License Email Print Increase Decrease Reset Comments

Triathlon records crumble
Olly Piggin, Rachel McBride win 12th edition

Many triathletes consider the swim the most difficult portion of a race, including this year’s winner Olly Piggin, who responded to troubled waters by burning up the bike and run to break the record for best overall time at the 12th Annual Squamish Triathlon: A Memorial to Bob McIntosh on Sunday (July 5).

Piggin was in 10th place and feeling sluggish emerging from Alice Lake, but a record-breaking 37-kilometre cycle of 56 minutes put him in second place behind Facundo Chernikoff after the run transition. The Penticton native pounded the Cheekye Fan trails to gain the lead at the end of the first of two five-kilometre laps and finished in one hour 54 minutes 38 seconds.

“Off the get-go I didn’t have a lot of gas in the tank,” said Piggin, who was coming off racing an Ironman in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, two weeks prior.

“My strength is the bike/run combo so I tried to expend as little energy as I could during the swim and turned up the heat from there. I reeled in a couple guys on the bike and reeled in the leader at the end of the first lap and just kept pushing.”

Vancouver’s Chernikoff also beat the previous overall record of one hour 56 minutes 37 seconds set by Andrew Russell in 2006 by 14 seconds to take the runner-up spot. With a hip injury slowing his running legs, Chernikoff knew he had to give it everything on the 1,500-metre swim and the bike, he said. He won the swim but started losing ground soon after.

“It still got me second place so I’m pretty happy about it,” he said.

Rachel McBride of Vancouver also concentrated on strong swimming and cycling due to running-related injuries. Her focus on two-wheels paid off. McBride earned the best women’s time thanks, in part, to a record-setting pedal of one hour four minutes six seconds. She beat Melanie McQuaid’s record cycling time from last year by eight seconds.

McBride said it’s easy to compete on such a beautiful course.

“Racing in Squamish is fantastic. The bike course is awesome, swimming in Alice Lake is unbelievable, and the run course, too. It’s great to be running in the woods on the trails instead of on hot concrete.”

Vancouver’s Susanne Russell and Britni Bakk of Point Roberts, Washington, placed second and third.

Squamish Triathlon veteran Chris Bishop earned the best local time of two hours 11 minutes 21 seconds by pushing through a difficult swim section and gaining time on the bike. He finished 17th overall.

“I think I started too fast and I got all anxious and flustered,” he said. “But I made up some time on the bike, for sure, and passed a lot of people.”

Amy Caldwell earned the best local female time by holding steady through all three sections, she said. She placed 32nd overall with a time of two hours 19 minutes 58 seconds.

While 273 individual triathletes were entered in the event, 54 relay teams shared the work. Whistler’s The Route of Evil squad of Munro Duncan, Greg MacDonnel and Craig Johnson beat out last year’s winning team The Incredibles, which settled for second and is made up of locals Vlasta Dusil, Louie Soave and Roger Shirt.

Fellow local team Mike Charuk, Jason Ross and Mike Truelove finished third.

One of the youngest competitors was 10-year-old Mamquam Elementary student Otis Geddes, who completed the 10-kilometre run for team TGO after his dad Graham took care of the biking.

Geddes is used to running cross-country through school but the longer course was an extra challenge. He plans on taking part again in the future and hopes to someday compete as an individual racer. He said the relay was a great way to get introduced to the sport.

“Most people are just out to have fun.”

License Email Print Increase Decrease Reset Comments

Comments

Be the first to comment!