Marsden Wheelers -Junior Prize
Results and report from Saturday 31st Jan
Kia ora everyone
The JP (Junior Prize) race yesterday was the last race of the summer series. Over the last 7 weeks there has been coaching on time trialing, pacelines, hydration and pre-race nutrition, climbing and descending, sprinting, attacking and bridging, and how to win. Yesterday was the time to put it all together.
There were two events – a short course (20km) handicapped road race and a long course (40km):
Short Course Event
There was great uncertainty over who would be first home in the short course event. Tim has only been coming of a couple of weeks but he had improved greatly. Robyn was spied wearing new clip-in pedals and shoes. Georgia has been racing on Tuesday nights which gives her better fitness and more race experience. Scratch rider was Simone who is an up-and-coming U23 woman triathlete – would she catch everyone?
First home was Robyn who managed to attack Brittany at the base of the short hill finish to win by 12 seconds. It was an exciting finish. It was obvious that both riders had worked together to stay away from the faster riders as well as riding through the slower groups. Their ride times were very good. Fastest junior time was Georgia who rode the 20km in 37:07. Fastest overall time was Simone at 36:52.
Long Course Event
The field for the 40km event was bigger with a large number of Marsden Wheeler senior riders also competing. There were cash prizes for the senior riders as well. The handicapper got it right for everyone except for the first two riders – Brett and Hide. These two limit riders worked extremely well together and stayed away to easily win.
A couple of minutes later the majority of the remaining groups came into sight. Hot on their heels was scratch. It was a headlong scramble up the short hill finish with Ryan managing to hold off Katherine and Barry. Next were Shaughan and Lee. First junior on handicap was Nadya and Mathew had the fastest junior time at 58:25. Fastest overall time was Lee at 56:04.
Prize Giving
Oceania Duathlon champion Katherine Anton handed out the prizes and briefly spoke about how she became a top athlete – by having a coach and by following a structured training programme. Thanks to the parent helpers especially Trevor who did the turn around.
There will be Marsden Wheeler races in February and the junior coaching programme starts up in March to build up to the Northland Secondary School Tri champs on 26th March and the Marsden Wheeler club champs on 29th March.
Jonathan and Ruth
Download the results table
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