Victoria’s Brent McMahon is the new Valley First Challenge Penticton half distance champion.
McMahon crossed the finish line at Okanagan Lake Park completing the 1.9-kilometre swim, 90-km bike and 21.1-km run in three hours, 50 minutes and 38 seconds. McMahon bested the time of last year’s champion, Alistair Eeckman, of 4:40.
“I had goals set for myself. I wanted to go out and I wanted to win this event,” said McMahon, who came out of the swim third in 22:04, then clocked a time of 2:14:08 on the bike and 1:14:28 on the run. “It takes a lot of hard work to do that. There was great Canadians and great international athletes here. They didn’t make it easy on me.”
McMahon, who competed in the 2004 and 2012 Summer Olympics for Canada, said he worked hard on the bike to stay near the front. He, Trevor Wurtele, and Italy’s Davide Giardini were No’s. 1, 2 and 3 on the bike.
“Trevor Wurtele was there on the run. I just never let up. People were like ‘Oh, you can’t see him’, but it’s Trevor, I can’t give anything right now,” said McMahon, who pocketed $6,000 for the win.
McMahon, a three-time North American 70.3 champion, said the entire course was a challenge. He made sure to work the flat sections, but also stay steady and strong on the climbs.
“That’s how you win races is just never letting up,” said McMahon, adding that he was worried about the entire men’s pro field. “You just can’t count them out. It was a fun race.”
In second was Wurtele of Kelowna at 3:53:52, followed by Giardini in 3:57:23 and in fourth was Penticton’s Jeff Symonds at 3:58:50.
Symonds required technical support to repair a flat tire.
“I think it’s tough when you are the local guy. You want to win, you want to be on the podium. The best way to do that is to not stand on the side of the road,” said Symonds. “I just had to refocus. I think it was important for me to set an example for the race. To go hard and give it everything I have even if the results I wanted were out of reach. I stand for something bigger than that. Today I proved it.”
Bryan Rhodes, Braden Currie and Elmar Heger were not able to finish. Rhodes posted on his Twitter account that he was suffering from food poisoning. He made this joke: “Not the 1st place I was after! I’m the winner of first to #MedicsTent.”
Eeckman, competing in his fourth event as a pro, said the start of the race was a bit chaotic with 49 pros.
“It was a bit of fighting, a bit of arm tossing,” said Eeckman, adding that he experienced challenges on the bike course with the heavy winds and rain. “It started raining so some of those descends was pretty dangerous. I put together a pretty solid run.”
Eeckman managed to trim his time from last year by 13 minutes and said racing against a “stellar field” pushed him to a different level.
“It’s good racing with these guys,” he said.
On the female side, Melanie McQuaid was forced to bow out as well as Cheryl Orlovsky.
Jennifer Spieldenner, of Findlay, Ohio, was the women’s half distance champion finishing in 4:25:09. She finished the swim in 23:28, the bike in 2:34:53 and the bike in 1:26:38.
Spieldenner said it was a hard day. She found the bike and climbs difficult with heavy winds.
“There was a lot of good girls here. It feels really good (to win),” said Spieldenner, who specializes in the half distance. “It was hard, very hard. That was like a grind.”
The hardest part for her was the bike and she said the run was tough mentally.
When it comes to winning, she said it’s “the best feeling ever.”
In second was Challenge Penticton’s two-time full distance champ, Carrie Lester, clocking in at 4:26:44. She bested Spieldenner on the bike by two minutes with a time of 2:32:53.
“I couldn’t close that gap on first,” she said. “To be honest, I felt awful from the start. It was just a bit of an off day. My legs just didn’t want to go.”
Taking third was Lesley Smith of Iowa City, coming in at 4:27:44.
Penticton’s Jen Annett finished seventh among women and 28th overall.
“It honestly went pretty much exactly as planned. It worked out exactly how I wanted it to,” said Annett, who came out of the swim in 28:05, finished the bike in 2:33:36 and the run in 1:33:01. “Of course I would have liked to have placed top-five. I think I put it all out there. I don’t feel like I could have done any better.”
