The spectators treated to a bird’s eye view of the swim course

What an amazing day of racing at the 2016 Junior Beast of the East Triathlon!  Over 100 junior athletes from all over Ireland descended on the scenic town of Greystones in Co Wicklow for this season closing triathlon.  This is the second time Wicklow Triahtlon Club have hosted this event but the first time on this new and spectator friendly course.

Triathlon Ireland Official to go with the race sanction

Weather on Sunday was almost perfect with the stormy conditions of Saturday clearing to a bright and sunny morning to welcome the competitors onto the course.  Registration and briefings over the day started with a charity splash and dash event for younger athletes.  Wicklow Triahlon Club Juniors are teamed up with the Gavin Glynn Foundation as a charity partner and all proceeds of the splash and dash go to help families provide treatment for similarly aged kids.

It may not have been a triathlon wave but it certainly was competitive!

The event invited entries from four age categories, those being 8 – 9, 10 – 11, 12 – 13 and 14 – 15 year old athletes.  Massive entries to the 8 – 9 and 10 – 11 waves forced the race committee to split these age categories into separate girls and boys races for reasons of safety.

More than a match for the course in the 8 – 9 year old category!

A full schedule with six races began at 1:30pm.  Swim distances were shortened slightly on the day as wind and swell started to build but in any case these were no challenge for the athletes.  In a demonstration of confidence and tenacity all the athletes powered through the open water sea swim in The Cove, a natural amphitheatre for the crowd of spectators to watch and cheer on the triathletes before they took to the closed road bike course.

Impressive swim performances right across all age categories

Testing a new idea in junior triathlon the bike course for the Junior Beast of the East was a multi-lap route over a 1km “criterium” type  course.  This meant that families and club mates could support the athletes along the entire route of the bike course as they passed the spectator and transition areas every few minutes.  A total success gauging all feedback!

One or two thundery showers failed to put a dampener on the event!

The whole event was a superb display of skill, composure and preparation with some truly spectacular racing.  There were competitive finishes across the day in girl’s, boy’s and mixed waves and several races were decided on strong sprints at the end of the three race legs.  The future of triathlon in Ireland is bright if this event is any indication with spectators and public on the promenade properly impressed by the determination and skill shown by all the athletes.

Long triathlon races decided on sprint finishes, how impressive!

Congratulations to all of our entries, what a superb event!  We really enjoyed the new course and hope you did too?  We are already looking forward to hosting this event again next year.  Many thanks to the people who supported the event from CyclePlus for bike support on the course, Site Mate for course equipment, Daly’s Supervalu, Greystones for all of the recovery station food and drinks, to Cycle Super Store and Identity Promotions for prizes and our club sponsor Ziggerat student accomodation.  A big thank you to all of our club members who marshalled in sun and rain and of course a big shout out to Alan Rowlette for all the amazing photos hosted HERE.

Results of each race wave below.  We hope to publish race numbers and times once these have been collated.  Thank you to all of our competitors!

WTC Junior Race Committee