Sargent displays girl power
The weekend saw a series of great results for Hitchin based triathlon club FVS TRI as nine athlete’s from the club competed at the Cambridge Duathlon on Sunday. The event, which acts as qualifier for the ITU World Duathlon Championships and forms part of the Mazda National Ranking Series, saw elite athlete Stephen Harrison finish in a brilliant 2nd place overall (1:52:55), just thirty seconds behind the race winner. Female athlete Gemma Sargent finished 1st in the 25-29 age category with a time of 2:31:34 to secure 133rd place overall out of 233 finishers. And continuing the strong performance by the club’s female athletes; veteran Jackie Perry also secured 3rd place in the 45-49 age category (161st overall in 2:36:58). Great results were also produced by veteran athlete Brian White in 63rd place overall (2:14:32), James Bedford (94th overall in 2:22:21) and Chris Priestley (114th overall in 2:26:10). Greg Evans (2:33:25) and Mark Malone (2:33:27) finished in 143rd and 144th places respectively; separated by a mere two seconds. Samantha Tophill’s time of 2:34:02 secured 148th place overall and Tim Smith completed the 7km run/40km bike/7km run in 183rd overall in a time of 2:41:04.
Six riders continued the club’s rapidly increasing presence at Cycling Time Trial events on Sunday by taking part in a blustery Bedfordshire CC BRCC 25 mile CC . First home for the club was FVS TRI’s very own Ironman Legend Gavin May; who crossed the line in a time of 1:01:49. Using the event as part of his continuing build-up to Ironman Lanzarote, Gavin showed a typical Ironman attitude by also cycling to and from the event! Next to finish for the club was bike coach Alex Turner, who again impressed with a time of 1:04:03. Steffan Ford was 3rd for the club in 1:12:13. Michael Russell (1:15:04), Anna Priestley (1:27:12) and Meline Fletcher (1:35:14) also took part.
Steve Mussett competed at the Duston Triathlon on Sunday. The race, featuring a pool based swim, saw Steve finish the 400m swim, 20km bike and 5km run in a time of 1:16:45 for 209th place overall out of 449 finishers. The race also marked the triathlon debut of Lynn Allen; who finished in 311th place in a time of 1:24:20.
Finally; two members of the club competed in the Flitwick 10k on Sunday. Veteran athlete Andy Chatterton ran a time of 38:51 to secure 60th place overall and 20th in the MV40 category. And Simon Shaw clocked 41:19 to finish 155th overall out of 819 finishers.
