The first triathlon on the Cobar Athletics & Triathlon Squad’s 2017/2018 season calendar got off to a cool start on Sunday morning at the Cobar Memorial Swimming Pool.
There was a good roll up of 18 competitors taking part which included five new members.
One of those new-comers, Emma Harley, who was cheered on by her support squad, was first home in the long course (500m swim/20km cycle/4km run) and won the overall handicap title after finishing in a good time of one hour, 17 minutes and four seconds.
Second overall was Team Ralp! who tackled the Short Course (300m swim/10km ride/2km run).
Rachel Kennedy (swim), Pip O’Donnell (ride) and Lydia Wells (run) finished with a time of 42 minutes and 46 seconds.
Chris Deighton, one of two members in the Last Resort team, recorded a personal best time in his run leg of the Long Course to help the team finish third in the overall handicapped class.
Deighton did both the run and ride legs while Murray Harland completed the swim and they finished with a combined time of 1.15.16.
Harley also won the Long Course Handicapped class with Andy O’Donnell in second place with a personal best time of 1.08.33 and Scott Brown was third on 1.12.30, which was close to his personal best time and a great achievement coming back from knee surgery.
Tanya Gilbert turned in a personal best performance to win the Individual Short Course Class.
A strong run leg of 10.35 minutes (which was the third quickest Short Course run time of the morning behind Chad Buckman 9.23 and Lydia Wells on 10.32) saw Gilbert set herself a new PB of 43.39.
Trudy Griffiths, who finished in 40.15, was second in the Individual handicapped class and third was Chad Buckman who had an overall time of 40.06.
Team Ralp! won the handicapped Short Course title and Team Warriors (Chris Powell swim and ride and Alex Eves run) was second with a time of 39.32.
First time Individual competitors Ella Moratti and juniors Jair Apaza and James Turner completed the Short Course and turned in very reasonable times with Ella finishing in 45.29, Jair in 1.16.47 and James 1.27.58.
