After five round of the Bridge Signs Ireland West Duathlon Series Derek Joyce of Galway Bay CC is looking good for a double win in the series. His consistency to date has been impeccable with numerous top 10 finishes. His strong biking background has kept him in touch with the young super-fast runners.
Paul Joyce racing for the Tri Lakes Triathlon Club is edging closer to his brother with every race, the longer running course suiting Paul and the hard bike courses suiting Derek either way it looks like one of the Corofin brothers are going to bring home the winners’ cup.
In the Ladies Series Collette Sweeney of Westport Leisure Park has been equally as impressive with her consistency, with round six at home she will surely be out to impress. Ballina’s Nicola Forde is holding her own in 2nd with Hollymount Wheelers Lynda Hession in third place overall in the Series.
There is huge competition in the age category sections with the over 40’s the most competitive, with prizes for O50, O60, Junior in both genders. The winners in all categories won’t really be known until the final round in Cong at the Ashford Duathlon on the May bank holiday Saturday May 5th as all competitors are counted on their best 7 results out of the 9 events.
Round six will be hosted by Westport Leisure Park on Saturday March 24th. The adventure capital town of Ireland always draws a huge crowd and a very competitive field. The Westport circuit is one of the hardest especially the run courses with routes built around the hilly Greenway. The bike course can be tough depending on weather conditions as the out and back route to the bottom of Croagh Patrick can be a slug fest out followed by a hurricane tailwind home or vice versa.
In the corporate section Mc Hale engineering Ballinrobe have virtually lead from the start, the last few rounds has seen the HSE, Boston Scientific and Irish Rail squads push them close, but with Westport more or less having home advantage for the likes of Baxter Health Care, Portwest and Allergan the pressure will always be on the farm machine engineers.
The Club/ Team table is very tight with a real see-saw battle between eight different squads.
Westport Leisure park started very strongly opening up a sizable lead, Hollymount Wheelers have been tracking them consistently but in the last 2 round the Tri clubs of Liquid Motion Ballina, Lough Key Boyle, Sligo Tri, Galway Tri, Swinford Tri and Tri-Lakes TC have all really come to form as the Triathlon season approaches, it will be interesting to see who will come out on top.
See full results to date on www.raceface.ie