Triathlon Zim hold season opener

Ellina Mhlanga

Senior Sports Reporter

TRIATHLON Zimbabwe got their season underway on Sunday at Mount Pleasant Pool with some of the athletes taking advantage of the event to step up their preparations for the Africa Championships due to take place next month.

It was a full programme with several races lined up for the day including the standard, sprint and super-sprint races.

The event attracted a good turnout, and among the participants were Rohnan Nicholson and Callum Smith, who are scheduled to represent the country at the continental championships scheduled for October 13 to 15, in Egypt.

They competed in the super-sprint race, consisting of 375m swim, 10km bike and 2.5km run. Nicholson was the first to cross the finish line in the boys category followed by Smith.

“It was very hard but it was also good, it was fun, it was enjoyable.

“It’s good starting point I think. But there are still things that we can do to get better and faster,” said Nicholson.

He is looking forward to making his second appearance at the Africa Championships where he is hoping for a podium finish.

“To try and come first. I did not do as good as I hoped (the first time) but it was good,” said Nicholson. Smith, who is also going for the Africa Championships said he still needs to up his game for the new season.

“First event it was, and it was a little difficult just coming out of the off-season. The race was quite hard as training is not the same as doing a proper race. So your comeback is kind of like a shock to your system. And so the race wasn’t really what I was expecting today.

“I have got to work more. I haven’t been putting a lot of effort in, so I have got to work more and I just came back from a couple of other tours, so I had a lot of off time.

“Preparations are going very well. We are on our schedule and our calendar, we are keeping everything the way it should be. All the training is right where it should be. We need to up the power a little but the preparations are going very well so far,” said Smith.

Rachel O’Donoghue won the girls’ category, and expressed satisfaction with the outcome. Her hope is to make the Zimbabwe team during the selection races that are held throughout the season.

“It was a tough race, it was hot. I had a good bike . . . The run was hard, I had a really hard run. “I want to qualify for the Zimbabwe team and go race down in South Africa, for South Africa Championships, maybe even try and podium.

“I am doing the group rides on a Saturday, I run with a group on a Thursday and I swim at a club whenever I can, so I am doing quite a lot of training,” said O’Donoghue.

Last season the 13-year-old won gold at the South Africa Youth Championships.

Sunday’s line-up also included duathlon and aquathlon events.

Meanwhile, Duwan Botha came ninth at the 2023 Africa Triathlon Zone Two Championships held in Mauritius on Saturday.

Botha, competing in the elite men, crossed the finish line in 1 hour 7 minutes 52 seconds. He was also attending the World Triathlon Youth and Junior Development Camp that began on September 10 and ended on Saturday.