursday morning just around the corner from Mooloolaba at Twin Waters for the Australian Youth Championships.  For many of them the race came at perfect timing being just two short weeks before they jetset across the country to compete in the national schools championships.  For Angus Gibson, Holly Grice and Anna Coldham it was the conclusion of a heavy racing schedule after competing in the national junior elite series on the Gold Coast, Canberra and Devonport.  Not one to shy away from a challenge, Angus is also backing up from racing Thursday and Friday to compete on Sunday as well.  Unfortunately the weather was less than ideal for the individual races on Thursday and the teams races on the Friday and my time spent in the miserable conditions was limited to only the senior individual races and I have had to rely on the fast travelling word of mouth to recount the happenings of both the intermediate and junior races.

Our junior boys got the day off to a great start with new recruit, Harry Sweeney taking out the boys race and Nick Free putting the disappointment of his crash at school states behind him to show us all what he is capable of and rounding out the podium in third position.

In the intermediate race we were well represented in the girls race with the current Queensland Schools champion and defending Australian Schools champion, Brittany Dutton, with her list of accomplishments growing with almost every race she competes in.  Hot on her heels as always was Sophie Malowecki and on the boys side we had Wyatt Westmoreland and Lawerence Garufi.  For all four of these athletes it was to be their first draft-legal triathlon and from all reports they handled themselves with the professionalisms you would expect and can all be very proud of their achievements.  In the womens race, Britt finished in second place and Sophie rounded out the podium in third position.  In the boys race, both Wyatt and Lawerence finished with very solid races and after the slight mishap of over-shooting one of the bike turns before realizing his mistake, Wyatt fought back to have a really strong run.  However, the more impressive result came from the teams race on the Friday where these four athletes teamed up to take out line honors in an impressive display!

After leading out of the water in both Canberra and Devonport, we wouldn’t have expected anything else but to see Angus emerging from the Twin Waters lake in the lead and after having one of the quickest transitions got himself in a two-man breakaway.  Both boys rode superbly throughout the 20km and opened up a lead on the rest of the field as they began the 5km run.  In what many have described as his most impressive race of not only the season but in recent years, Angus an absolute boss of a triathlete held strong on the run to finish in third position.  In the womens race, Holly was narrowly off the lead two girls out of the water but rode with her normal aggression to catch them with ease after one lap and continue to push the pace with little assistance from either of these girls for the remainder of the bike to open up a significant gap on the chase pack that contained Anna.  Onto the run, Holly ran a great race to easily maintain her advantage on the chasing pack but just missed out on the top step of the podium to claim a very impressive silver medal with Anna outrunning much of the chase pack to finish in sixth position.

With many of these juniors taking on the role of spectators up at Mooloolaba for the weekends festival, it is up to those of us racing in either the age-group race or the ITU Continental Cup to put on an impressive show for them to witness.

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