1500 PEOPLE TOOK on a 1.9km swim, 90km bike and a half-marathon run at the Galway Ironman on Sunday morning.
The Irish women were led home by professional triathlete, Eimear Mullan from Portstewart, who claimed second place behind Tine Deckers of Belgium. Deckers did the damage on the bike leg, setting a blistering time of 2:22.
Amateur athlete Jen Duffy surprised a few with her third-place finish, beating a number of professional athletes. Aoife Lynch of the Dublin based Pulse Triathlon Club had another notable performance, finishing in fifth place.
In the men’s race, the crowd were treated to a nailbiting finish between Jan Van Berkel and Terenzo Bozzone. Van Berkel got the better of Bozzone in the sprint finish winning by a single second, while last year’s winner, Mike Aigroz was third. The best of the Irish was Bryan McCrystal who finished 12th in a time of 4:19:27.
In international action Bryan Keane, fresh from his ITU European Cup second place finish in the Czech Republic, was racing in the highly competitive British Triathlon Super Series. Keane was part of a decisive seven-man break on the bike and exited T2 in the lead. An aggressive racer, Keane pushed the pace early on in an effort to win the race outright but paid the price over the final lap, slipping back to fourth.
The race was won by Britain’s Richy Nicholls followed by Australian Brendan Sexton in second and David McNamee in third. Mark Nolan of Ireland was eighth in his first year racing as elite.
Meanwhile the TI Junior Squad was racing at the Aguilas ITU European Cup in Spain. Doherty, Jackson and Mintern got Ireland off to a solid start on Saturday, taking 13th place in the European Championships Youth Team Relay.
They backed this up on Sunday with another solid outing in the individual race. Doherty finished an impressive 13th in a time of 1:00:09, just 25 seconds off the winner. Jackson was 25th in 1:00:42 while Mintern was 50thin 1:02:39. The Triathlon Ireland coaching staff was impressed with what they saw as the field contained close to 80 athletes, many of which were up to two years older than the Irish squad.
