Cornyn and Hughes Middle Distance National Champions

Niall Cornyn and Hilary Hughes have won the first major titles of 2021 at TriTyrone – the Middle Distance National Championships.

The victory is Cornyn’s first ever national title while for Hughes it represents a successful defence of the championship she won at Sheephaven Half when the Middle Distance Champs were last staged two years ago.

Cornyn Storms to Gold

Just under 400 competitors gathered at 9am on the shore of the pocket sized lake Eskragh for the biggest event of 2021 so far. TriTyrone won race of the year in 2019 and conditions could not have been better for the event’s first staging since then – warm but not hot, light winds and a flat calm lake.

As well as being the National Champs over middle distance, TriTyrone was Round 1 of the BMW Triathlon National Series.

Early in to the swim a pack of four – Oran MgGee, Eoin Lyons, Alan Maher and Aidan Callaghan pulled clear from the rest of the field and entered in to a rythym that saw them all come out of the water together on 31mins with a gap of more than a minute over the athletes behind.

22 year-old McGee pulled clear during the 90km bike, posting the second quickest bike split of the race to come in to T2 in the lead. Behind him Niall Cornyn was moving up through the field. Cornyn had swum a minute slower than the leaders but pulled that back and then some on the bike, passing all apart from McGee and Donnelly who he followed in to T2.

As soon as Cornyn was on to the run his pace indicated a change in race lead was on the cards. He went through the first 10km in 34minutes, catching McGee and smashing the run in 1hr 18mins and 45secs. The pace was more than enough to give Cornyn victory with a finishing time of 4hrs 7mins 13secs. 

McGee held on to second – a fantastic performance for a young athlete. He crossed the line in 4hrs 12mins 31secs – just over 2minutes ahead of third placed Stephen Donnelly in his first national championships.

A delighted Cornyn said afterwards that his first national champs medal has been a long time coming: “I’ve come second placed three times at the National Duathlon Champs, this is my first middle distance race so to come out with the win, I am chuffed.”

“At the 17 or 18km mark (on the run) I blew up and I was like ‘get me home, I just need to get home’ then when I saw that blue carpet, I said, I’ve got this.”

Hughes Retains Her Crown

Fresh from a very strong performance at IRONMAN Lanzarotte, Hilary Hughes went in to TriTyrone with the favourites tag firmly around her neck. The defending Middle Distance National Champ started a little slower than expected however, coming out of the water back in the field almost five minutes behind the quickest swimmer, Belpark’s Sinead Murphy.

On the bike, Hughes quickly went about moving up through the field. By 50km she had caught the then leader Catherine Sands and took a lead she never looked like relinquishing. Hughes came in to T2 with a lead of more than 4mins and ran sub 90mins for the half marathon to hold on to her national title with a time of 4hrs 36mins 02secs – a new course record.

Showing respect for her rivals, Hughes said afterwards that she didn’t feel like the favourite heading in to the race: “You never know and you can never take it for granted.”

She added that while she paced the bike well, the going did get tough on the run. 

“I thought, it’s half a marathon, it’s going to be so much easier (than a full marathon) but it was hard enough. I guess you’re trying to pick up the pace a little bit.”

Next up for Hughes is a double header of races in the States:

“I have a very ambitious plan, which is to do the 70.3 World Champs in Utah in September and then go on to Kona, I figure I should make the most of a once na  lifetime opportunity.”

Second place in the women’s race was hotly contested and came right down to the final kilometre. After leading the race until halfway through the bike, Catherine Sands came in to T2 in second but with more than four minutes over Eithne McGorman. McGorman ceeded almost all of that time on the swim. She did pull back a minute on Sands on the bike but a slower transition cost her 42secs.

Once out on to the run however, McGorman turned things around. She ran the second quickest split of the field – a 93min half marathon, catching Sands in the closing stages of the race. In the end there were just 38secs between the two, with McGorman claiming her first National silver medal and Sands coming home for the bronze medal position.

Results

Provisional results from TriTyrone are available on coretiming.ie