Athletes come out smiling

Strong winds and a slightly choppy ocean greeted competitors at this year’s Cable Beach Be Active triathlon held recently.

A wide field of competitors, ranging from first-timers and novices to elite triathletes, plunged into the ocean at 7am to test their skills against the elements in one of the world’s fastest growing sports.

Local competitor Oskar Booth finished off a successful winter season in a blistering one hour, two minutes, adding the men’s sprint category to his haul of medals from recent events, closely followed by Jarod Adams and Phil McGee.

In the women’s sprint, Katy Duffield raced home in her usual style, leaving the rest of the men’s and women’s fields in her wake, in one hour, six minutes.

Donna Jamieson and Paula Charlton put in impressive performances to finish second and third, with a strong female contingent behind them.

In the shorter “enticer” category, competition was particularly stiff in the women’s field with five competitors finishing within three minutes of each other.

Simone Fountain backed up a superb swim with a strong ride and run to take the category nearly two minutes ahead of Deb Mills and Chantelle Groenenberg.

The men’s field was led by Scott Beatty in a winning time of 30 minutes 36 seconds, with Joe Handscombe and Simon Penn in second and third respectively.

The team category attracted some respected athletes in their individual specialty sports and was shaping up to be a well fought competition.

Special mention to Jack Castellarin for being first out of the water, but in the end Team Peacock kept Catchyup at bay to come home in one hour, seven minutes. Broome Triathlon Club would like to thank all the volunteers and sponsors who generously gave their time and resources to enable this event to take place once again.

The club holds regular training all year so if you have caught the triathlon bug, come down to one of the sessions, visit www.broometriclub.myclub.org.au or like the club on Facebook to find out more.