Rory Maguire crowned Irish National Middle Distance Champion
The Irish Middle Distance Championship was settled at the weekend over at Groomsport, Northern Ireland and it was Rory Maguire and Jen Duffy who confounded those brave enough to make predictions to take away the titles.
Find out here how they did it!
Going into the men’s race, it was Matt Molloy who was down as the favourite and he looked like he meant business going over the swim and the bike. A healthy 8 minute lead going unto the run looked almost unassailable… or was it?
In the ladies race Jen Duffy was putting in the fastest bike leg of the day. This was somewhat unexpected as she has missed most of the season and some of her rivals were better known for their bike than she. The damage was done and as Duffy entered the run leg, her rivals had been caught out and had no answer to her challenge.
Back to the men’s and Molloy was going steady – but someone else wasn’t. Rory Maguire was blitzing the field and running much faster than anyone else. He was catching fast and with only a few km’s to go, overtook to take the win by just over a minute!
Duffy also closed down the race and it proved that she had won it on the bike. Througfh adversity and injury she has become a better triathlete – worth remembering for any of you who are dealing with a period of time out of the sport.
The race finished thus:
| 1 | Rory Maguire | 04:28:12 | |||||||
| 2 | Matt Molloy | 04:29:21 | |||||||
| 3 | Peter Savage | 04:33:02 |
| 1 | Jenny Duffy | 04:45:25 | |||||||
| 2 | Aoife Lynch | 04:51:57 | |||||||
| 3 | Katie Cooke | 04:53:21 |
It was a good day for Irish racing as Robbie Wade was 4th at Ironman 70.3 Steelehead.
Meanwhile, on English soil, at the Ely Monster Middle, Joe Skipper and Lou Collins were picking up wins.
Joe was using the event to launch an intensive training block and was also attracted by the decent prize money on offer. In hot weather, he shut the race down over the swim and bike allowing him to cruise with 7 miles left on the run to take the win.
Photo credit: Ken Murphy/TI Media
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