Brits at Noosa

1999 Duathlon World Championships

The following information has been lifted from Eric Schwartz's www.duathlon.com website (thanks to Tim Grose for this for pointing us at this).

Dannon Duathlon race director Bill Burke and USAT have made a proposal to the ITU to hold the 1999 Duathlon World Championships in Charlotte, NC at the campus of Davidson College. The only other site currently proposing to hold the race is St. Wendel, Germany, which was the site of the 1998 World Championships. The Charlotte location would consist of a moderately hilly 3 loop bike course and a 2 loop run course. The tentative date for the race is Oct. 9 & 10. A decision on the location may be reached as early as mid-November.

The Dannon Duathlon series will include a race on this same course on August 15. This venue is a change from the 1998 Dannon Charlotte race.

Request for help with a sports psychology project

We received the following email from Mark Hamer requesting help with his MSc project.

My name is Mark Hamer, I'm from Tri-Force (Herts), and I am currently studying at Brunel
University on an MSc. Sport Sciences course. For one of my modules this semester I am
studying sports psychology and  undertaking a triathlon specific project. The data collection
involves getting triathletes to fill in a 5 minute questionnaire.
I am looking for around 50 subjects to make the study statistically valid. I was therefore
wondering if you may be able to do me a huge favour and either ask if  people visiting the 
web site may like to fill in the questionnaire or perhaps get some people down at your club to
fill it in.

In return I will provide psychological feedback for each athlete that fills in a questionnaire which
will be of use to their overall preparation and performance. I have enclosed an attachment with
further details and the questionnaire. I must have all completed questionnaires by the end of
November.

Many thanks.

Brits abroad

In the ITU World Cup at Auckland Sian Brice scored her first ITU podium place and should, if the numbers work out, now be the leading GBR female in the ITU rankings.

New Editor for Triathlete

Although it's been talked about for quite a few weeks now we can finally confirm that Katherine Williams is taking over the role of Editor for Triathlete UK. The announcement is in the December issue of the magazine and we also understand that she will continue to produce the daily Triathlon Digest that so many of us rely on for our information. Welcome to the UK, and let us apologise in advance for the weather!

BTA AGM

The highlights from yesterday's meeting in Leicester where just 31 members attended from a membership base of some 3,500 so if you don't like the way the voting went then you have only yourselves to blame for not attending!

• Elite licenses will be £50 next year but this will include your international endorsement, your GP entry and your doping control documentation.
• BTA Membership for members of BTA clubs goes up to £24
• Associate membership goes up to £12
• Simon Lessing and Steph Forrester were named 'Athletes of the year'
• London and Longest Day shared the 'Best race'
• Mick English is the new Chairman of the BTA replacing Phil Yarde
• Steve Trew was re-elected and Val Hill was elected to the Committee
• The proposal to do away with the two-tier management structure (Management Committee and Executive Committee) and replace it with an Executive Board was rejected.

This was the most controversial business of the day and comes from the recent independent management review of the BTA's structure. While most of the people there were in favour of the proposal there was also a strong feeling that such a change (effectively removing the regions from the decision making process) was being introduced with too little information and discussion. As a result you can expect to see an EGM being called early in 1999 to discuss this and put the proposed changes to the vote. Once again, poor communication by the BTA to its members over such a crucial change.

Brits in ETU Cup

At the final ETU Triathlon Cup race in Alanya, Turkey:

In the final ranking for the European Triathlon Cup, Tim Don was 6th, Stuart Hayes 8th. Michelle Dillon ranked an outstanding first in the ladies with Annaleah Emmerson 7th. Both the ladies were also fined FF500 (along with a bunch of others) for apparently not attending the briefing or opening ceremonies of both Madeira and Alanya.

Catching up

Congratulations to Jennifer Musset on her 7th place (3:03:13) in the Thai Airways Laguna Phuket Triathlon on October 24th, Jackie Gallagher (AUS) won in 2:47:52. Also to Julie Ricketts (Britain/Baton Rouge, Louisiana), who placed 9th at the The Quintana Roo/USA Triathlon Pro National Championships in Oceanside, California on October 25th in 2:16:31.

Brits in Europe

Apologies for the delay, with all the excitement of Hawaii we completely forgot about the ETU Triathlon Cup in Funchal, Madeira on Sunday!

Also concluded this weekend was the PowerMan dualthlon World Cup, the Japanese PowerMan event being the last. Fiona Lothian placed 6th in the final results table, the only GB athlete in either male or female top ten.

