Carroll and McConnell Scale the heights at Mourne Triathlon

Two dominant performances saw Paul Carroll and Erin McConnell win Mourne Triathlon – Round 3 of the BMW Triathlon National Series.

Carroll, from the race’s organising club, Olympian TC came home 1min 45secs clear of the field in the sprint distance triathlon at Castlewellan Forest Park.

McConnell’s finish line advantage was even greater, as she got around the course in 1hr 14mins 44secs to give her almost three minute lead at the finish.

Mourne Returns, McConnells Conquers

No wind, a perfectly calm lake and blue skies greeted the 200 or so athletes at Mourne Triathlon, which was making a return after an almost two year absence.

The forest park setting has to be one of the most beautiful of any triathlon in Ireland, not that the field would have time to look around during a continuously up and down bike course and a run with its share of twisting trails.

First out of the water after the 750m swim was the eventual women’s winner Erin McConnell, who despite taking a long curved route from the final buoy to the water exit was 90secs ahead of the rest of the field. In fact, such was her speed in the water that McConnell was already on the bike by the time the next quickest swimmer, Matthew Kinkaid was making his way on to dry land.

McConnell held her advantage throughout the race, putting in a 38min 57sec bike split and covering the 5km run in21min 20secs to give her the quickest splits of the race across all three disciplines.

Second place went to Shannon Kelly, who also had an extremely strong swim time of 14mins 27secs and the second quickest run split of the day. Kelly crossed the line in 1hr 17mins 53secs, just under three minutes ahead of Helen Perry, who took third place.

Carroll Powers to Victory

In the men’s race, Paul Carroll gave a display of biking power that propelled him through to the front of the race – a lead he maintained with a strong run split.

Carroll had 10 athletes ahead of him coming out of the water but his incredible 31mins 51secs bike split over the hilly 20km course was the quickest of the entire race. He came in to T2 with a comfortable lead and ran a 19mins 42secs – only 21secs off the fastest split of the day (which, interestingly, was set by Everesting World Record Holder Ronan McLaughlin).

The 52 year old Carroll crossed the line in 1hr 10mins 10secs to claim yet another victory in his long list of sporting acheivements.

Behind him Daniel McManus and Jack Kennedy were locked in a tustle for second place that lasted the entire race. With just 2 secs between them on the swim and 11 secs the difference on the bike.

At T2 however, McLaughlin managed to carve out a slender seven advantage. Incredibly, both were matched on the run too with Kennedy taking back just two seconds. In the end McLaughlin’s marginally better bike and T2 was enough to clinch second place and he crossed the line ahead of Kennedy with 12 seconds to spare.

Results

Results from Mourne Triathlon are available on championchipireland.com