COLE BAY—A record 128 participants ranging from school kids, company teams, mature weekend warriors to elite athletes took part in Sunday’s excellent Tropical Shipping Duathlon hosted by Port de Plaisance.
A doable run-bike-run concept that could be done as an individual or in teams meant it was within reach of anyone from 8 to 80 years old and attracted a broad cross section of the community.
The initiative introduced to ask corporate teams to pay a higher entry fee so that school children could enter for free, and have free rental bikes, attracted eight teams, mostly from Learning Unlimited and the CIA. Those in the inter scholastic competition, did a shorter course while adults completed a 5K run, 19K bike, and finished with a 2.5K run. Corporate teams, of which there were seven, were allowed to have up to three members on their teams.
The run segments took part inside the Port de Plaisance complex while the bike portion took riders out on three-lap sprint from the Causeway roundabout to the Pelican roundabout at the airport and back.
The Male Individual Category (under 45 years) was won by favourite Grégoire Pigeon (1:02: 47) who fended off a tenacious bid for glory by the amazing Erwan Gentil, second in 1:03:12, while third place went to Dean Hodge (1:03:56).
Pigeon had no ill effects from a minor scooter accident earlier in the week but could not shake off Gentil despite attacking him on the bike about 20 times.
“I’m very happy, it’s a good start to my season,” said Gentil who is training for a tilt at a half Ironman in March 2016. “Gregoire was stronger than me on the bike but I’m improving. Towards the end I just blew up. For the Ironman we are in the same team so I’ll be drawing on the power of all the guys.”
Dean Hodge, who continues to work on his running, put in an awesome bike ride to make up the deficit on his run.
“The run was super hard, but I had a great bike ride and make up a lot of time,” he said.
The over 45 category was by Francois (1:03:59), second went to Stephan (1:04) and third place to Mark Maidwell (1:10).
The female Individual event was won by Sandra Garnier. Sandra and Grégoire Pigeon both won membership certificates at the Port de Plaisance Country Club Spa.
Joost Huele and Omarco Robinson turned in respectively the fastest bike ride and fastest run to win Garmin cycle/run computers.
The corporate team category was won by GEBE led by veteran runner Bienvenido Montas. Tri- Sport (Juan Pablo Piscione and Otis Cotton) were second and Windward Islands Bank (WIB) (Basco Daal, Frans Herremans, and Jos van Ingen) finished in third place.
Elsewhere, two more experienced teenagers, Kai Piscione and Matheo completed the full distance. Kai was the winner (1:13:00) with Matheo second (1:23:16).
Among the Learning Unlimited entries were five young members of a track team comprising Raykwan Omaro Chung (aka Tino, 13 years), Diesel Kopec (12), Paul ten Broecke (11) Thomas ten Broecke (8) and Chase Kopec (8).
Tino (runner) and Diesel (biker) teamed up for second place, Paul (runner) teamed up with another student from CIA placing third while Chase (biker) and Thomas (runner) came in fourth and won a prize for being the youngest competitors in the Duathlon.
“As their school track coach I am really proud of all these kids for showing great enthusiasm, determination, school spirit, and sportsmanship,” said Kristin Kopec.
Rotary Club members were present at the event supporting their team consisting of Peter Mazereeuew, his son Mathias, and Veronica Jansen. The late Ramesh Manek competed in this team last year.
The Rotary is promoting the first edition of the Ramesh Manek Polio Plus Walk-a-Thon to be held on October 24.
Winners in all categories were awarded handmade trophies made by Carla Templeton. The event, organised by Friendly Island Triathlon Association (FITA) was also made possible by co sponsors Spa Water, Nature Valley, Sunset Beach Bar, Diamonds International, Tri Sport, Taloula Mango, Powerade, and Port de Plaisance.
Only partial results were available by press time. Complete results will be posted on the www.trisportsxm.com website.
