Mazda
British Inter Regional Youth ChampionshipsMazda
British Inter Regional Youth ChampionshipsSaturday 1st September.
The Inter Regional Championships are the premier event for tristar and youth aged triathletes where they get a chance to represent their region and compete against the best at their age group in the country. The team is made up of 14 athletes with 2 boys and two girls in the 11/12 age group and 13/14 age group and 3 boys and 3 girls in the Youth age group. It is quite a privilege for an athlete to be selected for the team based on their performances in regional and national races throughout the year.
For the second year in a row the championships were held at Bellahouston park in Glasgow, which provided a challenging 2km closed road circuit next to the swimming pool. Last year I was selected as coach to the team and this year moved up to team manager, responsible for ensuring that bikes and athletes not only got to the race but with Dave Parry from Triathlon Essex to ensure they were ready to compete at their best.
The team was made up of the following athletes including Tri-Anglia’s own Will Meadows.
Tristar 2 Girls: Mollie McKenzie (Cambridge Tri), Sophie Jones (Cambridge Tri)
Tristar 2 Boys: Conner Delaney (Cambridge Tri), James Kidd (Tri-Sport Epping)
Tristar 3 Girls: Alice Sharpe (Cambridge Tri), Neha Dabhi (Tri-Sport Epping)
Tristar 3 Boys: Vasudev Zaver (Cambridge Tri), George Smith (East Essex Tri)
Youth Girls: Lara Nyman, Nicola Morgan (Triathlon Essex), Venita Dabhi (Farrow Tri)
Youth Boys: Joe Giggins (East Essex Tri), Robbie Kidd (Tri and Run), Will Meadows (Tri-Anglia)
The third place was once again achieved through a superb team effort finishing behind the South East in first place and the East Midlands in second place. Although there were some key performances from individuals with Lara Nyman achieving a third place and Joe Giggins a 4th place in their races it was the teams strength in depth that carried it through with 8 of the 14 athletes in the team achieving top 10 places across the 6 races. Final team points are as follows:
| 1 | Southeast | 987 |
| 2 | East Midlands | 933 |
| 3 | Eastern | 895 |
| 4 | Scotland | 854 |
| 5 | North West | 817 |
| 6 | South West | 795 |
| 7 | Wales | 672 |
| 8 | North East | 643 |
| 9 | West Mids | 607 |
| 10 | London | 603 |
| 11 | Yorkshire & Humberside | 492 |
The mass swim starts, with 4 swimmers per lane in the pool, proved to be the first challenge in the race for many but despite some head on collisions, where the use of crash helmets rather than swim hats would have been better, all swimmers performed to their best and weren’t put off by the group swimming scenario. Once outside, although not as wet as last year the rain that did fall made some areas difficult, in particular a number of athletes took a tumble when running over the wet and slippery timing mats, but despite some cuts and bruises to show off later they were strong enough to overcome these minor hiccups. Thankfully the bike section passed incident free apart from one rider with a dropped chain that he sorted out calmly and efficiently. Once on the run more than a few athletes battled through the pain barrier to maximise the points for the team. Well done to all.
A big thank you goes out to the athletes who really came together as a team and all contributed to this success, also to the parents and families of the athletes for their extensive support both to the athletes and the coaching team and finally thanks to the coaching team of Mandy Smith, Geoff Jones and of course Dave Parry in preparing the athletes in advance of the weekend and on race day.”