News from the Big One

With headwinds on the bike of up to 40mph it wasn't going to be a record breaker but both Peter Reid of Canada and Natascha Badmann of Switzerland scored first wins, both for themselves and their countries. Heather Fuhr clocked the fasted women's run ever in Hawaii with a 3:04:02 while Wendy Ingraham broke the swim record she set last year with 49:11.

In the men's field the 1997 devastation by non Americans continued with just three USA pros in the top 20. It wasn't a straight flush for Germany though, Luc Van Lierde (the first non-American to win Hawaii) came in second after a year of injury, Lothar Leder took third and two Hawaii rookies, Christoph Mauch of Switzerland and our own Spencer Smith filled out the top 5. Of special note is Chris Legh who finished 6th -- remember him being stretchered off last year with serious dehydration and his subsequent operation to remove a chunk of his intestine? Official full results will probably be up later today but see below for a link that has all the results now.

It looks as though Spencer played a waiting game with Van Lierde on the bike but lost it on the run but all the commentators seem to reckon that he has to earn his "bones" in Hawaii and freak results like Luc's two years ago just don't happen that often. A top five finish is, however, a remarkable achievement in anyone's book and it now looks like we've got three long distance pros in the GB ranks.

Pro results

Other results

Duathlete hospitalised

News has reached us that Richard Priestley, 33rd at the World Duathlon Championships and 2nd GB athlete in the M25 category, has been hospitalised in Glasgow Southern General Hospital following a road accident while out training. He has suffered a broken neck and paralysis of his lower limbs and is likely to be in hospital for 8 to 10 weeks. Any passing visitors would be welcome.

Update: 2 October. We had email from Sara Climpson, Richard's fiancee, telling us that Richard is actually going to be in hospital for about a year, learning to use the limited arm movement that he has, and adapting to life in a wheelchair. He's still in traction at the moment, and starting to get bored! Any post (addressed to the Spinal Unit at the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow) would be much appreciated - even from people who no other link than being fellow du/triathletes. They promise that they will reply to everyone, given time.

Free Internet solution for clubs

Check out the FREE Internet connection from Dixons/Currys/The Link/PC World if you are looking for a way to put your event or club on the Internet. The only cost to you is the phone calls and they are at 0845 rates. If the service holds up this looks like an ideal solution for those who don't want any of the bells and whistles. See http://www.freeserve.com/

Hawaii live on Eurosport

Now confirmed, there is Hawaii Ironman coverage on Eurosport this weekend! (Thanks to John Levison and Ian Sweet for this)

Brit's abroad

At the ITU World Cup in Canucun:

Max Triathlon cancelled

The Max Triathlon, a row bike run event in Reading has been cancelled due to lack of entries.

The London Triathlon

Well, it's a 2,200 person event and Lessing will be there along with a veritable host of other pros. The new venue looks better, although the shorter bike loop may make for some problems when the main groups go through - keeping that lot from drafting will be a major undertaking.

The official London Triathlon website is still as inaccurate and out of date as ever. It claims 3,000 entries with 2,700 turned away -- but we only have a start list of around 2,200 -- and as of this morning it was still showing last year's route maps!! (It's in the Royal Victoria this year and NOT at Canary Wharf.)

Hawaii Ironman lottery slots

One of the apparent quirks of the Hawaii Ironman has just been ironed out with the announcement that 75 lottery slots are to be offered to athletes outside the US. Details are on the website and I expect that the competition will be fierce from Europe given the relative lack of domestic qualifiers available to us.

New editor for 220

John Williams, the current Editor of Triathlete magazine will be taking over at 220 from October with the first issue under his new direction being December's. Lorraine Ferris is staying on at 220 in a new role but, despite a trickle of rumours, it's not entirely clear who will be taking John's place at Triathlete. We've talked with John at length about his plans and they sound excellent so we'll just have to wait for Santa and his Christmas delivery!

Brits abroad (12/13-Sep)

Simon Lessing finished the Iron Tour in 2nd place, just 5 seconds behind Olivier Marceau. Andrew Johns finished 5th overall.

At the ETU Cup in Posadas:

At the ETU Duathlon Cup final Fiona Lothian finished seventh, and finished fourth in the series rankings. Andy Peace finished ninth in the series rankings.

Latest from the Iron Tour

After 6 stages Simon Lessing is up to 2nd, 54 seconds off the leader Olivier Marceau. Andrew Johns has slipped back to 7th.

