admin
Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
TRIATHLON Zimbabwe vice president Pamela Fulton says preparations for the third National Duathlon Championships are on course with Laura O’Donoghue, who won the women’s open category last year, expected to defend her title.
The national competition is scheduled for Sunday at Donnybrook Race Track.
Duathlon consists of running and cycling.
The championship events will see participants competing in the Men’s and Women’s Open categories, Juniors (Under-17 and Under-19), racing over the sprint distance.
The Youth (Under-13 and Under-15) athletes will compete in the super sprint distance.
The national competition will also feature non-championship events — Du tots, Dukidz, Du-sport, and Du-fun, and team events over the sprint and super sprint distances.
The sprint distance consists of a 5.5km run, 19.25km bike, and 2.75km run while the super sprint distance is made up of a 2.75km run, 11km bike, and 1.3km run.
“Preparations for the duathlon are all on track for this coming Sunday and online entries have just opened up, so we hope to get good support.
“This year we have the same categories as last year.
“We are going to have non championship categories like the Du-sport, Du-fun, Du-fit and then we will also have the championship categories which are Du-supersprint, and Du-sprint.
“This season we are going to be awarding a trophy to the winning male and female in the Open Category in the sprint distance, and medals will be awarded to the top three ladies and men in Under-19, Under-17, Under-15, and Under-13 categories.
“We once again have got a road bike category and the mountain bike category. So the winners of both these categories in each age group, top three winners, will be receiving medals,” said Fulton.
Some of the athletes expected to be part of Sunday’s competition include O’Donoghue, who won the women’s open category last year.
South Africa-based Patrige Chimwendo won the men’s title last year. It’s not yet clear if he is going to try and de-fend his title this year.
Rachel O’Donoghue, who the girls title in the Youth category last year is also set to compete on Sunday.
She is up against Olivia Beamish and Bianca Van de Linde.
“Last year we had Patrige, our athlete who came and competed and won the event.
“I am yet to hear whether he will be coming to support this event again. Shine Doko and Amos Chakaza came second and third last year. And I have been informed that they will be competing for this really exciting weekend.
“So, they will be coming to defend their medal positions and if Patrige is not here, they will also try and contest for the overall trophy.”
In the Under-17 category, they are looking forward to Rohnan Nicholson, Callum Smith, and Stanley Chasakara tak-ing part.
Fulton, who is also the national coach said they are looking forward to another successful event.
“We are 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.
Online Reporter