David Pawsey give us a run down of the East Grinstead Triathlon that happened last weekend and tells us how the South East Regional Series is standing.

This year’s East Grinstead Triathlon provided beautiful sunshine if not challenging racing conditions in the scorching heat.

Overall honours were taken in the main sprint race by Sam Begg, of 7oaks Tri Club, in a highly impressive time of 1 hr 6 mins and 32 seconds. Taking second place overall, and first place in the V40 age group, was Paul Savage who once again made the long journey down from Manchester Triathlon Club.

First female across the line in the sprint race was Catherine Linney, also of 7oaks Tri Club, who took 20th place overall with a time of 1 hr 17 mins and 56 seconds. In second place amongst the ladies, and winning the female V50 age category, was Ruth Hutton of South London Harriers.

As we know triathlon appeals to all ages and abilities with many taking part in their first ever event, particularly those in the Ladies Try-a-Tri and the Youth Sprint. Congratulations to Kate Monk who put in a particularly impressive cycle to take first place in the Try-a-Tri with a time of 50 mins and 20 seconds.

Someone we can expect to see tearing up the sprint race in years to come is Hugo Hewitt, who took first place in the Youth Sprint in just 40 mins and 30 seconds. Another name we can expect to hear more of in the future is Louise Flynn, who took second place overall in the Youth Sprint and was the first female across the line in a tightly fought pack.

Regardless of which event you were taking part in, getting round the course was an achievement in itself on such a hot day. However, we suspect some may have been celebrating more than others after the event with a number of competitors choosing to mark their birthday’s by pushing themselves to the limit – so happy birthday to those who like to spend their birthday getting sweaty in lycra!

Triathlon is all about personal challenges and motivations so we would also like to make a special mention to Steve Marwood who took part in the Sprint race. Steve was taking on the ninth of 40 sporting challenges, in a bid to raise £40,000 for charity, as he turns 40 this year. To help Steve achieve his goal you can donate by visiting his website www.steves40for40.com.

It takes true grit and determination for any of us to train for, and get round a triathlon course, especially in the blistering conditions we saw yesterday. However, few of us have shown the courage to take part in such a challenge just two months after finishing treatment for cancer. So congratulations and an immense amount of respect to Helen Newman who took on the Ladies Try-a-tri after winning a more important battle.

We’d like to thank you ALL for taking part and hope to see you next year. If you haven’t already checked your time you can do so here. We would also love to see your photos of the event so please send them to web@egtri.com.

If this year’s challenge was all about setting a time to beat next year, then why not join www.egrtri.com? As we like to think we demonstrated on race day, we are a friendly, supportive club and welcome members of all abilities so would love to see you at there.

Stuart Beevor lets us know how those results affect the Series! 

The Senior Race Series provisional points awarded based on the results, which have been analysed in the attached file, are: