Nick Pilgrim and Caleb Ingham raced on Sunday 15th July in the USTA youth elite series triathlon in Flatlands, Des Moines .

Caleb finished 16th out of 77 starters in 33:21 . He was 4th out of the swim, lying 15th  after the bike and then had a solid run. The winner was Graham Tuohy in 30:56 after an impressive run.

Nick Pilgrim sadly had a recurrence of a breathing difficulty condition on the run, which also saw him DNF in Bermuda’s Ironkids race. He therefore  had to stop. Nick was going very well until then – 2nd on the swim and lying in 3rd on the run .

FULL RESULTS AND SPLITS AT :

http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=64517#racetop

Trimemphre Magog / Canada race report July 14, 2018 – THANKS DIRK HASSELKUSS FOR THIS REPORT

This year it was only “Team Hasselkuss” from Bermuda traveling to Magog. Organization of the trip from sign up for the event to travel arrangements to hotel bookings etc. is routine in the meantime and execution went like clockwork.

We arrived late evening on Thursday, had a great night sleep and all day to prep (bike rental pick-up, registration, course familiarization including swim etc.) on Friday in the most beautiful and perfect weather conditions for our events the next day.

Come race morning and Zoe’s 7:05 am start the weather had turned to the worse with chilly winds causing quite some chop on the lake and a few light showers. This year Zoe – currently 13 – has moved up to the 15 and under age group and as a December girl she was amongst the youngest of the 52 girls, feeling a bit intimidated by the girls that looked so much taller, bigger and fitter than her. Zoe did not really enjoy the chop on the lake which made sighting a challenge and swimming some of the 500m through seaweed didn’t add to her fun. Nonetheless she exited the water in respectable 26th position and finished 21st overall after a solid 10k bike ride and 2.5k run. Onwards and upwards from here, we have work cut out for us if we want to be competitive in a bigger gene pool!

Similar to Zoe, Jasmin – turning 12 in December – started as one of the youngest for the first time in the 13 and under age group. Exiting the water after a 375m swim in 16th position, her 9th fastest bike over 10k and 5th fastest 2.5k run secured Jasmin a very respectable 7th place overall in the 40 finishers strong new age group.

After the girls had finished their race I got my workout in the Sprint Distance event in for which I only entered by late registration. My performance certainly did not do the title of the race any justice and I spare you further details. 🙂

All in all it ended up again a great and fun trip to Magog to a superbly organized and executed Trimemphre Triathlon festival. The girls and I had fun in our events, faced challenges and are very content with the results. In our off time we had a chance to go shopping and eat lots of pasta, pizza and….ice-cream in our favourite restaurants. We missed the rest of the usual Bermuda athlete and fan crowd though.

 A reminder of the 2018 BTA race schedule after the summer break :

▪ Sept 3 – Labour Day Home Event, Harrington Sound Dock
▪ Sept 29/30 – 2018 Carifta Triathlon and Aquathlon, Tobago
▪ Sept 30 – Tokio Millenium Sprint, Hamilton
▪ Oct 28 – AON Sprint National Championships, Clearwater

November – date to be determined – Bank of Bermuda Foundation Triathlon

Carolyn Conway recently won her age group at the Chester Deva Divas Triathlon on Sunday 8th July winning her age group.

For full results go to :

https://chestertri.niftyentries.com/Results/Deva-Divas-2018

Here is Carolyn’s report

I entered the women only Deva Divas Tri last minute in Chester UK last weekend and had a great time. The event won a Best Triathlon for the second time and I can see why. . I would recommend it to anyone from Bda who will be in UK. The race only caters for 350 entries as it is an open road course and a very busy tourist spot. Surprisingly I came first as I am now in the 60 age group – there were 8 others!!!

Erica Hawley competed in the Tizsaujavaros World Cup (Sprint distance) race on the 7th July which was an eliminator series style race.

Full results at :

https://www.triathlon.org/results/result/2018_tiszaujvaros_itu_triathlon_world_cup

Here is Erica’s report :

I competed in semi-final 1 (of 3) which had around 20 women in the field. The top 10 would then go on to compete in the final which was the next day.

The swim was 3 laps of 250m and the first buoy was only 100m from the start. It was one of the most brutal swims i’ve ever had and many people were given penalties for swim behavior. It eventually began to string out on the swim and I got out the water in 10:00 minutes. I was just off the pace of the second pack (5 seconds behind the girl in front of me) and was stuck in no mans land for the first part of the bike. Eventaully a group of 3 girls caught up but there was already a significant gap from the leaders. We worked relatively well together but we were no match for the top 11 and we came off the bike almost 2 mins behind. Even though, i managed to run a PR off the bike and clocked 17:41. I felt amazing on the run and this was such a great feeling after working hard on the bike. Although i didnt make the final i am really proud of the results this past weekend; and there were many positives to take away from racing this kinda of format. It was also intersting to compare my race and the times to other heats and it is almost luck of the draw for the people that are in your heat and dictate the race.

It was a crazy day the next day for the finals – for both the men and women. My teammate was involved in a crash of around 10 girls and fractured her radius so i was at the hospital with her for 6+ hours, and then they had to cancel the mens race mid-bike due to hail and a thunderstorm. I was almost fortunate that i didn’t qualify as the races didn’t play out how anyone expected.

Always exciting to race again and it was different competing in the European circuit which keeps me on my toes.

Back to Girona for another week before heading to Atlantic City to compete in the Major League Triathlon series.

As reported in the Royal Gazette :

Bermuda have named a 15-strong team for the Carifta Triathlon and Aquathon Festival in Tobago in September.

The 11-12 age group will compete in a 200 metres swim, a five kilometres bike and 1.25km run, with legal draft, while the 13-15 age category will swim 375 metres, bike 10km and run 2.5km. The 16-19 division will have a 750 metres swim, 20km bike and 5km run.

For the aquathon, there is a 250 metres swim and 1.25km run for the 11-12 age group; a 500 metres swim and 2.5km run for the 13 to 15-year-olds and a 1,000 metres swim and 5km run for the 16-19 age group.

The festival will be held on September 29 and 30.

Bermuda’s team was selected on strict qualification and selection criteria, which included participation in the XL Catlin National Championships at Clearwater, the National Heroes Day Home Event in Harrington Sound and the Clarien Iron Kids at Clearwater

Youngsters also had to compete in no fewer than four of the Thursday night super-sprint triathlons and participated in three competitive Bermuda Bicycle Association scheduled races.

TEAM

11-12 Age Group

Males

Callum MacFarlane — Aquathlon and Triathlon

Rory Fleming — Aquathlon and Triathlon

13-15 Age Group

Females

Taylor White — Aquathlon

Myeisha Sharrieff — Aquathlon

Zoe Hasselkuss — Aquathlon & Triathlon

Amber Simons — Aquathlon & Triathlon

Megan Hands — Triathlon

Liana Medeiros — Aquathlon & Triathlon

Males

Nicholas Pilgrim — Aquathlon & Triathlon

Caleb Ingham — Aquathlon & Triathlon

Brian Desmond — Aquathlon

Tommy Marshall — Triathlon

Nico Davis — Aquathlon and Triathlon

16-19 Age Group

Females

Ashley Irby — Aquathlon

Jessie Marshall — Aquathlon

Despite carrying a painful back injury, Tyler Butterfield produced an encouraging performance yesterday, Sunday 8th July, to finish 7th amongst the professional men in 8 hrs 38 mins 58 secs at Ironman Frankfurt.

Tyler exited the swim in a solid time of 49 mins 34 secs, 7th overall, and then had a strong bike in 4:33:30 to enter T2 within 6 mins of leader Josh Amberger of Australia who held a few seconds  lead over the German  Jan Frodeno (2015/2016 Ironman World Champion) with Patrick Lange (2017 Ironman World champion) and Sweden’s Patrick Nilsson a few seconds further back.

Tyler spend 10 mins in transition trying to loosen his back but despite the pain produced a gutsy time of 3 hrs 2 mins 53 secs for the run, well below his best.

Jan Frodeno meanwhile laid down a marker for the 2018 edition of Kona as he took the win in 8:00:58 with a very quick 2:39:06 marathon (despite walking the last part of the run up the finish shute) ahead of Patrick Nilsson (8:08:15) and Lange ( 8:09:26).

Sadly Allison Petty, competing in her first full Ironman race, was unable to finish, after suffering a crash at mile 80 on the bike and despite continuing the damage to her bike meant she had to pull out just 8 kms from the finish of the bike leg.

Allison had an outstanding swim of 59 mins 57 secs which put her 1st in the 35-39 age group and 14th woman overall. She then produced a very strong first portion of the bike up to kms 121 with her speed in the middle section of the course ranging between 31 and 35km per hour.

Allison bravely carried on after the crash but at a reduced speed but a derailleur failure meant she was forced to pull out agonisingly close to the finish. Evidently Allison was very bruised up so we wish her a speedy recovery.