Portumna triathlon 2009 Another successful event in Portumna where the runireland team brought again something to the sport by organising the second Triathlon in Portumna. We also improved the event by listening to our last year’s competitor comments which we wanted to acknowledge this year simply because we care and that the event is your event first.
The Mini triathlon was held 30min later and was a great idea to avoid the over crossing of the participants coming down for the second race when the young ones and novices were racing. The Mini Try was won by Maebh Hurst who fought hard with Sarah Kelly in the water and boost her transition along with her cycle in which she took the lead in the bike. Sarah Kelly had a great run but was not enough yet to catch Maebh. Next event will be interesting.
In the main events the swim started at the end of the marina to avoid the bottle neck of last year. The swim was an easy 250m up and down and finished at the angler’s association ramp, the lifeguards of the Galway safety were again amazing with at the end of the last swimmers one lifeguard for each swimmer. Stephen Doyle and Irene Walsh were the first male and female out of the water, and led the race from the start to the end.
The bike course was an 18km cycle route, without any major hill but a strong wind in some parts, same route as last year and thanks to the Guards leading the course and the Ambulance following the last cyclist the cycling went well.
The run was a major improvement, with this time going into the forest, and a straight 2.5 km run up and down. Stephen Doyle followed by Liam Newman and Michael Flanagan were the top 3 male and Irene Walsh followed by Hannah Brady and Angela Collins were the top 3 female.
Portumna Triathlon is a great event and we would like to thanks the following:
Local County Council, an Garda Siochána, the Red Cross, Coillte, the OPW, Waterways Ireland, Portumna Anglers Association, the Shannon Oaks hotel and the Youth cafe in Portumna for all the volunteers. A special thanks to Suzanne Royston who worked extremely hard recruiting and organising marshalls for the event, she did a wonderful job as I’m sure every athlete and race director knows the success and safety of an event is dependent on the support of mainly volunteer marshalls. Runireland is proud to support the Portumna Youth Cafe through this event.
We had this year a presentation for the 1st male and female along with the winner of each category.
Photo Gallery can be found at the following link and you can email us for a free CD of the pictures in High resolution at: info@runireland.com . Many thanks to Sean Bailey for the Pictures.
www.irishtriathlon.com/runireland/255series09/portumna09/index.htm
Attached the full results: