‘Lil Triathletes

Hey, triathlon fans! Bermuda is now officially on the ITU Triathlon map, thanks in no small part to Flora Duffy, Bermuda’s multi-time world champ! Typically there are about 8 races in an ITU World Triathlon Series season, the island played host to the the 2nd race this year. Bermuda had some practice holding an international event last year with the America’s Cup sailing race, and while this event wasn’t quite as big, this race weekend seemed to bring quite a lot of excitement to the island!

It was a little extra exciting for us, too, as we were fortunate to host Canadian triathlete Joanna Brown at our house during her week-long stay for the race! Having one of the elite athletes stay at our place really gave us a sense of being connected to the event. Admittedly, while we were of course fans of hers before she came, it was mainly due to her being a Canadian athlete. Now that we’ve met her and got to know her personally a bit, it’s fair to say that we are huge fans now! The kids loved having here around (as did Jenn and I!), Joanna (now ‘Jo’) enjoyed hanging with them too. She even helped out with their homework! She is generally awesome and was a great house-guest. We hope she comes back to stay next year (yes, the race is scheduled to be back again)!

The event turned out to be more than just a single day of racing, it was planned to be an entire weekend of events, starting with the official opening ceremony on the Thursday, followed by a kids duathlon on Friday before the age-groupers and elite races on Saturday and a lazy swim / hang out at the beach on Sunday. The kids were registered in the Duathlon, so they were invited to walk with all the other participants in the opening ceremony, which was pretty cool. The ceremony culminated with Flora coming out on stage for a quick hello and speech before the event was ‘officially’ opened that evening. The duathlon on Friday was pretty cool, there were lots of kids competing due to the whole festive atmosphere of the weekend, seemed everyone wanted to be involved in some way!

Nice bike!

Dual allegiance

In addition to all the main goings-on, Jenn volunteered to be a ‘TO’ (technical official) for the event, which involved attending several meetings and athlete briefings during the week before. She was assigned to the penalty box and swim start for Saturday’s racing, so she got a good seat for the action (but sadly, she was not allowed to cheer…)!

There was quite a bit of setup involved to make the races happen, which were held in Hamilton. In addition to the spectators’ grandstand erected in the parking lot by the harbour, there was a new (fairly high!) concrete platform constructed along the seawall for the swim, all sorts of raised plywood flooring laid down to smoothly traverse the curbs in the parking lot for the bike transition area, and of course there must have been thousands of square feet of the iconic blue carpet laid over everything in / out of transition and the finish area. Miles of stanchioning must have been put out to keep the course clear, and I heard there was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 700+ volunteers that came together to make it all happen.

Anyway, the big day – Saturday – started with the age group race in the early morning. Jenn wasn’t participating this time around as she was busy being a TO! The men’s race started at 1pm, so the kids and I went down about 45 minutes before to secure our spot for the two elite races, the kids donned in their familiar “Go Flora Go” t-shirts and I in my newly-minted “Go Jo Go” shirt! The crowds were decent for the men’s race, but everyone was there for Flora of course, so before the women’s race at 4pm the number of spectators ballooned and the place was electric!

the Champ!

As far as the actual races go, they were pretty exciting, it was cool to see in person for sure. We were following the coverage on the phone when the action wasn’t nearby so we could see where the leaders were, using landmarks as they zoomed by on the screen. The men’s race ended with a surprising 1-2-3 finish by the Norwegians, which was cool – doubt that’s happened many times before! The women’s race was won by Flora in a dominating performance, she used the home crowd to her advantage and killed it! She had the fastest times in all three disciplines, a feat never before done by a woman in the event! She started distancing herself from her competitors on the bike section, she just pulled away on Corkscrew Hill and didn’t look back. Jo had a great race, too, she finished 10th after doing a lot of hard work pulling the chase pack around the course on the bike! A fun race to watch.

After the race, we stuck around for a few photos with Flora and were happy to find Jo for a hug and a photo too! 🙂 Jo’s parents were down as well and she was going to stay with them after the race, so while we were sad to have to share, we’ll just have to look forward to a possible visit this summer and if not, the next ITU Bermuda!

Finally, we were lucky the rain that was threatening for the entire weekend held off until Sunday – they cancelled the ‘hangover swim’, but we didn’t mind! Fun times, looking forward to this time next year!