AILEEN MORRISON BANISHED her London Olympic disappointment by finishing fifth in the highly-competitive final race of the French GP Series.
The event attracted a host of top athletes to Nice and Morrison completed the sprint distance course in 1hr 44secs.
The time was good enough for fifth place and helped her professional team, Poissy Tri, to the prestigious series victory.
New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt took the victory in 1hr 19secs followed by Peon of France and Murua of Spain.
In the men’s race Corkman Bryan Keane was 1min 30secs off the pace finishing in 31st place from 76 starters.
The race was won by Olympic bronze medallist Jonny Brownlee of England followed by Murray of South Africa and Silva of Spain. Keane’s team Baie De Somme finished 14th in the series.
In long distance racing Eimear Mullan was back in action at Ironman Wales. Mullan was second at the Galway 70.3 a few weeks ago and was in good form heading into the 3.8k swim, 180km bike and full marathon challenge.
Mullan surrendered five and a half minutes to the first female out of the water and was lying in fourth at the start of the bike. Regula Rohrbach of Switzerland was 2 minutes up on Mullan by this stage but really took control over the 180km bike leg extending her lead to 22 minutes by the end of the bike.
The Swiss star took 20 minutes off the previous bike course record setting a blistering 5hr 34min split.
Mullan really began to claw back the lead on the run however Rohrbach had too much of an advantage. Mullan was second in 10hrs 1min 32secs, taking five minutes off the previous course record and 10 minutes off her PB. Joanna Carritt of Great Britain was third a further 11 minutes back.
Domestic
In domestic action, the season is coming to a close with just two races remaining in the Vodafone National Series. A number of top athletes were fighting for some of the last remaining points at the Pulse Clogherhead Triathlon which took place on Saturday.
Swim specialist Kevin Thornton led from the start in the men’s race and took an easy victory in 58mins 55secs. Aidan Callaghan was second in 1hr 1min followed by Alex Grey of Wicklow Tri in 1hr 1min 14secs.
The ladies race was a particularly competitive affair with a number of past National Champions in the mix. Jen Duffy got the better of the stiff competition however, winning in a time of 1hr 5mins 47secs. Recent Lost Sheep triathlon winner Katie Cooke was a close second followed by Anna Crooks in third.
