Chris Goodwin (Tri-6a) was the first athlete across the line finishing in 01:00.22. The current world champion was delighted to retain his British title and impressed by the Rockingham Motor Racing Circuit commenting: “It’s nice to get a victory under my belt this early in the season and it bodes well for the rest of the year. 

 

Chris continued: “It’s a really nice venue and of course the weather is lovely today - the crowd always make a difference. Anyone who has done any kind of running, even small runs when there’s a crowd always knows that a little bit of clapping and cheering, especially from family really spurs you on and gives you that little extra bit of speed.”

 

Melissa Reid (Tri-6b) was the first female across the line finishing in a time of 01:07.13, successfully defending her British title won in 2013.

 

Melissa commented: “Today, I just purely wanted to keep the title. We managed to come in on the run in a fairly decent time so I’m happy with that considering it’s the first race of the season; we finished off pretty much where we were last year.”

 

The list of athletes who retained their British honours continued as Joe Townsend (Tri-1) delivered a dominant performance at Rockingham Motor Racing Circuit. 

 

Joe was delighted with the win commenting: “It feels fantastic to be honest. I started my winter training late so to get back into the season and to come back and retain my title is fantastic. It just shows I haven’t lost too much over the winter and it shows I’m in good stead to go into this season and hopefully will do well. My next race is going to be Yokohama in Japan, I’m taking most of my team out there to try and get some points for the Europeans. Hopefully that will be a good start for the season and we’ll move on from there.”

 

Alongside, Britain’s world-class athletes, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson DBE was also racing having only competed in a single triathlon prior to today’s event. 

 

Sadly for Tanni a mechanical meant that she was unable to complete the full course, however the 11-time Paralympic gold medallist was impressed with the event and found it inspiring to race alongside so many top athletes commenting: “As my first duathlon it was really good fun. Technically, I’m going to be disqualified as I didn’t quite finish the bike lap but I just wanted to finish the chair - I didn’t quite do the right distance but it is so hard to do a duathlon, full credit to everyone who does it because it’s a really hard distance to race over.”

 

She continued: “It was an amazing feeling doing it, and there is really good camaraderie amongst all the athletes. I was getting past by guys on bikes and they were all saying ‘well done, keep going’, and that’s really nice that you have the kind of camaraderie.”

 

For full results from the paraduathlon race, please visit www.britishtriathlon.org