What happened to Bellfield?

News just in from Ian Pettitt is that Bellfield came out 21st from the swim and had worked his way up to 5th on the bike before he punctured. Apparently at that point he was travelling faster than van Lierde and was very likely to have been out first on the run. Janette Beaton (25-29) & Daphne Belt (55-59) are confirmed as 1998 World Long Course Champions for their age groups.

Iron Tour update

After 5 events Simon Lessing has dropped back to 4th, Andrew Johns 6th. Simon won stage 3 despite getting kicked in the face during the swim start but broke a chain on stage 5.

French Triathlete Editor killed

The newly appointed Editor in Chief for the French Triathlete magazine, Juliette Bastien, was killed in a car crash in France while travelling to the Iron Tour on Monday. Our thoughts go to her family and colleagues.

More results from Sado

Apparently there are some inaccuracies in the results from the ITU World Long Distance Chanpionships at Sado. According to Nobuyasu Narashima, reporting in Wednesdays Triathlon Digest, a better set can be found here.

Results - how we get them

ver the past week there have been a lot of emails regarding results from various events and we thought that it was worth explaining just how we get them - and why we don't get some. In recent months we have had several major events where results were available on the Internet within hours of the finish. Given this, some people want to know, why does it take 4 weeks for the organiser to send out a paper copy? The answer to this can only be given by the organiser - we don't know how or why but we will, where possible, forward on your emails to those organisers.

Where results are available we will generally reproduce them in full as long as we are sent and electronic version. If only paper is available then you'll probably get the top 3 or top 5 and, if we have the time, category winners if they are identified. You might think that this is lazy of us but we do have real jobs to do and if the organiser can't or won't use technology then there's not much we can do about it. To all those organisers who send in results by email or on disk - thank you and please keep on doing it because the readers of these pages love it. If organisers maintain their own web sites we'll generally point there rather than copy because that's what the WWW is designed to do.

Where a major event takes place like an ETU or ITU race or a championship we will try to give you the top 5 or top 10 and all the GB athletes that we can identify. Sometimes this is easy to do and sometimes it's not. Where it isn't we'll generally point you at a website somewhere else that has the results.

As well as the ITU and ETU websites which provide major event results we are also subscribers to Katherine Williams' Triathlon Digest which provides a daily report on the sport from around the world and sites like Extreme Tri. These are invaluable resources for the sport.

Brits abroad

Simon Lessing is holding onto 3rd in the Iron Tour after 3 events, Andrew Johns was holding 6th after 2 but may have improved to 5th - still waiting on an update.

In the European Cup at Brno the ladies pulled off a stunning performance but there's no sign of Tim Don and the ETU website was down this morning. Anyone know?

At the ITU World Long Distance championships in Sado, Japan it looks as though Luc van Leirde is back to form after a string of injuries while Rina Hill seems a hot contender for Hawaii. Steve Belt reports that we did well in the female age groupers but apparently one GB squad member (Sandra Holder) broke her wrist the day before - no details available yet. Full results for the elite at the ITU website (but no age group results).

At Neuchatel Claire Carney, now a GB athlete, finished second behind her Australian sister Emma.

This weekend

While the 5th round of the European Cup may seem a bit of an anti-climax after the Worlds last weekend it seems that the race in Brno may well be seriously exciting for GB athletes. Tim Don, who won the World Junior crown last week, is competing and looking to improve his current second place in the rankings while 8 out of 10 of the leading women from last weekend are also competing. Results will be available at the ETU website.

In France we have the Iron Tour with Simon Lessing warming up for London along with Andrew Johns and a whole bunch of the best that the US and Europe have to offer. The Iron Tour has been won by Simon each year since it's inception and after his success in the Worlds it will be interesting to see if he's peaked or still has enough left to pull another one out of the hat.

Drugs...

Well, someone didn't say NO! The Swiss Triathlon Federation has revealed details of positive results from Olivier Bernhard. Results of samples taken after his win at the ITU Long Distance World Championships at Powerman Zofingen on June 7th 1998 showed thatboth samples contained 3ng each of Norandrosteron and Noretiocholanolon (products of Nondralon) exceeding the limit of 2ng set by IOC. The result of another sample taken 2 weeks after Zofingen was negative.

At a press conference in Zurich Bernhard explained that he had not taken anything, and that he had no idea how the substances found came into his body. He will appeal against the ban to the ITU doping commission. As well as having the wins in Zofingen and Ironman Switzerland discounted he will also be discounted from any event that he took part in since June 7th.

