Tyler Butterfield has just returned with his family to Boulder Colorado from Australia where he has been training for the winter months. He and Nikki and the kids were greeted by over a foot of snow !!

Tyler needs to earn the necessary points and ofcourse race preparation for Kona Ironman World Championships which he has stated will be his main focus this year having determined to forego the Rio Olympics over the shorter distance.

So… his 2015 early season race schedule will look like this :

 April 5th – Brazil Ironman 70.3 –  Latin American Championships – Venue : Brasilia

May 2nd – St. George Ironman 70.3 – North American Championships – Venue :St. George, Utah

May 31st – Brazil Ironman – Latin American Championships – Venue : Florianopolis

Tyler was buying snow tires yesterday ( for his car !!) and still hasn’t unpacked which looking at the picture isn’t too surprising. Sure you’ve got enough wheels Ty ?

There was a good turn out at Saturday’s BTA Annual Awards Dinner at the Beau Rivage to honour achievements in 2014.

Guest Speaker Karen Smith, who won her age group at the 2014 Ironman World Championships, gave everyone an entertaining and interesting talk on her career in triathlon with some excellent and fun visual effects.

Awards were presented to :

Junior Triathletes of the Year – Megan Hands and Matthew Oliveira

Special Recognition Award – Karen Smith

Best New Triathletes- Byron Rencken and Megan Berry

Most Improved Triathletes – Karl Wilson and  Kandis Matthews

Senior Triathletes of the Year – Tucker Murphy and Karen Smith

Junior awards

Male 7-10 3rd – Louis Hammond, 2nd – Adrian McPhee,1st – Blake Oliveira

Female 7-10 – 3rd. Chloe Castree and Eva Booth,2nd – Zoe Hasselkuss,1st – Lindsay Smith

Male 11-15 3rd – Alex Pilgrim, 2nd – Caleb Ingham,1st – Cameron de ste Croix and Nicholas Pilgrim.

Female 11-15 -3rd -Amber Simons,2nd – Laura Hope,1st – Rebecca Harrison

Peter Grayston Special Achievement Award – Flora Duffy

Jim Butterfield Long Service Award – Bank of Bermuda Foundation

John Buchanan Club Person of the Year – Jennifer Gunn

A highlight of the evening was Charlie Duffy modelling one of the Commonwealth Games triathlon suits for the auction.

Maria Duffy did a great job again raising raffle prizes.

Flora Duffy continued her unbeaten start to the season today as she dominated the women’s field at the Xterra Grabouw South African Championships finishing 1oth overall.

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First to fifth place in the ladies overall. Well done ladies 👏 #xterra #xterrasa #xterragrabouw #totalsportsxterra

A post shared by XTERRA South Africa (@xterrasa) on Feb 22, 2015 at 3:55am PST

After the race Duffy had this to say :

“I’m completely blown way,” said Duffy.  “Having raced the past two weekends, I was actually tired coming into today’s race.  I had a great swim, but at the start of the mountain bike my legs just weren’t there.  I’m always told that I don’t have to feel good in order to go fast.  I just kept reminding myself of that.  The run was tough, but this time round Dan was out on the route giving me splits, that was nice.  Winning here today is really special as South Africa has become my second home.  It was here that I first got into the sport of XTERRA”.  Mari Rabie came in second, while Carina Wasle finished third.

For more go to the race website via the link below.

http://www.stillwatersports.com/news/marais-duffy-crowned-totalsports-xterra-south-african-champions/

Bermuda’s Wes Lindo completed the Ironman 70.3 Geelong, Australia, his first 70.3, on Sunday February 8th, 2015 in 6hrs, 26 mins, 39 secs.

Wes completed the 1.9km swim in 39 mins 17 secs, the 90km bike in 3 hrs 10 mins, 50 secs and the 21.1 km run in 2 hrs 24 mins and 17 secs to finish 114th in the mens 30-39 age group.

The race was won by Australia’s veteran former Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander in 3 hrs 46 mins and 26 secs, his fourth Geelong win, whilst Liz Blatchford was the first woman.

