National Championships Bude Awesome Foursome 2018
The Final Race of the season and our National Championships for 2018, as ever Bude lived up to its reputation, and we were in for some great racing! A strong turnout of athletes, the regular BQA members, all fighting for those extra ‘BQA Trophy Points’ and age group placings, plus a couple of strong newcomers, and locals from the local surf-lifesaving scene, some compete as individuals but there are also lots of teams or pairs competing too.
It had been wet and windy the day before, and their was plenty of heavy swell in the sea. It was a little chilly at 7.00 am on race day, but we had sunshine and light winds, and as the day went on it got warmer and proved to be good race conditions, even though most of us found the sea challenging!
After the race briefing we all headed down to the sea lock, the swim consists of two 400m loops split by a 200m run across the sands of the beach, the tide was higher than expected and the beach was completely flooded. so the beach run was a wade through knee deep water instead. In the individual event Alan Cole was out first (20.28) with newcomer Billy Butler in 2nd place (22.10) with Nigel Unwin (23.30) and Andy Parrritt (23.30) close behind, there were a lot of locals in the team and pairs event amongst the top swimmers, all looking strong in the choppy swell.
The Bike is a course of two halves, a very hilly 1st half, along the coast road to Widemouth and then up those 30% climbs out of Millook, the 2nd half is very fast down the A39 into Bude. Alan managed to hold onto his lead for a while but his legs were still suffering from the Conwy Mountain Tri the week before. Nigel loves this bike course and put in the fastest bike split of the day (54.49) which took him into the lead. Alan stayed in 2nd (58.58), there were some good splits from Peter Tindall (56.00), Nigel Leeson (57.01) all looking for those Trophy points!
The 10km kayak section consists of two loops of the canal, with tight turns at either end, it was nice and calm and had started to warm up. Nigel pulled away and opened up a gap between him and Alan, but then paddler Billy Butler started to make huge gains on everyone, he produced the fastest kayak split by far (44.52) leaving everyone in his wake! Nigel was still 2nd fastest (51.29) Andy Parritt (53.05) with Alan (53.41) and Nigel (53.54). Race organizer Simon Hammond also produced a strong kayak split (54.36) … so all the age groups were still in contention!
The first couple of miles of the run are along the flat tarmac of the canal towpath, then up hill across fields and down to the coast road into Widemouth Bay, where you climb up the coastal path towards Bude, before a final descent to the Canal Warf. Billy had built up a strong lead, and maintained his position with a good run split (43.47). Nigel running the fastest time of the day (42.02) couldn’t quite catch Billy so held 2nd place, with Alan in 3rd (45.17) . There were some excellent age group performances, but the National Championship Title was well deserved by Billy Butler producing a fine win in his first ever Quadrathlon!
In the Ladies race Helen Russell came out of the swim in first place (22.51) with Jacq Davies 2nd (24.59), Natalie Abbott 3rd (26.23) followed by Alison Parritt, Bethany Goodlad, and Jean Ashley. Helen increased her lead on the bike (1.01.00), Natalie also having a strong bike moved into 2nd place (1.05.44) with Alison close behind (1.06.25).
Going into the kayak Helen maintained her lead (57.19), and the positions were to change again. Natalie was some what disadvantaged paddling a heavy sea kayak, so Alison moved in to 2nd (58.45) and Jacq into 3rd (1.00.03). Jean in her favorite discipline started to make up time and had the fastest kayak (56.48) which moved her into 4th place.
Helen maintained her lead and went on to take the National Championship Title for the 2nd year on the run, Alison stayed in 2nd place with Jean running into 3rd place. Some excellent racing from the ladies with a good quality of field, great to see newcomers to our sport performing well and strong performances from our BQA members too.
A special congratulations must go to our 2 BQA members who have done all 6 races in our BQA Calender, John Kavanagh and Lance Ball … a superb effort! Lance also deserves another mention, he was just at the start of the famous Millook climb when his chain broke, he quickly got his ‘chain tool out’ and proceeded to mend it … he then noticed a fellow ‘athlete in distress’ just ahead of him, who also had a broken chain …. so he mended hers so they both could continue to finish the race. Genuinely a top guy, showing us what a true advocate he is to our sport!
Everyone that completes this awesome course finishes it with a huge sense of achievement, its a true testament to the standard all our Quadrathletes, some out at the front, and some behind … equally your all just as important… Strong motivated and giving 100%, that’s what makes you all special!
A big thank-you to Simon Hammond and his Team for putting on another brilliant race, as always very friendly plenty of support, great commentating and lots of happy smiling faces!
National Champions 2018
1st Billy Butler Elite winner 2:51:00
2nd Nigel Unwin Vet 50 winner 2:51:42
3rd Alan Cole Vet 40 winner 2:58:24
4th Nigel Leeson Vet 50 3:02:50
5th Des Gosling Vet 50 50 3:09:31
6th Peter Tindall Vet 40 3:12:03
7th AndyParritt Vet 60 winner 3:12:49
8th Simon Hammond Vet 50 3:13:43
1st Helen Russell Vet 40 Winner 3.07.33
2nd Alison Parritt Vet 50 Winner 3:24:50
3rd Jean Ashley Vet 60 Winner 0 3:28:42
4th Natalie Abbott Vet 50 3:29:18
5th Bethany Goodlad Elite Winner 3:33:42
6th Jacqueline Davies Vet 50 3:36:02
Emma Whitehouse Elite 3:50:46
BQA Members
Peter Chappill Vet 50 3:32.57
John Kavanagh Vet 60 3:34:44
Lance Ball Vet 50 3:39:52
Full Results Bude 2018 results
This was also the last race of the Quadrathlon Trophy Series for 2018. This trophy is awarded to BQA members only and is based on your best 3 finishes out of the 6 trophy series races. Alan Cole took the overall Men’s trophy series win this year, whilst Helen Russell defended her Female British Trophy Series Champion status with the overall in the women’s series.
