While following on from lasts weeks big weekend of racing MEC athletes again showed their ability across the spectrum.
Saturday morning was the main day this week and it was an open ocean ahead of Rottnest Channel swimmers where Samantha Doust lined up with her team mate Kelly Seagrave. It is just under 20km from the mainland to ‘Rotto’ and while conditions were far from flat, the girls had a great day out to make their first crossing of the channel as a duo in 5hrs 54min. Both Sam and Kelly grew up swimming together in country NSW and while it’s a fair way from the 100m fly, it was great that friends can achieve something like this, years later. Well done ladies.
John Winterburn has been an open water swim regular this year and it was another swim race chalked up at the Brighton Box Classic. Gaining more and more confidence the conditions are no longer the focus, rather getting more km’s in the arms ahead of Ultraman Australia.
Sarah Hardy is edging closer and closer to previous form and it was her closest yet at the Coles Bay sprint event. 2nd out of the water and then first off the bike Sarah simply hasn’t done the running in training yet to hold her lead and finished 22sec behind the leader. Another brick in the wall for Sarah as she continues to be smart with her comeback from injury.
Sam Janssen headed north to the Gold Coast to finish off February where she has raced for World Championship points 3 out of 4 weeks. As seems to be the trend for the 17/18 Australian season the swim was cancelled due to poor water quality. The event then turned to a duathlon format with the swim replaced with a 2.5k run. The field was quality due to it being the Australian Sprint distance championships with double points and Sam had a good day for where she is at, racing her way to 13th in her age group. We now wait for the final points to be tallied to determine selection for the Australian team. Well done on a great month of racing Sam.