FOUR of Jersey’s best triathletes competed in the British Triathlon Super Series’ latest round at Eton Dorney, doing the Island proud with some quality performances.
Jersey’s talent was on display, with Luke Holmes finishing fourth overall in the men’s competition, as well as topping the junior pack to take home gold, while Siena Stephens, Lily Scott and Jack Kennedy held their own against some of the UK’s best.
The Eliminator format used at this event consists of multiple rounds, with short back-to-back races and athlete eliminations reducing the field each time.
All Youth, Junior and Senior athletes raced together, for the only time in the Super Series. All races are made up of a 350m swim, 5km cycle and 1.5 km run, but the sport order is changed from the usual in some rounds.
First up in the ladies race, Jersey’s Lily Scott made her first start in this year’s Super Series, after returning from studying and training in Australia, while Siena Stephens (Junior) was looking to build on some strong results in the Junior series so far.
The first race of the day was a preliminary swim-bike-run qualifying round, to rank and allocate athletes into groups (A always being the highest rank).
Both Jersey ladies finished the qualifying round in the top ten, gaining automatic qualification to the A group for the first round.
Qualifying was quickly followed by three rounds of racing with each group being cut to 23, then 15 athletes, eliminating the slowest finishers after each round.
Round 1 (run-swim-bike) saw both Jersey women make the cut, with Stephens in 15th and Scott 17th.
Scott made the cut again in round 2 (run-bike-swim), but Siena unfortunately lost too much time early on and was unable to claw back positions on her favoured swim leg, being eliminated and dropping down to the B final.
A strong swim and bike from Scott saw her at the front in the A final, dropping to 13th overall by the end of the run which is currently her weakest leg.
In the B final, Siena was similarly in the mix through the swim and bike, racing to 9th place at the line, and giving her an overall finish position of 24th and 6th Junior lady.
The men were up next, with recent European Cup winner Holmes (Junior) and Kennedy flying the flag for Jersey. Holmes had a comfortable qualifier to make the A group, and Kennedy qualified for the B group.
Through the first two full rounds, Holmes spent the majority of his time heading the field, easily avoiding elimination to reach the A final.
Kennedy’s run and swim in the B group’s first round resulted in him dropping off the back of the pack. Left to complete the cycle solo, he chose to accept the inevitable elimination and save his energy for the subsequent rounds in the C group.
A stronger second round saw him avoid a further elimination to hold on for the C final.
In the A final, Holmes continued to hold position at the head of the field, after both swim and cycle sections and a strong run saw him hold on for fourth position overall, while taking victory in the Junior category.
Kennedy had another strong round in the C final, spending much of the race up at the front before holding on for 10th place (41st overall).
The final round of the Super Series will see the Senior athletes race at Bala, Wales, on the seventh of September, with Island Games gold medallist Tom Atkinson expected to join Kennedy and Scott for the season finale.
Junior athletes head back to Mallory Park a week later, with Holmes now heading the Junior Super Series for the first time this year, making him a strong favourite to win the Junior Title, which would go alongside the Youth Series title he won in 2023.
He will also be aiming to earn selection for October’s World Junior Championships, which are set to take place in Australia.
Full event results can be found at https://results.eventchiptiming.com/results.aspx?CId=16202&RId=530
