On Friday last the 2015 calendar was announced with a new series of races and a new set of categories to light the flame of imagination among athletes training hard putting in the winter miles.

You can read the release here — http://www.triathlonireland.com/index.php?id=107&nid=2035

The above link will also take you to a list of names and criteria needed

Whats your opinion of the new Cat 1 category and the inclusion of 2 drafting races ?

• I really do think this is an exciting move, we can not expect to produce world class athletes if we don’t have the basics right at home in terms of infrastructure and having draft legal races is a first step.
• I also like that all the best have to toe the line at the smaller race series.

We have 6 athletes now ranked in this new cat 1 category on the male front and 3 on the female side. As a squad this is going to change how we race and how we train this winter. Thankfully we can see for the last number of years that the swim standard in triathlon in Ireland is going up, mainly due to HP Squad juniors pushing out the front packs and this style of racing is now going to make the swims even more important.

On the men’s side of things if your not swimming and holding sub 1:20 pace for 1500m you can start to pray for your pack to have some uber bikers and I personally think it will be the same for the ladies, off the top of my head there are maybe 6 women in the Irish scene who can mix it with those times, depending on the gaps between men’s and women’s fields they will be potentially exiting with some of the weaker male swimmers and the rest of the girls will be lost. This is just speculation and the rules have yet to be clarified.

I do think a number of things have to be clarified before the start of the season with the super series and other races

• Prize money—- plain and simply put, this has to be the same at every super series event ( male and female)
• entry fee—- this also should be standard across all super series events – possibly one fee at the start of the series with guaranteed entry to all 6 races ?
• team sizes —- even though there is a criteria to qualify, some clubs and athletes will be at a disadvantage if for example gotri has 6 athlete and your club only has one, team tactics will dictate that the majority will have the upper hand on the outcome ( swim grouping/bike racing)
• time gap to ladies pack after men’s start …. are ladies allowed to ride in male packs ?

 

Is there a team prize ?

For me as coach and athlete, it is club before personal ambition. We have been fortunate enough through hard team work and training to win the club championships the last 2 years, how does it work now ?

 

Lots of excitement!!!

First and foremost this is exciting for the sport. I hope all the top domestic talent see’s that and gets on board to make it happen, make it exciting and push it. I hope triathlon Ireland push it and support all the athletes taking on the challenge, put the money behind the series and you never know with the exciting changes maybe we could see our beloved sport back on RTE ……

Yours in Sport

STL