The Cobar Athletics & Triathlon Squad’s (CATS) monthly triathlon events are gaining in popularity with a record number of 33 competitors lining up on Sunday morning for the January event at the Cobar Memorial Swimming Pool.
Club president Zoë Harland said they were very pleased with the big turn out on Sunday which included six new registrations along with a number of competitors from Bourke.
“We also had our biggest field this season competing in the long course with six competitors,” Harland said.
Despite facing a strong headwind on the bike leg, entrants in the long course (500m swim/20km ride/4km run) dominated on Sunday and claimed the top three places in the handicap competition.
Alistair Travis (1st) finished in one hour, 14 minutes and 31 seconds shaving more than four minutes off his old time of 1.18.45.
Pip O’Donnell was almost three minutes quicker than her previous best time to record an overall time of 1.19.53 and claim second place while her husband Andy O’Donnell finished two minutes quicker than his previous best time to set a new PB of 1.09.18 and place third.
There was plenty of competition in the short course event (300m swim/10km ride/2km run) with 14 individual competitors and five teams taking part.
Aaron Davey, with a new PB of 40.41 (46 seconds quicker than his last effort) was the individual handicap short course winner with Steph Baker recording a time of 40.55 (30 seconds better than her previous best time) finishing in second place.
Improving her time by almost 10 seconds, Kristin Camery recorded an overall time of 48.25 to finish in third place in the short course handicap division.
In the short course teams event BKB (Kristie Beehan teamed up with Bryce Robinson from Bourke) were the handicap winners improving by a minute and a half on their nominated time to finish in 45:21 with RN’s (Lisa Travis and Regena Nassar) narrowly second (40:36) and Team Pool (Dave McEwan with two new members Jair Apaza and Chris McEwan) placed 3rd with an overall time of 39:19.
Despite taking a nasty fall from her bike in the ride leg, Alex Eves pushed through the pain barrier to set a new female long course record.
Alex beat Steph Baker’s previous record time (set in January 2012) by 20 seconds and finished with an outstanding overall time of 1.18.40.
Sisters-in-law Steph and Georgia Baker, both competing on Sunday in the individual short course division, finished with the same overall time (40.55).
Georgia bettered Steph in the swim (4.29 compared to Steph’s time of 5.50) and also ride (23.34 compared to 24.23) while Steph put in a great run leg (10.42 compared to Georgia’s time of 12.52) to catch Georgia at the finish.
In other CATS club news five members recently competed at a triathlon event in Bourke organised by the newly formed Bourke Amateur Triathlon Squad (BATS) Club.
Steph Baker, Georgia Baker, Bianka Jacobson and Zoë Harland all competed in the short course (300m swim/10km ride/4km run) with Georgia finishing as the winner of the women’s individual class in a good time of 40min 37sec.
Another Cobar member Jonathan Simpson won the men’s individual long course (500m swim/20km ride/4km run) in a quick time of 1.10.48.
The club’s next event is on Australia Day and will be a scratch event (not handicapped).
Prizes for individual male and female and teams winners will be awarded.
See Australia Day advertisement on Page 7 of this edition for details.
