The DAT Awards Night may have been and gone for 2012 but after the wrap I gave it last year I thought I had to do the same again for this year. But even before I get into that I will tempt your tastebuds with what could only be described as one of the most hyped up speeches for the evening! Myself and Angus Gibson were to give a wrap-up of the entire high performance season and with performances including local victories, National Championship medals in both the schools categories and junior elite series, ITU Continental Cup victories, World Series Events and everything humorous in between it took quite the effort to pen an entertaining yet informative five pages. However, little did we know that this wasn't to be and we were both put on the spot at different times during the evening to give impromptu speeches about little to do about what we had prepared and while these speeches were on all accounts very impressive, I thought it only fair to acknowledge the performances of everyone in the high performance squad and of course Angus and myself for our speech writing efforts by sharing a somewhat altered version of what we prepared...
Dan’s always said that his report cards for the season are both Noosa and Mooloolaba so we thought it only made sense to use these two races as our guide of what to talk about. But it would be unfair not to mention a few special performances that occurred pre-Noosa at the end of last year. It’s hard to look past Holly who only finished off the podium once before Christmas and even that result was a 4th place finish. These results included a 3rd place at Raby Bay early in the season, a 2nd place at the Toorbul Triathlon and a 1st place at the Robina Triathlon. Toorbul was another special occasion for the DAT team with both the girls and boys finishing 1st through to 4th.
Noosa was the first big indication of how things were going for us this season and it provided some very promising signs for the rest of the season. In the elite race Ryan not only finished in a very impressive 5th place but also collected the Luke Harrop Bursary and Nick finished in 14th. In the open category we had Brayden in 2nd position that also meant he could get his pro-licence, Tom in 3rd and also in the medical tent straight after the finish with the drip for his recovery and Luke in 5th position.
A short 3 weeks after Noosa Ryan was set to race in one of the biggest world cup races of the year over in Auckland. This is the course that a lot of you will be racing on later this year and if his result is anything to go by, it’s safe to say that Dan’s training methods are well and truly on track. For me this race was truly spine tingling stuff, especially after training with Ryan ever since we both started in the sport way back in 2005. To watch Ryan cross the line in 3rd was amazing and has to go down as one of our top 5 performances for the season. And to put this result into perspective, Ryan was only the second Australian to finish on the podium of a world cup race all season with the other being Brad Kahledfeldt at Mooloolaba.
For the ITU juniors the journey began on the Gold Coast at the super sprint weekend, which consisted of 3 days of intense racing. DAT Racing was well represented with Tom, Luke, Jake, Holly, Emily and Angus all taking to the start line on Friday afternoon. After a number of time trials the sprint triathlons began and after some gutsy racing in a strong field Tom Ryan and Luke Farrell ended up in the A grade final racing off against the top 16 men. Both finished strongly and looked to have promising starts to the season. Jake Freeman, the youngest of the junior athletes racing showed his talent and strength over the weekend after fracturing his wrist on the Friday and continued on to race in the B final showing up a number of older athletes. The girls, like the boys races, were some of the most courageous and toughest seen. With another strong field both Emily and Holly qualified for the A grade final. With an attack of the front, Holly put herself in a good position and ended up in spectacular second place putting her in 4th place overall, off the podium by a mere 1.5 points for the weekend. Emily raced phenomenally as well finishing 5th out of the 16 girls in the A final, leaving her in 6th position overall for the weekend.
There was little rest of the Christmas period for any of us, even by-passing any New Year celebrations to be up riding the next morning. This was followed by a weeklong training camp at the Farrell Ranch which we must again thank the Farrell’s for their hospitality and also Mandy Freeman for her care packages for Jake that he made the mistake of leaving open for the rest of us. On the training side of things we covered upwards of 25km in the pool, 500km on the bike and close to 100km of running throughout the week which was made even more enjoyable thanks to some of the somewhat unorthodox recovery methods that some of us enjoyed on a nightly basis.
