Competitors take it to extremes

Geraldton Triathlon Club started a new race series for the 2017-18 season — the Geraldton Bikes Double Up series.

The format was started as an experiment and has an extreme twist.

The shortest enticer distance features a 300m swim, 7km cycle leg followed by a 2km run.

Athletes attempting the enticer who complete the course then do the whole thing again without stopping.

Triathletes who sign up for the long course race do the whole triathlon three times in a row with no breaks between — three swims, three rides and three runs.

The racing is fast, furious, exciting and ultimately exhausting — both to watch and attempt.

It has also been very popular, and this Sunday was the last and deciding race of three.

In the one-lap female enticer race, positions were close, but Katie Taylor showed the results of her training, posting the fastest cycle time and finishing first in front of fast new members Annica Calitz and Rhonda Hermensen.

Andrew Blackburn showed experience and hard work pay off by posting the fastest times in all three legs, beating the chasing Kerry Pile and Gavin Pearse for line honours in the male enticer.

In the double-lap short course event, best friends and training partners Nic Eyres and Nic McKenna battled each other to decide the “fastest Nic”.

But neither could catch young gun Wade Cuthbert, who dominated the swim leg en route to victory.

Eyres was the “quickest Nic” in second. It was great to see Mel Chamberlain with a professional and faultless performance in the female short course, taking the win with an almost 10-minute margin from Lucy Osbourne and Chloe Spence, both of whom are often first finishers.

In the even more extreme triple-lap male long course, a great swim from Troy Gildersleeve catapulted him into the lead, leaving the rest of the field chasing. The long race wore competitors down, but Gildersleeve raced well for the win, beating Ben Freer and Ben Smit, who took second and third place respectively.

Mikaelha Byrnes showed incredible form in Sunday’s female triple-lap race.

Byrnes, completing in the event in the her lead-up to the upcoming long-course triathlon race in Busselton, beat almost all the male competitors to take the win from a fast and competitive Maz Hearne. In third place was Jess Wake, who started triathlon this season and posted some great times.

The points will be tallied and the series winners announced at the triathlon club’s wind-up next month, with racing back to less crazy distances in two weeks after an Easter bye.