Over the coming months, the club will undertake one of its most ambitious summer programmes yet, culminating in the National Schools Triathlon Festival on February 19, 20.
The festival will include the Suzuki Schools Triathlon Championships, the Aquathlon Championships and the Team Tag Championships.
To ensure that school triathletes from our region are well prepared, on March 6 we’ll be reinstating the regional schools triathlon championships (formerly the Andrew Jones Memorial triathlon).
Over the summer, all our events will include options suitable for teenagers and adult novice triathletes, building our talent for the future.
As well, a series of weekly teen triathlon events will begin at 5.30pm on November 13. These will take place at first on the playing fields at Tahunanui, moving to the new velodrome for some sessions when that opens later in the year. Britta Martin and Sandy Vincent are both former international cyclists and Britta has won many international Ironman distance triathlons and they will be running the sessions.
As well, Mark Grammer from Marlborough will hold training sessions prior to some of our summer events and will also hold a five-day triathlon camp for teenagers in January.
We are also negotiating a session during January suitable for adults with Auckland coach and Nelson Tri Club member Ben Eitelberg. Ben is a specialist in XTERRA triathlon and Breca Swimrun and has relationships with both organisations.
What’s coming up?
Sunday November 12
Our first triathlon this summer. Although our focus is on novice and teen competitors, we’re intent on providing the best experience for our more experienced members. With the ITU World Championships in standard and sprint distance triathlon taking place on the Gold Coast in September, the November 12 sprint distance race is a perfect opportunity to refine racing techniques, hone transition skills and get a taste of draft-legal racing – now the norm for the sprint event. We want you to leave your aero bars at home. If you absolutely can’t, the prime race rule will be to stay off them in drafting situations – or risk disqualification.
The short race for novice and teen competitors is your chance to mix it up in a real race over distances of 250m swim, 8km bike, 2km run. It’s on the road, but mountain bikes will be suitable for this event.
The entry website has all the information – click here
Sunday December 10
This super sprint event will be pure exhilaration from start to finish. From the hooter, competitors will swim 200m, bike 6km and run 1km. Individuals will then continue on to do it all again – twice.
For even more excitement, there are two team options.
- Team tag. In this option, the first team member will complete the three disciplines, then tag their next team mate, who will do it all again, tagging the third team member for their turn.
- For specialist swimmers, cyclists and runners who want to experience some of the fun of triathlon, they can stick with their specialty, each working through their discipline in order until three triathlons have been completed
As usual, we’re doing our best to keep costs down, so entry will be just $20, whether you’re an individual or a team. To find out more and to enter this event, click here.
Coming up
There’s plenty more over the summer. The latest combination to reach world championship status is aquabike – great for non-runners with just a swim and a bike ride. There’s a national championship in this combination to be held in Wanaka on February 17, with the opportunity to qualify for the world championships in Denmark later in the year. We’re looking into the possibility of aquabike and aquathlon later in the season.