Triathlon NSW Club Championship Results and Analysis

On a damp but still day the Warringah club from Sydneys northern beaches were able to hold off strong challenges from Hills and Balmoral to retain the  Compressport Triathlon NSW Club Championship for a record 4th time.

In it’s last year at Port Stephens the event saw 900 athletes and 27 clubs battle it out for club honours, with personal goals and achievements for once being a secondary consideration. The end result was remarkably  similar to last year with the top three clubs being Warringah, Hills and Balmoral, and the top three country clubs being Central Coast (Mingara), Coffs  Harbour and Port Macquarie.   In fact the only significant change in the top 8 was the rise of BRATS and the fall of  Cronulla.

Warringah are a strong club who have clearly worked out the key to this event – at least one strong athlete in every age group. Like Warringah the Hills club had good coverage across the age groups, but did not have the depth of quality to quite get them over the line. Hills once again had the largest number of athletes at the event, and surely their day will come soon.

Balmoral arguably had the greatest depth in terms of quality of athletes, boasting 5 out of the top 11 finishers, but were unable to provide  competitors particularly in the  youth age groups, costing them dear.

The fastest man on the day was Christian Kemp from HERT who finished two and a half minutes ahead of the rest of the field. Cronulla’s Matt Williams   in the 15-17 age group posted the second fastest time of the day, ahead of Matthew Craft also of Cronulla and Balmoral’s Pete Schokman. Matt Willliams is surely a star of the future.

In the woman’s field Anel Stewart, Christelle Van Niekerk (both Balmoral)  and Anna Cleaver and Caroline Sweeny (both BRATS) all failed to start leaving Sophia Amor-Smith (Balmoral) to romp home two minutes clear of Central Coast’s Suzanne Chandler and Angie Sharp.

Next year the event is scheduled to be held in Forster on the 3rd weekend in May to avoid a clash with Ironman Port Macquarie. The new location will allow an expanded field of up to 1,200 athletes. With BRATS seemingly on the road to recovery having lost so many members to the HERT club in the last two seasons, they could once again become the club to beat.