Torbay Tri Club are National Champions….again

They came, the saw, they conquered. Torbay Tri Club's V40 team retained their title at the National Triathlon Relay Championships in Nottingham.

In far from ideal wet conditions, the team of Steve Donnelly, Gary Burman, Mark Colombini and Paul Whitehead proved that every second really does count by taking the win with a slender margin of only 16 seconds after three hours of intense racing, and with only 30 seconds separating the podium positions.

Inspired by their team-mates’ victory in the morning, in the open race staged in the sunny afternoon, a team of Ben Flower, Emma Jefferys, Fiona German and Steve Donnelly also stepped onto the top podium and claimed their gold medals by winning the mixed open category. 

Although not quite reaching the podium against a strong V40 age group contingent, the team of Julian Smith, Dave Brown and Jon Pressling put in a determined performance that saw them still finish in the top twenty overall from 150 teams and with a reduced team of three members giving their absolute all across the 400m swim, 15k bike and 5k run. Notably, Julian raced the swim and bike twice and Jon doubled up in the run to support the team across the line.

Going underground, another great show of teamwork came from Katie Giles and Matt Giles, as the pair took part in the Bath Two Tunnels 50k relay. Packing in plenty of city sights and history along the course, the unique part was running through over 4km of underground railway tunnels. There was plenty of light at the end of tunnel though as the pair claimed both first mixed and overall relay team in a time of 4.04.02 over the ultra-marathon distance.

Naomi Flanagan continued her fine running season with her latest outing seeing her proudly pull on the Devon vest and representing the county in the SW Championships at the Wiltshire Lightning Bolt 10k. A stacked field of super-fast runners saw Naomi achieve a great time of 36.55 which was 2nd place in the Devon team and 4th place for the SW Champs.

The latest round of Torbay Tri Club's Parkrun series saw a team of members taking to the local Torbay Velopark Parkrun for a 5k race around the track and Clennon fields. Making light work of the wet conditions, Matt Edmondson and Debbie Burman were first male and female runners home for the club to secure maximum points.