Imperial Dominates Duathlon with VeloPark Victories

The morning started with an alarm sounding at 6:30AM – not a particularly cruel time for a triathlete, but for many students it was a relaxed Sunday morning lie-in. Undeterred by the rain and forecast thunderstorms, they made their way over to the Velopark in Stratford. Travelling on the tube with a non-folded bicycle was experienced for the first time by many, with a few hardy members seeking to save themselves the hassle and cycle the twelve miles to Stratford instead. Imperial Triathlon had twelve teams of three entered into the competition, which meant that just shy of half the field was filled with Imperial’s finest.

Many of the Imperial athletes had never done a duathlon before, with most coming from a background in only one of the triathlon holy trinity of swimming, cycling or running. Some had never raced running or on a bike before (special mention goes to Liv Papaioannou who was unable to change gear for the first two laps of her bike leg), and many had never done a triathlon transition before – yet everyone learnt on the job and finished the race!

Despite the course being suitably saturated with water, the rain fortunately held off for the start of the race. The duathlon consisted of a two mile run, six mile cycle, one mile run for each person, meaning the team of three would complete the one-mile circuit a total of 27 times.

The first leg began at 9:30, starting with the run. Pre-race hype combined with thinking the course was shorter than it was (figure-of-eight courses can be deceiving) meant pacing among the front-runners was somewhat optimistic. After two laps of the course the first few entered the transition area, which can either make or break a multi-event race.

This time everyone passed through transition without trouble and mounted their bikes without hiccup or hesitation. Six bike laps were next on the agenda for the duathletes, with the wet conditions and tight corners making this a relatively technical ride.

Yet with thunderous support from the crowd, Imperial were dominating.

IC were holding first place in the men’s, mixed and women’s teams. Club captain Edmund Jones was first into the final transition of the first leg athletes, where he (and everyone behind him) now faced another run. Mercifully this run was half the distance of the first.

The first-timers to duathlon quickly noticed that running after cycling is much more difficult than running before cycling, and the phenomena known as ‘heavy-leg syndrome’ was experienced by all.

With the expected downpour still to materialise, the relay transitions began to occur, at which point everything became a lot more confusing. As competitors were at different stages of the race it was not really clear who was beating who, or which lap they were on, which made for some unexpected surprises later on. Imperial’s ‘all the gear and no idea’ team featuring Edmund Jones, Ed Clark, and Romain (the Rocket) Barnoud thought they had the win in the bag when they were over one lap ahead of 2nd place. Only problem was the 2nd place team (which were sadly not Imperial) were actually on the same lap and it became apparent the men’s race was going to come down to a photo-finish.

Romain was living up to his nickname on the bike with his fastest lap averaging 38km/h, but it was only just enough – Imperial came out on top with a two-second win in a staggering time of 1:45:50. The women’s race was still led by Marion Artigaud, Marena Gray and Alex Mundell who held their lead and ended up winning the race.

The club wishes to give a special mention to the fastest freshers Angus Philips and Emma Walsh, who both produced star performances despite learning it all on the go.

The fastest mixed team went to Greg Jones, Fergus Johnson (who had the fastest run split of the day), and Liv Papaioannou. After the first few teams had finished, everyone gathered together to cheer the remaining duathletes, with a particularly ebullient applause for the last runner to finish.

With everyone home and dry, the medal ceremony followed. With such breadth and depth in the Imperial cohort it was no surprise that they took home more than their fair share of medals, with six Imperial teams appearing in the top ten.

The team then began the long journey home – tired, proud, and in want of a shower. Overall, a highly successful outing for Imperial Triathlon both in terms of experience gained and medals won.

The next duathlon is Hillingdon Duathlon on Sunday 11th November, email the club account traithlon@imperial.ac.uk if you want to join in the fun!