Youth Drafting Dorney Supersprint Triathlon, Eton

25th June 2006 (17 years and under)

Report by Les Watson

An unfortunate clash of nominated Welsh selection events this weekend resulted in Luke Watson feeling compelled to partake in the Dorney Supersprint Triathlon on Sunday 25th June back to back with his home Pembs Junior Tri the day before. A mad dash down the M4 on Saturday afternoon after the Pembs event, a large plate of gammon and chips and a restless night in a Travel Lodge with a snoring parent (allegedly) might not be considered best preparation for a high profile race such as the Supersprint. Nevertheless, Sunday brought a fine day and sufficient rest had been taken to bring a degree of confidence that the horrible ending in the British Champs could be avenged.

Two surprises awaited at Dorney. Firstly, the water temperature was such that wetsuits were not permitted in the swim (one aggravation not to have to worry about in transition). Secondly, those buoys looked decidedly further away than a 400m swim would suggest and so it proved when the swim times came in. Luke’s swim was mediocre in terms of position as he emerged 20th in the field of 39. He had a good transition then set off hard on the bike. A ‘Sat morning time trial sprint’ saw Luke swallow up half a dozen bikers in his search for a high speed pack which he found after 2-3km and with the three or four that had latched onto his rear wheel they formed a posse of 10. They proceeded to chase a lead pack of 6 and a following group of 3 working well together to share the burden. After 8km of the 10km a wobble on the right of the pack brought down four riders with Luke fortunate to avoid getting caught in it. As the pack slowed to look back at the carnage Luke commanded “come on we’ve got a race to finish” and later justified this mercenary attitude with “well... no-one stopped for me at Llanelli!”. The remaining six safely made it into transition without further mishap. Another good transition then a fine powerful run saw Luke pick off each of his ‘colleagues’ and lead them home to take a very pleasing 10th position in the race and finish 4th placed 15/16year old. This, hopefully, should be enough to secure his selection for the IRC in September.

Full youth race results can be found at the following site: