photo by SussexSportPhotography.com

Well done Tom as he  takes 2nd place at National Olympic Distance championships. Here is his report from Bedford on Sunday 15th August 2010:

“I’m happy to report a second place finish at the national olympic distance championships yesterday. It was a slightly frustrating race in which I was just on the wrong side of several traffic delays and had to watch my rivals riding off up the road. Nonetheless I am pleased with the result and it has further consolidated my consistency this season.

The river swim was more of a battle with weeds than anything else! At least half of the swim course was dominated by thick patches of submerged weeds which did an admirable job of slowing you down. I led my wave on the upstream leg by which time we were well amongst the swimmers from the waves ahead of us. What with the other swimmers and the weeds I didn’t know exactly where I was on the downstream leg but think I came out of the water second.

I had a pretty awful T1 transition with a persistent bit of weed that was wrapped around my ankle stopping me get my wetsuit off. Eventually I got out onto my bike hot on the heels of the leaders of my wave. Unfortunately at the first two junctions I had to stop for oncoming traffic and could do nothing but see the leaders riding off up the road. There was another slight delay due to avoiding a female competitor who fell off just in front of me . I eventually made up the gap to the leaders, the bike course was flat apart from a few short climbs and with not much wind to speak of I knew it was going to be hard to get any gap with the remaining distance. I was disappointed to see a fair bit of drafting, which really should not be prevalent at that level of competition and certainly did not help my cause.

I came into, and left T2 with James Ratcliffe. He ran out hard for the first couple of kilometres and as I felt the early signs of cramp setting in could not match his pace. With the cramping easing off I was able to get into my stride a bit more and felt OK. I was able to hold my distance behind James but didn’t have enough left to close the gap. He eventually crossed the line 30 seconds ahead of me.

All things considered I am happy with how I performed on the day. The traffic I encountered on the course is just down to bad luck and nothing to be bitter about. I am very happy to add another consistent podium finish to this year’s resume”.

SussexSportPhotography.com