On 31st August, the West Midlands took 11 athletes to the IRCs

On 31^st August, the West Midlands took 11 athletes to the IRCs.  The event took place at Dorney Lake, Eton (a leading venue for senior and elite triathlon events) and really gave the young athletes an opportunity to feel what it is like to compete on a grand stage. Dorney Lake was also the venue for the Rowing and Kayak events in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. 

The athletes represented a good spread of triathlon clubs from within the West Midlands.

All of the team gave it their all, and helped the West Midlands Region achieve 8^th place overall.  We were one team member down, as Ellie Russell could not make the event late in the day, therefore, the pressure was on for each of our athletes to finish, gaining as many places as they could along the way!

The most remarkable achievements of the day were the team’s two 5^th place finishers - Connor Bentley and Molly Shermer.  However, several of the team members are a year young and will have benefited enormously by their participation this year. 

All races were high performance drafting events and the youngsters even experienced a pontoon start!  A first for many and our triathletes performed outstandingly

Team Manager Mel Humphreys stated that; “This is the highest calibre event within the triathlon season for our TS2 and TS3 triathletes.  Many participants are still very new to the sport and several will be in the same age group next year.  All of our triathletes will have gained enormously from this experience, performance wise they were superb in their effort and did the WM proud!”.