Ancil Greene successfully reclaimed his title as national champion when he finished in an outstanding mark of just over two hours and two minutes at the National Duathlon Championships, which ran off at the Queen's Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, on Sunday.
While there are no officially held world and national records in triathlons (as courses vary), certain benchmarks are issued, of which Greene came particularly close to achieving.
In T&T, the benchmark for a standard duathlon of a 10km run, 40km ride and another 5km run, is two hours, while the one-hour time is the juniors' benchmark for a sprint distance.
Greene finished the event in 2:02:49.00 to take the win, while national junior champion Avinash Anamalay made an impressive sprint to the finish in a time of 59:36.00. The mark saw Anamalay become the first local junior duathlon athlete to crack the one-hour benchmark.
The race was started just after the scheduled time by the mayor of Port-of-Spain, Louis Lee Sing, who offered the athletes encouraging words to see them off.
After the juniors did that lap twice and the seniors four times it was time to hit the road with the bike, and accompanied by police motorcycles, the athletes set out and did their laps around the Savannah.
After less than an hour, Anamalay made the benchmark finish with Kent Costa (40-49 age division) a considerable distance behind in 1:09:24 and junior athlete Joshua Ho with an impressive 1:09:49.
In the junior female category Rene Chin Lee seized her first national title as a duathlete in a time of 1:17:56. This is her second title for the month as she also has won the Tri de Spice Triathlon a week prior. Behind her was Chelsea Mohammed in 1:32:29.
In the standard distance, Greene placed first, followed by runner-up Kirk Hearn (2:06:59) and Jonah Camps (2:07:53) for third.
The standard race for women was dominated by veteran Diane Henderson, who won it in 2:47:04.
Henderson has given the federation a challenge trophy for the first-placed female duathlete in the standard distance to encourage athletes to step up to the challenge and go for the distance. Henderson handed the trophy to second-placed finisher Thais Gutierrez as she refused to keep it for herself.
The third-placed finisher in the women's division was Iola Pierto (3:09:54).
The other winners included Sebastian Bos (13-15 years, 1:04:46), Lily Stauble (1:11:41), Jean-Mark Granderson (11-12 years, 51:47:00), Daniyelle Bennett (11-12 years, 1:12:32), Stefan Stuven (9-10 years, 32:28:00), Sarah Godfrey (9-10 years, 36:00), James Castagne-Hay (7-8 years, 9:09) and Sherise Mason (7-8 years, 13:58).
The event was sponsored by GNC, Blue Waters, Subway, Gatorade, Normandie Hotel and Bike Inn.
It was an accident-free competition hosted by the T&T Triathlon Federation (TTTF), which is working toward its next challenge, the continuation of the KeepFit on May 19, to be held in Chaguaramas.
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