Ana Leaf Durrell Duathlon Race Report – 17th March 2019
60 Seniors and 34 Juniors turned out for the biggest Durrell Duathlon yet on St Patrick’s day, making it one of the biggest race events outside of the main event in the summer, with one senior race and four junior races it was one for everybody and really showed the diversity and range of ages and abilities – multisport for everybody!
A break in the weather meant the rain, hail and wind held off just long enough for all the races to go ahead without athletes, marshals, parents, honorary police or St John’s ambulance staff getting cold and wet, and for athletes to be safe. Almost £500 was raised for Durrell in the process as part of race entries – thank you all!
At the pointy end of the pack, last year’s men’s winner Dave Holmes had built up half a minute lead, flying round the first run lap of 5km in just over 18 minutes. Hot on his heels, bike specialist Richard Tanguy hopped onto his bike after transition and went to work, making up over 4 minutes on the 21km bike leg and cruising to the win with 3 minutes to spare and recording the fastest course time in recent years of 1:02:03 (previous fastest was Commonwealth Games athlete Ollie Turner in 2017 when he beat Richard with a time of 01:03:16). Not even the fastest run splits of the day on both runs were enough for Dave to catch up. Wayne Quenault finally sneaked onto the podium in 3rd place (after a 5th place in in 2018 and 4th place in 2017) only seconds ahead of 4th place Mark Syvret and 5th place Ian Jones.
In the ladies’ race, a tightly fought battle resulted in the top three island games athletes being separated by just over a minute. Jo Gorrod left T1 only seconds ahead of Mel Messervy and Katie Silva and continued to hold the lead as Katie dropped back half a minute on the bike leg. Mel overtook Jo with a storming run on the final lap and finished with seconds to spare; the podium spots closer than ever and a repeat of the 2018 positions.
Other notable performances include;
Jenny Stafford – first visually impaired athlete competing in a duathlon, thanks to club treasurer Truusje Gamlin for support on the run and commonwealth games athlete Tom Perchard for his help on the bike.
Michael Bateman with the most improved performance from 2018 shaving a massive 7 minutes from his 2018 time on what was generally considered to be a slightly slower course given the wet roads.
Peter Holmes in the age 15-19 category and racing amongst the seniors had an impressive race scraping into the top 20 overall; must run in the family.
Finally, the closest finish and most competitive race was the 7-8 year old Tristars Start with a couple of amazing flying dismounts and a sprint finish between Thea who came away with the win narrowly beating Lia who had been leading on the bike.
Photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.2370266293007271&type=3
Some videos: https://www.facebook.com/groups/JerseyTriathlonClub/permalink/2370311346336099/
Results: Results 2 – Durrell Duathlon – March 2019
A big thank you to everybody who helped with this logistically complicated event; the race committee, Sarah, Irene, Dave Bailey, Louise Bailey, Vaughan, Michael Bateman for sorting the results so quickly, all the marshals, the honorary police, Parish of Trinity, the parents who helped out with the junior races and marshaling, St John’s ambulance and Durrell for opening the cafe early (although not quite as early as we planned/anticipated!) 🙂
Gus
