Cornyn and Wilson Duathlon National Champions 2022
Niall Cornyn and Ciara Wilson have won the first national titles of 2022 after an exciting duathlon national championships at Belpark Triathlon Club’s Phoenix Park Duathlon.
Cornyn, the reigning middle distance national champ (2021), won out in a close race with Kieran Jackson in 2nd, Colm Turner 3rd and Anthony O’Brien 4th.
Wilson went one better than last year’s silver medal to claim her first national championships title, with Elizabeth Carr 2nd and Natasha Kelly 3rd.
National titles also went to Matthieu Proffit and Ciara Brady who won the Intervarsity Duathlon National Champs.
The junior victories went to Charlotte Moore and Finn Harris, with Olivia Moore and Aleksander Lanecki 2nd; and Chloe Bennett and Finn Buck 3rd.
How the Race was Won
A strong turnout of 226 made their way to the Phoenix Park for the second last round of the 2022 Duathlon National Series (Kinsale Duathlon has been rescheduled to May 1st and will now wrap the series).
The race also came with national championship bragging rights and with it the chance to be etched on silver wear alongside legends of run-bike-run Margaret Burns, Anne Paul, Mark McDowell and Bryan McCrystal.
From the gun, Niall Cornyn and Kieran Jackson signalled their intention to take control of the race as they pulled ahead of the pack over the first 5km run to come in to T1 neck in neck on 15mins 29secs.
Both men suffered setbacks before the mount line – Jackson jumped on his bike early (before quickly realising his error and jumping off it again) incurring a 10sec penalty, Cornyn lost a bike shoe off the pedal which he had to stop and collect.
Jackson held a slender lead over Coynyn for most of the 20km bike, indeed just 11 seconds separated their splits on paper – but because of Cornyn’s shoe mishap, he spent much of the 20km slowly closing in on Jackson with the result that both arrived in to T2 as they arrived in to T1 with absolutely nothing separating them.
At this stage however, it was Jackson’s turn to be delayed as he had to serve his 10sec penalty. Cornyn didn’t need a second chance and pinned his ears back to hit the front for the final 2.5km run. This he completed in 7mins 49secs – one second quicker than Jackson but 18secs ahead at the finish line which he crossed in 55mins and 32secs to win what perhaps surprisingly given his bike-run prowess is his first duathlon national championships.
Jackson was in shortly afterwards in 55mins 50secs while back in third place was Colm Turner rolling back the years with a superb performance across all three legs. Turner and Anthony O’Brien battled throughout the race, with just 2secs separating them after Run 1 and nothing at all between them on Run 2. Turner made his experience count on the bike and in transition however as he pulled more than 40secs clear of O’Brien. Both were to be rewarded at the finish – Turner by collecting third place in the race, O’Brien by claiming the national championship bronze medal due to Turner racing under a One Day Membership.
Wilson Commanding in Victory
In the women’s race, last year’s championship runner up and the athlete who along with Heather Foley has dominated women’s duathlon for the past number of years, Ciara Wilson ran out a fairly comfortable winner with the quickest splits across the field. Wilson took the lead on Run 1 and never looked back, cruising to victory in 1hr 03mins 37seconds to win her first Duathlon National Championships title.
The battle for second was a closer affair with Natasha Kelly heading out on to the bike 30secs behind Wilson and 34secs ahead of Elizabeth Carr. Carr biked strongly, pulling back all of that time from Kelly and adding another 33 to her split. She came in to T2 in second place `just over 20secs ahead of Kelly. On the run Carr pulled out five more seconds to cross for second place in 1hr 6mins 39secs. Natasha Kelly finished 31secs later to claim third place.
Well done too to all our Age Group winners – national championship medals will be presented come awards season in the autumn.
Official results will be posted to the Results section of our site shortly and in the meantime, provisional results are here: https://my.raceresult.com/199184/live
