Rawlinson & Hunter made a big splash on their debut appearance in the Corporate Cup sweeping to victory nearly 10 minutes faster than the second place team KPMG 1 with last year’s winners Deloitte 1 coming in third. The attendance for this year’s event was spectacular with eight teams in the Cup including previous winners Ogiers and Appleby and a first time appearance from Walkers consisting of team entirely new to triathlon finishing in an impressive fourth place.
In the individual event another debutant Brad Goggin made an equally impressive splash blasting to a new course record of 62 minutes finishing ahead of all of the teams with Vincent Fournier second and Antony Spencer third. In the ladies event last year’s winner Tash Ruscheinski continued her stranglehold with a second win in this competition and remains undefeated since 2015 with Jenny McIvor finishing second and Claudia Ferrari third. In the open team event the entrants were all “duets” with Sarah & Loz dancing their way to first with a fast foxtrot ahead of Cayley & Rosey and Ray & Dan.
It was great to see so many competitors taking part, many for the first time and everybody enjoyed the perfect weather and quiet roads of Sunday morning along with the post race picnic on the lawns of the Sports Club. The swim saw all of the usual suspects hit the front plus Brad with Tash giving Deloittes the early lead in the Cup just ahead of Martin for R & H and Paul of Walkers in third. Derek Rawlins powered through the bike leg taking R&H into the lead with Tia Beckman of Deloittes holding off a fast closing Russell Crumpler of KPMG in third. R&H had saved their ace until last with Cliff posting the fastest run of the day to bring home a comfortable victory whilst Hugh managed to catch a determined Darren Reeds to take KPMG into second.
The next event will be on Sunday March 5th at Smugglers Cove and will be over a brand new flat “super six” course consisting of a 350 m swim-5k bike-2.4k run-350m swim-5k bike-2.4km run and should be great fun with kids racing and beach BBQ to follow.