Next on the calendar for the junior elites was Canberra, venturing to the capital for a heated day of racing. This was the first full race in the junior elite series. With everyone set to perform, the girls hit the water first with wetsuits a must. The race was fairly close with all the girls coming together on the bike, it came down to who had the quickest legs on the day with Emily placing second in what would be her last junior race for the season due to injury but finished in style with a great performance and earned herself a spot in our top 5 performances for the season. Holly also had another blinder of a race finishing 5th place. The boys managed to miss the wetsuits by a couple of degrees so they frolicked in the cold water for a bit before heading off. The race was quick to begin with but with the bike being such a quick course the top contenders came together in the main pack with most of the DAT athletes pushing the pace. In the end it came down to a runners’ race again with such a flat course. In the end Tom placed a solid 10th, Luke came in at 13th. The next day Angus and Holly backed up for the age group world championship qualifying race which was not a welcome sight after such a tough race the previous day. We both finished on the podium with Holly taking out the Australian Championship.
The Caloundra was the next race for some of us where Ryan battled all the way to the finish with Courtney Atkinson to narrowly finish second. In the other race the girls again dominated with Sarah taking out the win and Emily backing up from her outstanding performance in Canberra to again finish in second. On the boy’s side of things Jake led as much of the race as he could, being forced to pull out at the beginning of the run due to injury.
Brayden and Nick then moved on to Geelong to tackle the National Sprint Distance Championships and were lining up with close to 70 others guys. Brayden finished the race in 26th position and Nick came in 41st. We were also joined by a host of age groupers for this trip and I was going to mention Courtney’s 4th place finish but I’ve realized that this was actually her lowest finish of the season so we’ll leave it there…
While the ITU junior races are the pinnacle of elite junior triathlon, for school aged kids the national titles are just as important they are what many strive for, as did the older high performance athletes when they were younger. This year 4 DAT athletes made their way to Busselton to compete. Their training paid off as Britt, Sophie, Wyatt and Billy all performed to their expectations. The boys finished well with Billy 20th and Wyatt 14th but again the two girls dominated the field showing their talent with Sophie placing third and Brittany taking out the national title again 2 years in a row this was an exceptional achievement as they were both racing against girls their own age as well as girls a year older and it is for this reason that Britt has taken out a spot in our top 5 performances.
Devonport was the next stop on the high performance calendar and with Olympic qualification on the line it also drew one of the highest quality fields in Australia in some time. We were strongly represented in all of the races with Holly and Anna lining up in the junior girls, Tom, Luke and Angus in the junior boys, Sarah in the elite women and Brayden, Ryan and Nick in the elite men. Unfortunately Emily’s injury kept her away from the start line but she still made the trip and was privileged enough to hear the Kangaroo and the Emu speech courtesy of that so many Australian elites have been witness to. Anna was the standout in the junior women’s race to finish in 7th place and in the junior men Luke had a great race to finish 7th in a very tough field.
And after such a long season, Mooloolaba was to be one of our final races before a much earned break. I could sum this race up very quickly because without doubt the race of the day that went to Sarah as she claimed her first international victory in the continental cup and also a spot in our top 5 performances of the year. In other results, Tom again pushed himself to the limit and again found himself in the medical tent at the finish which seems to be a bit of a trend for him and Maddi finished 3rd in the open women’s race.
As I’m sure all of you are well aware the performances haven’t stopped since Mooloolaba but I’ll keep it strictly triathlon related because if I have to go in to too much detail I’ll have to reveal the event where Maddi managed to defeat myself, Tom and Ryan. And although Ryan couldn’t be with us here tonight we couldn’t finish this speech without mentioning not only his debut in the highest level of triathlon racing in the world series event in Sydney but also his race in Jiaguyan last weekend where he won his first continental cup in convincing fashion and is now based in France for the next few months in the lead up to see him hopefully qualify for the U23 world champs in Auckland. We also have Sarah heading over to Japan next week to compete in a few Continental Cups and Luke heading over to USA for a Continental Cup but we’re not sure whether Luke’s more excited about the actual race or the cowboy hats and dancing! And Holly and Emily also heading over to Japan later in the season for their first dabble in international competition. Both of these girls have also recently been named in the 6 girl ITU junior elite squad to be later cut down to 3 before Auckland.
So that basically wraps up the season from a high performance point of view and if anyone has been paying attention we only ever mentioned 4 of our top 5 performances for the season, mainly because with so many overseas races coming up and with Auckland high on so many peoples priority list we are sure there will be more memorable moments capable of filling this 5th position.
But apart from the great achievements of all the high performance athletes this season, without the help from Dan, Craig, Nathan and everyone else in this club that has shown interest or support in what we are trying to achieve, this season could not have been done. I’m sure I speak for all of us in saying thank you for a great season and I hope you enjoy the cold, dark, long mornings ahead.
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