Stimpson and Hayes Do the Double

---

Jodie Stimpson and Stuart Hayes took a double successive victory in the British Triathlon Super Series with Jodie completing the course in the fastest time in the event’s 19 year history.

The exciting action unfolded under the steps and surrounding grounds of Windsor Castle, Eton and alongside the majestic river Thames with perfect weather providing optimum race conditions.

The Nokia Windsor Triathlon was the third of five events which make up the British Triathlon Super Series and hosted a dominant display by last week’s winner at Blenheim, Jodie Stimpson.

As the race unfolded Stimpson came out of the swim leg with one of her closest rivals in the overall Super Series classification, Non Stanford. However, once they got into the bike leg, Stimpson began to assert her dominance and enhance her credentials as overall winner creating almost a seven minute gap on her rival.

As Stanford faded to finish with a time of 2:11.12, Jill Parker of London Tri took advantage narrowly beating her to the line. Jill had the race of her life and achieved her best elite result to date claiming the runner-up spot just five seconds ahead of Stanford with a time of 2:11.07.

While her rivals battled it out for second, Stimpson led from the start leaving the rest of the field in her wake finishing in 2:03.21 - breaking the course record by 33 seconds, previously held by Helen Tucker in 2006.

Jodie commented: “I am delighted with my performance today, it was a beautiful course out there and a great race - I loved it. I’ve been training very hard and it worked out really well for me today.�

Jodie will retain the top spot in the British Triathlon Super Series adding to her victory at Blenheim and third placed finish at the inaugural race of the series in Strathclyde Country Park back in May.

The men’s race was a much closer affair with, Stuart Hayes one of the favourites going into the men’s race and last weeks Blenheim winner taking the honours in great style but not without pressure.

Hayes led from the start following a swim time of 19:02, and together with Mike Adams and Ollie Freeman (who was later forced to drop out), headed off with a 45 second lead. However the chasing pack, led by former professional cyclist Bryan Keane soon made up the gap leaving it all to play for on the run.

Hayes pulled away on the run with current steeplechase National Champion and recent National Age Group Sprint Triathlon and National Duathlon Champion, Adam Bowden close behind. Bowden closed the gap but couldn’t quite do enough and Hayes took the victory in 1:52.14 with Bowden only thirteen seconds behind and Bryan Keane crossed the line in third in 1:53.19.

Stuart commented: “I was pushed much harder than I expected, the weather was hot, but it was the competition that pushed me to my limits today. We all worked together hard on the bike but it’s the run that matters and both Bowden and Keane are International runners so I had to pull out all the stops.�

Amongst the sell out field of age group competitors, was double Olympian James Cracknell, who completed the Olympic distance (1500m swim/42k bike/10K run) as part of his training for the ETU Triathlon European Championships in Holland next month. He finished in an impressive third place and 17th overall in a time of 2:10:27.

For full results please visit our offical results partner, tri247.com.