Flora Duffy showed today, Sunday 15th February, that she is not just the world’s Xterra Triathlon Champion but also still an accomplished road triathlete as she produced the fastest run of the day to win the International Triathlon Union’s African Cup Triathlon in Cape Town, South Africa, close to her training base in Stellenbosch. The result is her first step this season in preparation for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

Flora exited the 750 meter swim in 10 minutes flat with a lead group of 8 that then stayed together on the 20km bike. Duffy though will be buoyed by her run, that has sometimes let her down in the ITU format races, as she completed the 5km run in 21 min 52 secs to win comfortably in 1hr 08 mins 49 secs from South Africa’s Lauren Dance ( 1hr 09 mins 23secs) with Japan’s Aoi Kuramoto close behind in 3rd (1 hr 09 mins 31 secs).

Full results can be found at :

http://www.triathlon.org/results/result/2015_cape_town_atu_sprint_triathlon_african_cup/270282

As reported already on this site ( see previous post) Flora will race again next Sunday 22nd February as she defends her title at the Gragouw Xterra Triathlon which is also a short car ride from Stellenbosch.

After another convincing win in the Phillipines in her opening race of the season (see previous report on this blog), Flora Duffy has returned to her training base in South Africa to prepare to defend her title at the tough Grabouw Xterra on Sunday February 22nd. Grabouw is about 1 1/2 hours south east of Cape Town on South Africa’s Western Cape. It is also not far from Flora’s training base in Stellenbosch.

The full course race consists of a 1500m swim, 28km mountain bike and 12.5km trail run. It is a notoriously tough bike course ( see video of 2014 race at link below). The race starts at 8.30AM South Africa time (2AM in Bermuda) and you can find the results at the link below :

XTERRA GRABOUW 2015 WEBSITE

Veteran Julia Hawley and youngster Tyler Smith were crowned Bermuda’s National Duathlon Champions at Clearwater Beach, Southside today, Sunday 8th February.The event had been postponed to 2015 due to the hurricanes in 2014.

In the end both Smith and Hawley were relatively comfortable winners.

TOP TEN FINISHERS

59:47:00 Tyler Smith – Mens’ Champion
1:01:22 Tucker Murphy 2nd male
1:02:08 Mark Robinson 3rd male
1:03:07 Mark Wilcox
1:04:52 Seamus Fearon
1:07:25 Julia Hawley – Ladies’ Champion
1:08:27 Kristen Palmer 2nd female
1:08:37 Timothy Patterson
1:08:49 Jonathan Betts
1:10:04 Joel Matthews

Jay Donawa and Wanda Roberts were the comfortable team winners in 1 hr 1 min 30 secs

The shorter duathlon saw Gabriel Wilkinson and Laura Keyes take top honours whilst in the juniors 7-10 Tommy Marshall and Megan Hands were the first two across the line and first boy and girl whilst Nick Pilgrim and Lyndsey Palmer were the first two across the line in the 11-15 age group and also the first boy and girl.

For full results and more pictures go to the Links section of this blog and click on Bermuda Timing and Island Stats.

The Neill Blake Triathlon camp ( see other reports below) continued on Thursday 5th February with an optional run at lunchtime and was followed by a great brick session on Thursday evening attended by 38 participants. Static trainers were lined up along the track at the National Stadium and after a spin warm up on the bike a series of bike to track run repeats followed in which participants also practiced their bike to run transitions. The coaches took the opportunity to pass on riding technique tips.

Friday’s open water swim was well attended as everyone other than Frances Betts and Kim McIvor donned wetsuits for the swim from David and Pauline Green’s dock and despite the blustery and cold weather the water was relatively calm if cold !

Friday night 62 people made their way to Richard and Sharon Hammond’s house for the wrap up party at which great food and drink was served and a photo presentation was shown of the camp before books of Bermuda photos and friendship goblets were presented to the coaches.

Saturday morning saw the final session of the camp as a full triathlon and transition course was set up for all participants with the Beginners going off first and then a large group two minutes later followed by a few of the faster men two minutes later and finally Jasper Blake and Mike Neill two minutes further back sporting speedos. The two pros worked their way through the field with Jasper Blake just catching Matt Thompson to win the mini triathlon for the fifth year in a row. The Beginners were ofcourse delighted to finish their first triathlon and received medals for their efforts. A few participants met up for lunch at Swizzle Inn and final drinks at Harry’s that night.

The coaches left on Sunday morning after what appears to have been a highly successful and appreciated 5th Neill / Blake Triathlon Camp.

Go to the Bermuda Triathlon Photos section in the Links section of this blog to see hundreds of photos of the camp and to the You Tube link below to see the photo slideshow of the camp (without the music !!) :