Update from Canada

We have been sent the following email which I feel deserves a mention:

Hi Henry,
At Ironman Canada 30/8/98 ( www.ironman.ca ) run in brutally hot and windy
conditions in Penticton ex BTA and GB team member DAVE "AWESOME" DAWSON
placed 8th pro man and crossed the line 13th overall. So what ? Dave is now
45 yrs old and lost at least 10mins with a flat!!! 9hrs 38mins

Conditions so brutal that only Bustos was under 9hrs - no one ran better
than 3hrs 4mins and only 23 went under 10hrs - last year 103 under 10 hours!!!

Watch out Hellreigl !

Regards, Dave Dawson

It's taken rather longer than it should but here's the list of GB athletes that we could find and, yes, Dave is a Canadian now...

The Worlds, et al

Well, this weekend we've had the 1998 ITU World Championships over Olympic distance at Lausanne in Switzerland and Ironman Canada.

So far the main news is that Simon Lessing has regained his World Champion title and Tim Don took the World Junior title. For convenience here are the top ten and GBR athletes for the mens and womens elite and the mens and womens junior races. We finally trawled through all the age group results for GB athletes and the summary is now available online. Apologies for the delay!

World Duathlon Championships

Full results are available on the ITU website but the summary is as follows:

News from all over

Having been away for ten days there's a bit of catching up to do...

In the Swiss National Championships Andrew Johns placed 2nd and Beth Thompson was 6th in what looks like an ideal preparation for the Worlds at the weekend.

At the Koblenz Triple Super Sprint:

At the World Physically Challenged Champs:

In the World University Championships David Haines placed 9th.

At the FILA Longest Day Julian Jenkinson won the mens in 8:25:22 and Helen Purdy took the womens in 9:46:05.

At the Scottish Nationals Jack Maitland won in 1:50:26 with Steph Forrester taking the ladies in 1:53:41.

Update on Bill Smith

Bill's funeral arrangements have been confirmed as 1.15pm on Tuesday 18th August at Hanworth Crematorium, Hounslow Road, Hanworth, Middlesex. After the service there will be a get-together at the Winning Post - a well-known local pub on the A316 about 1 mile west of the Twickenham Rugby Ground.

Anyone wishing to send cards, flowers or postal messages to Bill's family can mail them to Barbara Smith, 10 Westmacott Drive, Feltham, Middlesex TW14 9RN. John Lunt is also passing on any messages sent by .

Bill Smith passed away

Bill Smith, father of Spencer and well-known in his own right as an outspoken advocate of triathlon, passed away on Sunday August 9th. As many will know he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor last year and subsequently had both operative and radio/chemotherapy.

Almost anyone in the UK triathlon community had, at some point, encountered Bill and I'm sure that all will agree that our world will be a poorer place without him. Our condolences go to Barbara, Spencer and the rest of his family.

Human Race Plus One

John and Nicola Lunt are the proud owners of a new, 1998 model triathlete! James William arrived promptly on Friday and weighed in at 8lb 5oz. Both mother and baby are fine while John is pleased that he now has another guaranteed marshal for his events...

Brits abroad

ITU World Cup - Tiszaujvaros, Hungary (Aug 9)

ETU Triathlon Cup - Echternach, Luxembourg (Aug 9)

ETU Duathlon - Bad Waltersdorf (Aug 9)

ITU World Cup - Corner Brook, Newfoundland (Aug 2)

DNF: Andrew Johns (GBR)

ETU Cup - Sixtus Alpen-Triathlon (Aug 1)

In the ETU Duathlon Cup race at Blumau, a team relay event over 2k 10k 2k, Andy Peace placed 5th in 30:07 and Fiona Lothian placed first in the Ladies (no time).

Brits abroad

Apart from the Goodwill Games in New York last weekend we also have news of Jackie Louis placing 4th in the French Power(wo)man in a time of 4:24:27 against a winning time of 6:06:06 by Paola Lenzi of Italy. Over in the USA at the Bally Total Fitness USTS-Atlanta race Julie Ricketts placed second with the notation GBR/Baton Rouge. (Julie later told us that she's currently over there at university and she's very much a Brit and certainly not an ex-Brit!)

