Getting Competitive
Round 2 French Duathlon GP- Lucon

Last weekend was the second round of the French Duathlon GP and the team at Montlucon and myself were looking for redemption after the disappointment of the first race at Château Renault.

The team for Montlucon for the race was Patrick ‘Kinou’ Bringer (Top Ironman competitor in France specializing in Embruman), Sebastian Lallier (Competing Manager), Yohan ‘YoYo’ Meudoc (French U23 Duathlon Champion, 8.45 steeplechaser) and young Martin Reyt.

Basically in the grand prix there are 16 division one teams of 5 competitors and the top 3 finishing places for each team are added with the lowest cumulative total being the highest ranked team. Our team performed admirably to place 4th with the 3 point scorers being Kinou (20th), YoYo (12th) and myself (8th).

The race itself was very good for me and the extra recovery from not working has allowed me to become competitive with the best guys. There were athletes from Portugal, Belgium, Great Britain, France and of course Australia in the top 10. To give an example of the depth of competition all the other guys in the top 10 have placed in the top 8 or better at a major championship (World or European), the 3rd place finisher from last years European Championships was 14th and the 3rd place finisher from the 2005 World Championships was 22nd .The results are here.

I will have one week and a half of hard training and then begin the taper for the World Championships in three weeks. One week prior to the World Championships is the third GP over 5k/20k/2.5k at Les Sables d’Olonnes and on the same weekend will be the first round of the French Triathlon GP which will be like a World Cup and great to watch.

Good luck to everyone competing at Busselton

Cheers
Raf