Race organisers benefited from the ongoing popularity of the annual Coles Bay Half Triathlon on Sunday amid their second return to George Town inside two months.
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The Launceston Triathlon Club decided this summer to introduce a “warm-up event” to better prepare serious entrants ahead of the East Coast race next weekend.
New club president Matt Wheatley said the lure of the longer race away from its traditional sprint and super sprints more than doubled the numbers participating at its George Town Triathlon.
The success come after the club’s innovation where the swim leg for the state series opener was conducted in the pool after organisers had decided against York Cove following a 2017 sewage spill.
More than 60 competitors, a quarter alone which were children aged from seven to 12, had turned up in George Town on Sunday.
“As it will be the Coles Bay half-marathon next week, this was a bit of a training run for that,” Wheatley said.
“So we decided it was a good idea to run a longer race and that was really popular.
“We had more people in fact entered in that than we did in our other two races.”
Andrew Rolls was a runaway winner in the 1km swim, 30km cycle and 7.5km run by more than three minutes.
The Burnie man finished the additional course in a time of one hour, 33 minutes and 22 seconds.
Rolls crossed in front of Launceston pair David Pearton and Rodney Boxall.
Heidi Edmiston, also from Launceston, was the fastest woman on the day in 1:49.25.
But she had her work cut out from Pia Austin, who finished just 30 seconds behind. Ella Boxhall got home for third in 1:50.20.
Teenager Will Blackaby won the 750m swim, 20km cycle and 5km sprint race in 1:02.38.
Ethan Stretton crossed the line in 1:04.03 to edge out Oli Cook by 50 seconds for third.
Mel Hill was the first female to the finish in 1:16.28 ahead of Mel Hughes (1:19.46) and Tania Gaby (1:25.19).
The junior supersprint over a 300m swim, 10km ride and 2km run was won by Jonte Armistead in 30.06 from Hayden Arnold and William Jones.
Phoebe Woodhouse finished in 38.55 ahead of both Shae Arnold and Ebony Rainbow in the girls’ race.
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