Yo peeps,

Today was all about keeping Roy in our spirits and thoughts, and I think everyone present can say that it was all done very beautifully. The Roy Nasr Memorial award went to Johan Moolman, who deserves big time to be rewarded for all of his efforts in the triathlon community. Thank you Johan! It’s safe to say that we all parted in good spirits and proud to have paid respect to Roy. Nous nous souviendrons toujours de toi, Roy! Tu resteras dans nos coeurs!

As for the crew around Ian Le Pelley, big round of applause. super job done! that was a properly organised triathlon: proper transition area, split times, aussie style swim course, fast TT bike out n’ back, technical run course in one of the premier hotel locations, the Jebel Ali Resort. Also big thank you to all the volunteers who sacrificed a morning of their weekends to support the triathletes getting around the course. Thank you to all the hotel staff too for the smooth organisation. Thank you to Paul Venn for being the EmCee. Thank you to all the marshals guiding the people around the course. Thank you to the draftbusters, there was no real bunch riding or similar, that’s how non drafting triathlon is supposed to be! Thank you to all the sponsors of the event too for the beautiful prize. I would also thank my sponsors at this point, but I don’t have any. 😉

Sport and racing played a second role today. Having said that, it was good sport today: I am very happy with this top of the podium performance, although it was super hot and humid at 0700 32C I performed well over the board: super swim with a very loooooooooong run from beach to transition, hard bike although I had lost my bottle in the beginning of the bike which contained 700Kcal which I need on the bike, so I rode without liquid on the bike pushing ca 390 Watts avg. thank god it was only 20k bike! I managed to replenish a bit before the run to pull a 3.30 min km avg in scorching heat. all in all a good race to kick off the season. congratulations also to Kevin West, Niels Meissner and Paul Miles. Well done guys! and of course congratulations and a big well done to all competitors! enjoy training and see you at the races! Olivier