The fledgling Comox Valley Triathlon Club encompasses a quintet of Super Seniors. Competing in the 65+ and 70+ age categories, these five dominate the heart of the Canadian Age Class Triathlon Team. This is a rather remarkable achievement for the club, which is just entering its sixth year.
The elder statesman of this group is Bruce Morrison (The Ancient One) who represented Canada at the World Sprint Triathlon Championships in Budapest in 2010, where he came fourth, and in the 2014 World Championships in his hometown of Edmonton. Morrison has a particular liking for the Kelowna Apple Triathlon where he qualified for the Canadian team.
Robert Lundine, a long time triathlete, first raced for the Canadian team at Wellington, New Zealand in 1994 in the Olympic distance finals. In 2013 he accomplished a world first when he managed to qualify and compete for the Canadian team in the three separate triathlon distances: Sprint, Olympic and Long Distance.
The World Long Distance Championship was held in Belfort, France while the Sprint and Olympic distances both took place in London, England. This achievement resulted in the honour of Lundine being selected as the Team Canada flag bearer for the opening ceremonies in London.
He was very impressed with the courses in London, where he raced throughout the historic downtown in front of huge crowds of spectators.
Bonny Ervin is a veteran of Sprint and Olympic Distance triathlons; first representing Canada in the 2008 Olympic Distance finals which were held in Vancouver.
More recently, in 2014, she competed in the World finals in Edmonton where she was fifth and top Canadian in both the Olympic and Sprint distances. Irvin has participated too many times to count in her favourite race – the Comox Valley Tri-K.
Derek Richmond is the youngster of this group. His favourite race is the duathlon, although he has been known to do the odd Sprint distance triathlon.
He has been in many races over the years but first represented Canada in the duathlon in 1999 and, more recently, in Australia.
He has fond memories of the scenic and historic duathlon World Championship held in Edinburgh in 2010 – there is something unique about racing along routes that are centuries old.
Don Blacklock is probably best known for being, in 2011, the first Comox Valley senior to complete an Ironman. In 2013 he qualified for the World Half-Ironman Championships and also represented Canada in the World Long Distance Triathlon Championship in Belfort, France where he finished as first North American. He likes to race anywhere with hills that enable him to get over 80 km/h on his bike.
This group has a saying: “The easy part is the race, the difficult part is the dogged determination needed to be ready to race.”
– Comox Valley Triathlon Club
