THE Hazelwood Pondage provided a warm welcome to the triathlon season at the weekend as more than 200 competitors took the plunge at the Latrobe Valley Tri Club’s multisport festival.
From newcomers tackling the fun distance to more experienced campaigners braving the Hazelwood 100 – a 100 kilometre triathlon – through to the masochists backing up from Saturday’s sprint for Sunday’s long course for ‘hard man’ points, all levels were catered for.
“We attract a lot of people in because it’s one of the first races of the season and because we’ve got the Hazelwood Pondage as a warm water swim,” LVTC vice president John Ansell said.
“There were dozens of people doing their first triathlon ever, so that was really good for the club to see.”
In a field including athletes from across the state, Alex Polizzi emerged as the fastest on Sunday, blazing through the bike leg of the Hazelwood 100 to romp home half an hour ahead of second place.
His scintillating time of three hours and 44 minutes was followed by a host of local faces in the top 10. Rob Preston (fifth), Tom Crosby (seventh) and Rod Vandervoort (eighth) all turned in worthy performances over the 100km journey. Matt Ledgar was the pick of those tough, or at least crazy, enough to compete in the hard man category, managing a combined time of 5.54.20 between the sprint and 100km events.
“It’s combined times for the two of them, there’s no respite really,” Ansell said.
“They’ve got to go really hard on the Saturday, they can’t afford to slack off, and back up the next day.”
Another success story was the 1500 metre open water swim, which enjoyed double the numbers of 2014.
Hazelwood 100
1 Alexander Polizzi 3h 44.34
2 Tom Gallagher 4h 10.46
3 Thomas Boatman 4h 11.32
4 Rosie Oldham 4h 11.56
5 Rob Preston 4h 15.02
6 Anthony Downey 4h 18.20
7 Tom Crosby 4h 19.09
8 Rod Vandervoort 4h 32.02
9 Adrian Harper 4h 37.58
10 Dylan Thomas 4h 38.27
Hardman/Hardwoman
1 Matt Ledgar 5.54.20
2 Carl Fannon 6.06.10
3 James Pretto 6.07.53
4 Michael Harvey 6.14.49
Olympic distance
1 Josh Dew 1h 53.07
2 Ben O’Neill 1h 53.27
3 Matthew Sullivan 1h 53.46
4 Stephane Vander Bruggen 1h 54.56
5 Stephen Menzies 1h 55.12
6 Gavin Stuart 1h 58.24
7 Brett Franklin 1h 59.49
8 Martin Bando 2h 00.43
9 Andrew Slot 2h 02.14
10 Aaron Groot 2h 03.05
Sprint distance
1 Craig Davis 1h 01.53
2 Paul Speed 1h 02.07
3 Ryan Bourke 1h 05.05
4 Ben Troup 1h 07.59
5 Luke Emerson 1h 08.35
6 Daniel Bodilly 1h 09.49
7 Clint Bain 1h 11.13
8 Tom Fisher 1h 11.18
9 Robbie Lawler 1h 11.45
10 Daniel Kelly 1h 11.49
1.5km open water swim
1 Craig Davis 0.21.21.1
2 Paul Speed 0.22.16.4
3 Peter Coombe 0.23.14.1
4 Tim Cooper 0.25.15.8
5 Kate Jones 0.26.26.7
6 Matthew Bugg 0.27.22.5
7 Viki Newton 0.27.31.7
8 Andrew Legge 0.27.44.3
9 Darren Shaw 0.27.48.6
10 Rodney Stephens 0.28.38.9
Fun triathlon
1 Gaius Robertson-Christie 31.58
2 Viki Newton 36.27
3 Andrew Nicolson 38.53
4 Paul Gardiner 39.15
5 Narelle Harrison 40.28
