from Sean Bailey (Irish Tri Club) Maedbh Hurst took the overall victory at the fourth and final triathlon in the Run Ireland mini tri series which took place in Portrunny on Saturday the 4th of October.
It is true to say that Maebh is a rising star and I am sure that the future holds great promise for her. She lead the race from the start and left second place girl Sarah Kelly from Irish tri with no response to her sublime performance. However Sarah who is only 11 years old can not be disappointed with her performance, as a first timer she has proved to be a future contender. In the boys race however there was a turnaround in fortune for Darragh Bailey from Irish tri as he took victory over Martin Mathews from Predator tri club. Darragh knew that he had to open up a decent lead on Martin before they got to the running section if he was to stand any chance of winning. Martin again emerged from the transition area ahead of Darragh but Darraghs experience on the bike showed through as he hunted down his prey within the first 100 meters opening up a gap of 30 seconds on the cycle. Darragh didn’t hang about in transition either knowing he still had the 1000m run ahead of him. At the finish line both of the boy’s mothers stood side by side as Darragh finished 4 seconds ahead of Martin, still the boys will have to wait until next year to even the score with the girls and take the overall victory. The sprint triathlon was one of the most difficult and technical from a cycling perspective and although the turnout was below what was expected 86 competitors took to the water at the start. The first to emerge from the water was Manuel Munoz from Spain who trains with Cork Tri Club with a lead of 46 seconds over John Loughlin from Galway, however over the 20km cycle john bridged the gap and returned to transition 1 minute and 11 seconds ahead of Manuel. Although the gap closed up over the run John managed to take the win by 12 seconds with a time of 1:13:22, second Manuel (1:13:34) and third Gerard Kenny from Setanta Tri (1:14:11) The first female through was Reilly Dibner with (1:19:55) second was Jean O’Connell (1:23:46) and third was Ailbhe Carroll (1:25:39) There were mixed emotions over the route of the cycle by some of the competitors as it definitely favoured the less aggressive cyclist. The first 10km was so technical the sprinters became frustrated as they could not get into any sort of rhythm and quite a few of them fell foul of the slippery conditions. Overall though the event received a great response and the weather held out just long enough to see it through to the finish. More info on the Official race website : www.sebfitness.com