From www.triathlonireland.com Gold and Bronze medals were brought home from Greece last week David Vaughan put in a blistering performance in the mens race to win the very competitive 30-34 AG and come 3nd overall. Keira-Eva Mooney captured bronze in the 25-29 AG and came 6th overall. Unfortunately Mark Dowling, who was racing in the elite race, had to retire early from the race due to an injury. Congrats also to Adam Spiers and Paul McIntyre who represented Ireland for the first time and put in strong performances.
Please read on for a full race report by David Vaughan……
Serres, Greece played host to the European Duathlon Championships last week and Ireland was represented by a team of 5 athletes at the Championships. On Saturday Mark Dowling was competing in the Elite/U23 event while on Sunday the Age group racing featured 2007 Championships Bronze medallist Keira-Eva Mooney in the F25-29 Category with Adam Speer and Paul McIntyre from Donegal in the M25-29 Category and England based David Vaughan in the M30-35 Category. The event was to be Speer and McIntyre’s first ever full distance Duathlon.
The Championships were held at the pan-flat Serres Motor Racing Circuit, Greece’s premier race venue and with clear blue skies and temperatures of 32C the racing was sure to be hot and fast! Mark Dowling went into his race with a persistent knee problem and having optimistically warmed up on it and started his race he wisely pulled out when it was clear that racing would only do it further damage.
Sunday was the Age-groupers chance to race for their country and the men’s under 40’s wave went off at 9.30 followed by the over 40’s mens wave at 9.45 and the women’s race got underway at 10.00. The racing started at a blistering pace and with good performances from the Irish David Vaughan came into T1 in second position overall with a time of 32.44 for the opening 10k run and Adam Speer in 18th place at 35.31 followed closely by Paul McIntyre in 25th place at 37.21. In the ladies race Keira-Eva Mooney ran strongly to clock 39.18 and came into T1 in 5th place at the front of a group of 5 athletes following a close, competitive opening run.
The complicated bike course consisted of 13 laps of the motor Circuit; 7 laps in one direction interspersed by 6 laps in the opposite direction on the other side of the track and most athletes were more concerned about lap counting than negotiating the windy course! Vaughan quickly took the lead going off at a quick pace and opened up a gap on the field which at the halfway point had grown to over a minute while Speer had pushed on to 22nd place with McIntyre close behind in 34th.. Coming into T2 Vaughan still held the lead and was 1.30 ahead of the chasing group with a time of 1.01:44 for the technical 40k course. Adam Speer was next Irish with a time of 1.09:10 in 29th place with Paul McIntyre shortly after at 1.10:35 in 35th position. In the ladies race Keira-Eva Mooney rode a very strong bike leg of 1.10:59 and came in, in 7th position just 10 seconds off 5th place.
With the temperature rising the athletes really began to suffer and fast 5k times were not to be expected after the gruelling bike leg and the sun gaining strength. David Vaughan was first of the Irish home taking third place overall and the Gold medal in the 30-35 category. After crossing the line first his overall position later dropped to third when the results of the later starting waves were applied. In the men’s 25-29 Age Group Adam Speer picked up a couple of places to finish 27th overall and 5th in his age group followed closely by Paul McIntyre who claimed 34th overall and took 6th place in the 25-29 category. Keira-Eva Mooney finished well and managed to pick off another place on the final run coming home in 6th place overall and winning another Bronze medal in the highly competitive 25-29 category.
For such a small team to go home with two medals from the European Championships was a great success for Ireland. The team can take a lot from the event and are looking forward to the World Duathlon Championships in Rimini, Italy in September and next years European Duathlon Championships in Budapest.
Well done to all the Irish athletes from all at runireland.com
Thanks to www.triathlonireland.com