High hopes for duathlon champs

Ellina Mhlanga, Senior Sports Reporter

TRIATHLON Zimbabwe president Ross O’Donoghue is hopeful of an exciting event tomorrow when they stage the third National Duathlon Championships.

The championships will take place at Donnybrook Racetrack.

It will feature championship and non-championship events, as the 2024-2025 season is still in its early stages.

“I am most excited about the junior division. We have a lot of buy-in from schools. We have got a St John’s team coming; we have got a Wise Owl team coming, I think we have got Hellenic kids coming. So, we are looking forward to a good showing especially in our junior categories,” said O’Donoghue.

Some of the youth and juniors expected to feature in tomorrow’s event include Olivia Beamish, Rachel O’Donoghue, Bianca Van de Linde, Callum Smith and Rohnan Nicholson.

Laura O’Donoghue is expected to defend her title in the women’s category.

The Triathlon Zimbabwe president said they have several initiatives they want to undertake for this season.

“Our targets or development goals for the year we are going to be targeting our youth again . . . We had a fantastic inter-schools event at Mount Pleasant, which was hosted at Hellenic (last year).

“This year we are expanding because we have got three schools hosting three separate events. So, we are going to have an inter-schools series rather than just one inter-schools event.

“That’s going to be a big push for us to try and increase the number of school kids that participate in our events.

“We are also looking at growing triathlon outside Harare. We are engaging with a school in Beitbridge at the moment who have got a large swimming facility and are keen to get involved in triathlon.

“We are also looking at an initiative to get a whole lot of bicycles, which will be owned by Triathlon Zimbabwe. But we will use those bicycles to assist people who would like to get into triathlon, but don’t necessarily have a bicycle to start with, specifically in rural communities.”

With the Youth Olympic Games in 2026 in Dakar drawing closer, they are also looking at preparing their youth athletes so that they stand a chance to be part of the Games.

“We have big dreams for the season as to what we are going to achieve as triathlon . . . But the 2024-2025 season we have Rachel O’Donoghue, Rohnan Nicholson, Callum Smith, Olivia Beamish, Bianca Van de Linde.

“A lot of our strong juniors from last season will be coming in for this season which we are excited for.

“We have the Youth Olympic Games in two years’ time and a lot of kids that I mentioned have been earmarked for the Youth Olympic Games, Zander Botha is also very strong this season.

“We are quite excited for the season and especially preparing our youngsters for the Youth Olympic Games which are around the corner.”

National coach Pamela Fulton said they are hoping the event will be a success.

“We are really hoping that this event will be a great success, it has been well supported the last couple of years since our first event two years ago.

“And we are hoping once again for the great support from the cycling federation. They supported us really well in numbers last year and took the second and third slot in the men’s category.”