A lovely warm sunshine day with slightly cloudy and no wind, what could be better! A excellent day’s racing at the 7th Shrewsbury Quadrathon, the Event just gets better each year and has always sold out …. a true testament to the Event organizers SYTri and Phil Holden who took over from Gill Otto as SYTri Quad leader!
A big thanks to Russel Breyer for his detailed race report and his shorter version below! 🙂 Short version:
The swim was a one lap triangle, then off on the bike (briefly, does anyone know why German races tend to be bike, paddle, whilst ours are more often paddle, bike?).
And that was it. The presentations, which included World Cup prizes, were almost longer than the race, and seemed mostly to involve Helen R smiling gamely from a podium whilst various people showered her with more trophies and prizes than she could reasonably be expected to hold on her own. Her second world class performance of the day!
The Box End Quadrathlon was always going hot, with the high temperatures we’d been having, but the racing too was certainly a scorcher too! Ettiene Stott, the 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist in C2 Slalom was going to be competing along with current WQF Champion leader, Ferenc Csima from Hungary. With World and British Trophy series points up for grabs we had a lot of top class athletes racing, plus plenty of newcomers and as ever our strong back bone of committed Quadrathletes flying the BQA Flag!
We all headed into the lake, the first ever compulsory non wetsuit swim in I can remember, we waited for the Quadkids to walk up the lake to get at their start positions, and at 8.00am we were off! Ferenc Csima and Alan Cole moved into the lead a good minute ahead of the next group, Alan pushed hard and came out in first place 11.19 with Ferenc just 10 seconds behind. Michael Mason, Steve Rust, Alasdair Bruce and Helen Russell all came in around the 12.30 – 12.45, with Bryce Dyer in 13.16 & Etienne Stott 14.01.
The run was 5km following the exact same route as the bike with little shade and getting hotter! Extra water had been put out, by this time everyone was digging deep. There was no stopping Michael he went onto win after an amazing run split of 19.49, taking 1st place in a total of 1.35.36. Ferenc held 2nd place with comfortably and finished in 1.40.39. Alan pulled away from Bryce with a good run split of 22.16 and finished 3rd 1.41.56. Bryce held onto 4th place 1.44.00, Etienne was catching producing the 2nd fastest run split of the day 22.13, finishing 5th 1.44.38.
It was the final of the QuadKidz Trophy and big Congratulations to our 2018 National Champions, with Max Underwood Frost and Hermione Ball taking the Boys and Girls Titles, both doing all 3 races in the Series. I am hoping for a race report from them shortly! Well done to all those QuadKidz who have taken part in the series, we hope to see you and your friends next year!
Race day was forecast to be an absolute scorcher (we weren’t disappointed!) and 43 intrepid quad ladies turned up with a plethora of gear, racked their bikes and paddles and put their kayaks in number order, helped by the wonderful kayak boys Dave, Cliff, Mark and Simon. After a very entertaining race briefing from Colin Wilson (it is worth entering the race just for this bit alone!) and group warm up for all the quadrathletes and triathletes, we walked together to the swim start upstream. At 08:20, after a quick rendition of Oggy Oggy Oggy, the foghorn blew and we were off.
Finally onto the run section where the positions would change once again. Jac and Adele were the first ones out, but Jenny I, posting the fastest run split of the day (22:09) romped home and was the only Quad lady to finish in under 2 hours (1:58:31). Much to her amazement, Jac finished second (2:00:38) but as in the previous year was being chased down by Adele (2:01:22). Louise, with the 2nd fastest run (22:45) of the day moved back up into 4th (2:04:16) with Gill finishing in 5th (2:05:09). Ali was 6th (2:05:42), Mary (2:07:04) and Jenny S was 8th (2:07:08).
On Behalf of the BQA I Just wanted to say a Huge Thank You ‘Chester Tri’ for an amazing ‘Deva Divas Quadrathlon! We certainly shared ‘The Quad Passion’ we had 43 ladies on the start line, at least 30 of them first timmers! The atmosphere was brilliant the camaraderie and racing superb, these girls just had the Best day Ever!
The 2nd Deva Divas Quadrathlon’ is almost here ….. another special day for ‘British Quadrathlon’ as this year we have 50 Ladies take to the water for the ‘Only Ladies Quadrathlon in the World’ This race also has the backing of the WQF (World Quadrathlon Association) the BQA and ‘British Canoeing’ they wish you all a great and enjoyable race!
DEAR DEVA DEVAS
Our 2017 QuadKidz Champions at the Prize Giving at Box End in 2017! Could it be you in 2018? Check out the Quadkidz Rankings with just 1 final race to go!