Online Reporter
Ellina Mhlanga-Zimpapers Sports Hub
TRIATHLON Zimbabwe entered the final half of the season on a positive note with most of the top youth and junior athletes attending their first event after the holidays break on Sunday at Mount Pleasant Pool.
It was a full house as competition resumed with triathlon, duathlon, aquathlon and aquabike events taking place.
But the big event for the day was the youth and junior athletes’ sixth selection race. It was the final qualifying race for the Africa Triathlon Junior Championships next month in Egypt.
Besides the continental show-piece, other upcoming competitions include the South Africa Youth and Junior Championships, and the Bonaqua Africa Triathlon Cup, all scheduled for March.
Most of the youth and junior athletes are hoping to make the cut for the tours.
Regular faces such as Zander Botha, Matthew Hildebrand, Stanley Chasakara, Callum Smith, Rachel O’Donoghue and Olivia Beamish were among the favourites that were in action on Sunday.
Botha is looking at maintaining the momentum from the first half into the final phase of the season. He continued with his fine form when claiming the top spot in the Junior Men Under-17/Under-19 sprint distance in 1 hour 5 minutes 34 seconds, ahead of Smith who clocked 1 hour 6 minutes 58 seconds. Hildebrand was third in 1 hour 14 minutes 23 seconds.
“It was a good race. I love this competition here today. “I felt great throughout the entire race. It was my personal record for this course. And I felt great from start to finish.
“I really enjoyed it very much,” said Botha.
He is hoping to make the upcoming tours including the Africa Triathlon Junior Championships in Egypt next month.
“I do wish to go on. They haven’t given us a start list yet. But it is my goal to go to Egypt and do as well as I can against my age group.
“I am considering going for four more tours during March.
“I will be going to Benoni for the South Africa Junior Championships.
“And then I will be going to Troutbeck. Then I will be going to Swakopmund for the Namibia Championships. Then down to Port Elizabeth in South Africa,” said Botha.
O’Donoghue and Olivia Beamish were up for the junior women, and the latter came first in 1 hour 10 minutes 30 seconds.
Beamish was second in 1 hour 17 minutes 23 seconds.
In the youth section (Under-13/Under-15), the likes of John Goddard and Alexis Beamish also had a good day, competing over the super sprint distance as they came first in the boys’ and girls’ categories, respectively. National coach Pamela Fulton was pleased with the turnout.
“I was actually really pleasantly surprised with the support we had today. Especially on a day that you can see it’s a bit cloudy and there is a little bit of rain, and that definitely turned some of our little youngsters away.
“But it was fantastic to see such a big age group and category racing in both the standard and the sprint events and also our selection athletes in both the super sprint and the sprint events.
“We had a great turnout there, and this was the last qualifying race for our athletes in the sprint event who are trying to go to the Junior Africa Championships.
“They had certain criteria which they had to reach, and this was the final one in that they had to make a certain time within their race,” Fulton said.
