Raby Bay Triathlon

What a day of sport it's been, we saw Pete Jacobs and Leanda Cave take out the Kona Ironman World Championship Titles in impressive fashion, the grueling Cooloongatta Gold and of course; race 1 of the Gatorade Queensland Triathlon Series was held at Raby Bay. 

 

 

After last years mishap en route to Raby Bay I'm pleased to be able to start this blog on a much more positive note and say that I made it to the event in one piece! The lead up wasn't without issues and I had a minor wheel incident on Saturday night when both of my race wheels refused to pump up so I was frantically driving around sourcing a spare set. Special thanks to Ryan Fisher for the lend who gave this event a miss but will be lining up next weekend in the U23 event in Auckland.

 

This race always attracts a stacked field being just two weeks out from the Noosa Triathlon and with the Auckland World Championship event being next weekend there were also a number of athletes looking to get one final hit out under their belts before flying out for the big one. I do have to thank Chris from Nike for helping me out with my entry and getting my name amongst this stellar field to hit the chilly waters of Raby Bay for the supersprint 400/15/4 event.

 

 

DAT Racing was well represented in the open fields with myself and Luke Farrell in the men's race and Holly Grice, Maddi Allen, Jodie Duff and Britt Dutton in the women's race. Several top athletes joined us including Sam Betten, Joey Lampe, Taylor Cecil, Bryce Mcmaster and Tim Berkel on then men's side and Ellie Salthouse and Kirra Seidel on the women's side of things.

 

There was little that was going to separate the field over the 400m swim and coming out of the water both the men's and women's fields were closely packed together. However the lengthy run through transition did spread everyone out somewhat and as we mounted the bike I found myself within the first handful of athletes. The pace was on from the beginning of the bike but I knew having positioned myself well out of the water and the times I've produced in training I was ready to handle it. 

 

The front group split up early on the opening lap and pleasingly I was able to bridge the gap up to Joey Lampe and Sam Betten while leaving the remainder of the group to battle it out behind us and we were able to continue to build on our gap to the field until we dismounted the bike and had established a lead of about 30 seconds and also record myself the fastest bike split for the day :). 

 

Having the quickest transition out of the three of us I hit the run course first but after approximately 1km I was passed by a very quick moving Joey Lampe who continued on to take the win while I finished in second place, just eight seconds behind in a result that I will take a lot of confidence from heading into Noosa and Shepparton in the coming weeks. Fellow DAT athlete, Luke finished in 9th position. 

 

On the women's side of things Holly matched my fastest bike split with the women's fastest bike split but was narrowly out sprinted for the victory by a mere one second to also finish in second position for the day behind Kirra Seidel. Birthday girl, Britt had a stellar performance to not only finish just off the podium in 4th position but was also ahead of one of Australia's ITU junior elite representatives! Jodie Duff was in 9th position and Maddi Allen was in 11th position. We also had a couple of our junior boys doing battle in their age groups and coming away with an impressive 2nd place was Lawrence and in 3rd place was 'hazardous' Harry.

 

 

The impressive results didn't end there as we had another group of athletes flying the DAT flag at the Bribie Island Triathlon with Tom Ryan finishing in 4th place in a feel good race and Jake Freeman in 6th in the open men's race and Sophie Maloweicki taking the win in the open women's race. Sharyn Madders slipped under the radar to not only have a win in her age group but was also the fastest female for the day.  Not to be outdone again by his wife and after a quick child minding tag-team effort Craig Madders also knocked up a win in his age group and a top 10 overall in the short course event.  Wyatt Westmoreland also took his age group win and Rob Murdoch snared a podium finish in his age group.

 

 

With the ITU Auckland World Championships being held next weekend all of the DAT representatives were in hiding for this weekend of racing but if these results are anything to go by they are sure to feature in next weeks proceedings and be at the pointy end of their races.

 

#eatclean #traindirty #racefilthy

#justbackyourself

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