The Eurocoast Triathlon Club has achieved another milestone, with its club colours being raced internationally.
Peter Cox, from Long Beach, competed in the Ironman New Zealand Triathlon, held around Taupo, on its northern island.
This race is seen as being the most international triathlon, with more than half of its competitors being international.
Unfortunately, weather conditions made a difficult event even more so, with strong winds affecting the whole of the race. This event is the standard Ironman distance of a 3.8km swim, 180km bike, and 42.2km run.
The winds caused significant waves on Lake Taupo, with some 70 competitors being unable to complete the swim leg. The conditions also caused a delay to the start to a following race that was due to start an hour later, as the support personnel on the lake were still assisting competitors from the Ironman race.
The winds caused significant disruption on the bike leg, with a similar number of competitors being eliminated due to crashes caused by shifting winds, and difficulties due to strong headwinds.
Peter completed the race in 15:32:47. This placed him in 45th position in his age group, and 879 overall, out of some 1200 starters.
Peter said “That is the hardest Ironman race I have done. The weather in the week before the race had been great, but on race day the wind came up and affected everyone. It made a hard race incredibly difficult, the attrition rate is testament to that”.
“Just to be able just to finish this race was a huge achievement, just have a look at the number of people that failed to finish. And these are people that have been training for this race for at least 6 months. They haven’t just walked in and signed up for the race, they have been committed to this event physically, mentally, and financially for some time”.
“Now, I just need a bit of quiet time to recover until I work out what challenge I want next”.
Above: Peter Cox, New Zealand Ironman competitor
