Finally, after three events, the first triathlon of the Riyadh Triathletes season took place Friday last week over a distance of a 450m swim, 3 km run and 12 km bike.
The event marked the start of the battle between the two most fancied athletes in the club for this season’s honors sponsored by Carrefour, Power Horse, 2XU, Sport in Life, Nestle Pure Life, Wolfi’s Bike Shop, Saab and Riyadh Palace Hotel.
With two heats in the swimming pool, the second contained the faster swimmers with Martin Ball leading out of the pool in the only time inside 7 minutes at 6:54 , closely followed by Brett Given with a remarkable time of 7: 00 and Kate Scott, impressive in third place with 7: 02. Cameron Ball and Alex Carinan completed the top five swimming positions both completing the distance in 7:20.
Faster transitions are now being seen across the whole field, with all but 12 competitors completing the transition from the indoor pool to Fal Compound roads in less than one minute. Kristoffer Ahlin, outside the top 10 in the swimming, was fastest along with leader Martin Ball (both 28 seconds) with Ahlin starting the run 1:59 behind Ball.
With all the runners on the road it was again Martin Ball completing the run in 11 minutes 40 seconds increasing the lead on every lap over Antonio Castellanos 12:15 who was expected to take the fastest running time. It was Ahlin, however, that had the fastest run time in 11:35. Great performances were seen from the Juniors Cameron Ball and Jack Miller both in the top five runners with 12:18 and 12:25 respectively.
With all the cards now on the table all that remained was the biking leg. The competitors took a short drive to the old airport road where a 12km time-trial format was held with riders setting off at 30 second intervals. Again, Ahlin put in a great performance to best the field on the bike in a time of exactly 18:00 moving up the overall leaderboard and recovering positions lost on the swim. Showing impressive consistency at the front of the field Martin Ball finished second in the time-trial just 8 seconds after Kristoffer Ahlin. It was more than enough to win the first triathlon event of the season. The time lost in the swim cost Ahlin who recovered very well to claim a well deserved second position. The veteran Andrew McLachlan finished third on the bike with a time of 18:35 with Alex Carinan fourth over Antonio Rodriguez.
In Category B, Kate Scott was the first lady out of the pool (3rd overall) and through transition into the run with a total time only beaten by Martin ball. In second place Freda Gocian was followed by Jana Jaruskova. These positions remained the same during the running leg where Kate increased the distance over her two pursuers. The lead proved enough to claim first place despite strong time-trials by Jana Jaruskova with 22:58 and Freda Gocian with 23:03 (Kate Scott 23:25).
Results:
Category A: 1st Martin Ball (00:37:10), 2nd Kristoffer Ahlin (00:38:56), 3rd Antonio Castellanos (00:39:24), 4th Alex Carinan (0:39:53), 5th Gerd Mutze (0:40:47), 6th Brett Given (00:41:03), 7th Stuart Gillespie (00:41:53), 8th Cameron Ball (00:42:56), 9th Reiner Gocian (00:44:01), 10th Paul McParland (00:45:11).
Category B: 1st Kate Scott (00:46:04), 2nd Freda Gocian (00:47:49), 3rd Jana Jaruskova (00:49:46)
Junior Category: 1st Cameron Ball (00:42:56), 2nd Jack Miller (00:50:44)
Ball wins first triathlon as chase for RT season honors begins
