Two Newark AC members in the world champs and ones a silver medalist not bad for a little provincial town
With no less than two Newark Athletic Club members taking part in the World Triathlon Championships we decided to sent our man Gareth Bagguley to Switzerland to report on the event, this is Gareth’s blog;
“I have just had a hug from a champagne soaked Olivia Mathias in sunny Lausanne Switzerland after she finished runner up in the world u23 triathlon champs in a time of 2hrs 4min 8 secs just 7 secs behind the winner Emile Morier (France) and 24 sec in front of third Liser Tertsch Germany.
Having exited the water after 1500m swim in 19 min 58 sec in the lead group just 42 sec later she was on the bike and pushing the pace along at the front early on over the 8 lap 40k bike course sensibly settling in with the lead group on the final circuit and finishing the bike section in 1hr 5min 11 sec and 28 sec later she was into the run leg of 10k over 4 laps she settled into second place as the leader steadily moved away and as they entered the final lap Olivia was some 30 secs adrift but then started to real in the leader and finally just fell short by a meer 7 secs.
Tomorrow I shall be watching Tim Bagguley compete in the 30-34 world sprint tri champs”.
Forty Eight hours later;
“Sorry for not advising sooner but our flight from Geneva on Sunday was cancelled and next available would have been Wednesday so it meant a hotel Sun evening in Geneva and then a series of trains back on Mon to get back to Luton to pick up car and arrived home around midnight hopefully easy jet will honour promise and pickup all the costs .
Tim competed in the 30-34 world age group sprint triathlon champs comprising 750k swim in lake Geneva 22degrees so no wet suit followed by 20k bike and 5k run.
He had a brilliant swim exiting the water 5th in 10min 58 sec a 2 min 22 sec transition saw him onto his bike which whilst dropping down into the twenties was still a good solid performance taking him 31min 59 sec and following a 2min 5 sec transition he faced the run and unfortunately the swim and bike efforts combined with 29 Dec midday sun took it toll and he took 22min 39 sec to complete the 5k course and eventually finished 41st in 1 hr 10min 5 secs”
To round off the action Olivia was part of the mixed relay team and came home with her second silver medal”.
