ITU World Champions, Alison Patrick and Lauren Steadman won gold medals in Geneva’s ETU European Championships in their respective Paratriathlon categories.
Patrick, who is visually impaired, was ably guided by Hazel Smith to win the PT5 category and Britain’s Melissa Reid won bronze behind her. Patrick was the strongest swimmer and only stretched her lead from there.
She said: “We had a really good swim today. That’s where I’m making gains, but we had the fastest bike split, which I wasn’t getting last year so that shows how well Hazel and I are working together.
“It’s amazing to be British, world and European champion for now and Hazel was so happy to win a first major title. It is really helping both of us that we are able to train together. We just know what each other are doing.
Lauren Steadman led a British clean sweep of the podium in the PT4 category. Steadman, Faye McClelland and Clare Cunningham repeated their finishing order from last year’s ITU world championships and underlined their dominance in this category.
Steadman used her Paralympic swimming background to set herself up for another international gold medal, still at just 22 years old.
She said: “My swim was good, I found a rhythm. Overall it was really good, but I would like to improve on the bike a bit. I knew the other British girls would be hot on my heals, it’s great for Britain to get the top three, it’s great for the team.”
Like Patrick, Steadman is now British, European and world champion. She added: “I’m really happy to have all of the titles, but you’re never certain about what’s round the corner, you can never settle for where you are.”
Phil Hogg won Britain’s other medal, initially thought to be bronze in the PT1 (wheelchair) category, but later upgraded to silver following a disqualification. Andy Lewis demonstrated big improvements in the PT2 category to just miss out on bronze by 0.19seconds.
British Triathlon Performance Director, Brendan Purcell, said: “It was an outstanding performance by the squad. You can see from the performance levels that we’re just a year away from Rio now; the standard was really impressive from a lot of athletes so it was tough, but we have come away with good results.”
Great Britain Paratriathlon results, Geneva ETU Paratriathlon European Championships, 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run:
Gold
Lauren Steadman, PT4
Alison Patrick, PT5 (guided by Hazel Smith)
Silver
Phil Hogg, PT1
Faye McClelland, PT4
Bronze
Clare Cunningham, PT4
Melissa Reid, PT5 (guided by Nicole Walters)
Full results HERE.
