Lyons and Gallagher a Cut Above at Lough Cutra
Eoin Lyons and Maeve Gallagher tamed the technical bike course and cross country run at Lough Cutra Triathlon to win Round 9 of the BMW Triathlon National Series.
Both athletes were on top form as they cruised to victory over the standard distance course in South Galway.
It’s Gallagher’s second victory in this year’s series while for Lyons it represents a return to the podium after his 4th place at the Middle Distance National Champs in late July at TriTyrone.
Lyons Back On Top
As early as the concluding stages of the 1,500m swim, it was becoming clear that Lyons and Gallagher were going to present a stiff challenge to anyone hoping to better them, as the pair came out of the water just seconds apart and minutes clear of the field.
Lyons went on to post an impressive 1hr 1min 42secs for what is not a fast bike course and was untroubled on the run, posting a 37mins 51secs over the hilly cross country course to cruise to victory.
Behind him, Stafford Vigors (Belpark TC) clinched second place thanks to his superior swim with Derek Nugent (Athlone TC) edging out David Cahill (3D TC) with an impressive bike-run performance.
Gallagher: Impressive All Round Performance
In the women’s race, there was probably only ever going to be one winner with an elite athlete of Maeve Gallagher’s calibre competing. But Gallagher didn’t take anything for granted as she pushed hard on what was her first ever domestic standard distance race.
Gallagher came out of the water just behind Eoin Lyons on her way to an extremely impressive all round performance to cross the line in 2hrs 09mins 24secs, ahead of everyone in both the women’s and men’s race bar the aforementioned Lyons.
Behind her, Kate Smyth showed little fatigue from her silver medal efforts with Galway TC in the Mixed Team Relay the day before as she biked and ran superbly for second place.
After one of the quickest swims of the day, Michelle Brennan also pulled off an impressive bike-run double act to finish third, well clear of the rest of the women’s field.
Results
Provisional Results from Lough Cutra Standard Distance are available on StuWeb.
