So we headed up to Hallstahammar this past weekend to throw down. It was the 2nd race if the Swedish Cup for the young guns and Swedish Sprint Champs for us geezers. The youth, juniors and elite did a double super sprint with a point system for position in each race – it was fast and full of action! So fun to watch – see our team instagram for some clips (@nordictriathlonutveckling). Elin was the big star for the day and lost the first race on the run (overall! – she’s 17 btw 🤩) then in the second race she was on it and got clear of the other women on the bike then held on the for the win! The second race had priority so she took the overall and stood on top of the podium 3 times – senior, junior and youth chanp! Noah and Simon also had solid days; Noah taking 4th overall and 2nd junior and Simon taking 4th junior.
Then it was my turn… 😬 – I got out ok from the swim, 4th out of the water and was making time on the leader when a course marshall had an arrow pointing the wrong way and sent 4 of us onto the super sprint course 🤯 – yes I know it’s the athlete’s responsibility to know the course – and I did but there wasn’t much blood in my brain so I followed the other guys 🤪. It looped around and we were back on course but rode just over an extra km which is a fair bit in a sprint race – I rode decent and caught a bunch of guys but the leaders were a little too far out of sight. I ran pretty good for an old fella and passed one guy closing the gap but running out of room on 3 more. So now it gets interesting – the head official took responsibility for the marshals’ error and gave us 1:30 off our finish times (me and the other 3 guys who went wrong) which moved me from 8th to 4th overall and 3rd to first in the 45-49…. The second place guy wasn’t too happy about that 😤😬. I had a chat with him and he was pretty cool about it… I never actually heard of a head referee doing that before – buy anyway we’re having a rematch at Challenge Vansbro @challengevansbro on July 1st so now I got me some extra motivation to perform there.
So it was a bit of a strange feeling getting Swedish geezer champion given those circumstances but that’s how it went and I was pretty happy to be able to race on the limit and stay focused. Still love to be fit and compete even if I’m old and slow 😎.
