Wight Tri members Liz Dunlop and Chris Till – who was racing for the Vectis Academy Race Team – recently made the trip to the mainland to take on the Challenging Events Bournemouth Standard Distance Triathlon.
The event was also a GB Age Group Team Qualification event for the 2025 European Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.
Unfortunately after such a great summer, the weather gods were against the triathletes as it rained heavily constantly throughout the race. This made the bike section extremely treacherous as it was on the open roads of the
A35 dual-carriageway, from Bournemouth centre turning at the Ringwood Roundabout with the cyclists having to negotiate the driving rain a as well as lots of standing water and getting sprayed by cars!!
However, both athletes took it in their stride to complete the course safely.
The race started with a 1500m sea swim, which despite the rain, was in a fairly calm sea. Chris was off first in the under 40 Open category wave with Liz entering the sea, 30mins later in the all age group female wave. Chris and Liz had good swims to post times of 24.26 and 29.18, which included the run in and out of the shore.
This event has one of most iconic and longest transition runs as the competitors have to run up the West Cliff Cascade to reach the transition area at the top of West Cliff before jumping onto their bikes.
Being a strong runner, this run up was no problem to Chris, who was quickly onto his bike and chasing down the faster swimmers in his age group, having exited the sea in the top 20 and top 10 in his age group.
As Liz feels the cold very easily, she took time to don her rain jacket and gloves in T1 to ensure that she would finish the bike, as several later pulled out due to hypothermia. Being extremely cautious out on the course, Liz posted her slowest bike split of 1hr 21 for this event (almost 7mins slower) but was very happy just to have got back to T2 safely and still 2nd in her age group.
Chris continued to have a speedy race with a swift run time of 37.13 on the 10km course, which started with a slippy downhill section onto the flat sea path which took the runners to the turnaround at Sandbanks. Having to negotiate lots of standing as well as streams of running water on route, Chris overtook several more runners to finish in an overall time of 2.04.40, 14th overall from 329 and 6th in the 30-34 category.
Liz had a solid run of 55.38 to finish in 2.57.13 and 2nd in the 65-69 age group. Although this was way off her best overall time at this event, she was happy to have finished as the 3rd place runner in her age group did pull out with hypothermia after the bike.. and so glad it hadn’t happened to her!!
As the first 4 in each age group qualify for the 2025 European Championships, Liz gained automatic qualification in the 65-69 category with Chris taking the 2nd roll down slot in the 30-34 category. However, with such a super quick time, which was very close to his winning age group time, he should be guaranteed a place in Turkey too, but will have to wait for final confirmation from the BTF. Liz is a veteran Team GB age group member, having now represented Team GB on 29 occasions with 10 podium wins but this would be the first time Chris would represent the GB Age Group Team.
After the event, Liz said:
“Having felt really good on the swim, I was really disappointed that I did not have the courage and confidence to race harder on the bike as my legs felt good for the first time in many races, but I am still so pleased to have survived this event and get my automatic qualification.
“This was probably the worst conditions I have ever raced in 35 years of competing in triathlons! Fortunately, cyclists and most motorists were very sensible and considerate on route and accidents were avoided!“.
Liz will finish off what has been a long training and racing season with a trip to the Age Group European Championships in 2 weeks time in Vichy, France to compete in both the sprint and standard Distance Triathlons, and hoping the weather will be more favourable.
Chris has now finished his race season but will continue to train over the winter months and having already qualified to represent the IOW Triathlon Team at the Island Games next year in Orkney, he has lots to look forward to in 2025.