Richard Allen placed 6th at the Frankfurt International in 1:49:12 (Lothar Leder won in 1:48:08). Scott Forbes was 22nd in 1:51:30. For the women, Sian Brice placed 5th in 2:00:59 (Joanne King of Australia won in 1:58:27) with Jessica Harrison 15th in 2:04:48.

Goodwill Games

Ironbridge

Another long, hot and windy day in the Shropshire countryside with a finish to the main event that was a real belter. The wind definitely took its toll on the bike for the bulk of the field but Matthew Bellfield must be made of something that the wind can't see - probably that shirt from the Lanzarote Ironman! Richard Hobson, who practically owns the trophy for this event had to fight hard to first gain and then keep second place.

Results of the Fila Ironbridge Middle Distance Triathlon are as follows: (Course: 2.7km, 90km, 21km)

Results of the BTA National Junior Championships held at Ironbridge are as follows: (Course: 1.5km, 45km, 9km)

Results of the Fila Women Only Ironbridge Triathlon are as follows: (Course: 1.5km, 45km, 9km)

More Brits abroad

The ITU World Cup at Gamagori, Japan was attended by several GB athletes looking to score points to qualify as elite for the World Championships and get ranking for the 2000 Olympics.

Scott Forbes DNFed. Complete results are available at http://www.ny.airnet.ne.jp/nara/

Brits abroad

The big race of the weekend was the European Ironman at Roth. Around 2,500 competitors (including a few personal friends) were entered and the full results are now available through the race website. The ever-efficient Germans have splits, ratings and rankings but they don't have a breakdown by country.

Even more amazing is that when you look at the overall results you find that there are people missing who appear in either the age rankings or show up when you search for their name. Mark Pearce, for example, didn't even do the race! I suspect that something has gone badly wrong in the code that generates their web pages. (This has been confirmed by the webmaster and they are waiting on a reload of the final, verified results.)

For the moment, here's the top 10 male and female and all the GB results that we've been able to find. And quite how several athletes appear in the results twice is even more of a mystery given all the athletes were fitted with the Champion Chip timing system... Apologies if we have missed anybody, it's certainly not deliberate!

European Championships

The GB squad done great! For the full picture see the summary of the results which includes the Juniors (well done Beth and Tim) and the time trial.

Brits abroad: 27/28 June

Spencer Smith guested at the World Military Triathlon Championships in Belgium and duly won in 1:53:17 - the first military athlete was Sylvain Dodet of France in 1:54:06 and the first woman was Brigitte Scheithauer of Germany in 2:19:17. There didn't seem to be any British military in the race lists though...

Beth Thompson finished second at the French Grand Prix in Dunkerque. Her time was 2:10:19, the winning female was Lucy Smith of Canada in 2:09:36 with Sophie Delemer of France taking third in 2:11:00. Michelle Dillon finished 7th in 2:12:45. No GB men in the top 15.

Brits abroad

The ITU World Cup in Zurich marked a return to the podium for Simon Lessing with newly British Andrew Johns taking second place. That's three impressive finishes in three weeks for Johns: Ellesemere, Windsor and Zurich. Emma Carney DNF'd again.

Full results on the ITU website but the highlights are:

Brits were also up and about at the Susz Triathlon on Poland, one of the ETU Cup series. Tim Don finished 4th in the mens with Douglas Smith 12th. Michelle Dillon was 5th in the ladies. Full results should be up on the ETU website.

1998 National Duathlon Championships

Results are now available.

The Big Weekend

The 1998 National Championships at Ellesmere was won by Andrew Johns, one of the British Australians. Full results are available (linked site).

London Region - rules will be enforced

Following a spate of incidents where competitors have flouted traffic light regulations, sometimes in the presence of BTA referees and draftbusters, it has been decided to rigidly enforce the existing rules. London Region gives notice that all breaches of the Road Traffic Act will result in the penalty set out in the Handbook. For those that haven't read the rules, Section 6.5 clearly states that:

Competitors must follow the normal rules of the road, obey all traffic signals and must follow any instructions given by the police. Any infringement of the law and subsequent legal action is the sole responsibility of the competitor.

At all London Region races where there are traffic lights the marshal will be there to take the numbers of any competitor who proceeds on anything other than a green light. The Highway Code clearly states that Red, Red and Amber and Amber lights mean STOP!

The current penalty for an infringement of the Highway Code is set out in the Handbook and Section 13.3.1 (b) confirms that this is a disqualification.

We hope that other Regions around the country will also tighten up on this ruling as it will only take one accident for the Police to consider further restrictions on our sport.