THE GLASGOW TRIATHLON CLUB WHO TRAIN FROM OLD ANNIESLAND WERE TO THE FORE AT THE WEEKEND

THE HERALD REPORTS
Time out from Highers studying takes teenager Kirsty on to podium
For most teenagers studying for their Higher exams this month, time out from revision will be spent in front of the TV or computer. But on Kirsty McWilliam's day off from preparing for five Highers this week she won a podium position in a prestigious national event.

Ranked an outsider in the inaugural Corus Triathlon Elite Series event at Strathclyde Park, near Glasgow, the 17-year-old exceeded expectations by coming third overall.

In doing so she beat two world-class favourites and has now underlined her chances of becoming a Commonwealth Games competitor in 2012.

After the race on Sunday, McWilliam, of Milton of Campsie, said: "It's an amazing feeling to have done so well. It's my first major event competing against senior triathletes and, although I was confident, I didn't expect to get a medal position. On the day, everything went to plan and all my training paid off."

The Corus Elite series is a new event organised as part of an annual British Triathlon programme. Its aim is to offer female and male Brits the chance to compete at home against some of the best athletes in the world.

For McWilliam, the Strathclyde Park event, which kicks off a three-race nationwide series, provided the ideal opportunity to test herself in a fiercely competitive field.

While only just junior age (17 to 19 years old), she was competing against older and more experienced women, including English athletes Andrea Whitcombe, winner of the Michelob ULTRA London Triathlon and sixth at last year's World Triathlon Championships, and Michelle Dillon, who took silver at the world duathlon event.

The field also included renowned Scottish triathlete Kerry Lang, one of McWilliam's Glasgow Triathlon Club rivals.

"I knew it was going to be a tough race and right from the off I was pushing myself hard," said the fifth-year pupil at Kilsyth Secondary School.

At first it was Lang that looked to be the most promising Scot as she led a powerful 750m swim in the testingly cold Strathclyde Loch.

But with many of the women swimming the distance in less than 10 minutes, the 20km bike stage was always going to be the main battle.

Fast out of transition, the athletes set off for three laps of a challenging and technical course around the perimeter of the loch.

Very soon a group of six - including Lang, eventual silver medallist Lisa Norden, of Sweden, overall winner Hollie Avil, of England and McWilliam - formed a breakaway lead.

"The bike stage was the hardest by far," said McWilliam later. "Each lap there was a steep hill and I had to work really hard to stay with the front group. I knew it would be over if I got dropped, so I stuck in there at the back."

For Dillon and Whitcombe the race at this stage was not looking so hopeful. Finding themselves in the chasing field, the podium contenders ended up 70 seconds in arrears as they went into the final discipline, a 5km run, and never really recovered.

In the end the race was fought on the running leg by the three front-runners, Norden, Avil and McWilliam. But with just over 2km to go, McWilliam, a former European youth triathlon champion, could only watch as she began to lose ground to the two other girls.

During the final 200 metres, a sprint for victory saw Avil, also 17, knock Norden into silver position. Twenty-three seconds later and in an overall time of 1:01:59 a grinning McWilliam was cheered over the finish line by a rapturous home crowd.

"It made it all the more special to have friends and family from Scotland as I came down the finishing straight," said McWilliam, who was back at her desk yesterday revising chemistry and German, two of the Higher exams she has left to sit.

"Their cheering was deafening," she added.

"And with Kerry Lang taking fifth place, too, the results are great news for Scottish triathlon."

12:05am today



By FIONA RUSSELL

Back

This article was posted on 29-May-2007, 06:48 by Hugh Barrow.