The Noosa Triathlon

Thursday, February 19 2004 @ 03:24 PM GMT

Hope you're all training hard back in Dublin. Just thought I'd let ye know how triathlons are run on the other side of the World.

Before Xmas I had the opportunity to witness the Noosa Triathlon. Noosa is a town about 160kms north of Brisbane and for one weekend in October it hosts the 2nd Largest Triathlon in the World (the organisers claim anyway).

To say that there are a few triathletes is to say that Kinsale Tri has a few hills. The town swarms with them. Everywhere you look somebody is training for the event. Go surfing and you'll see the triathletes practising their body surfing, go shopping and you'll see them pounding the streets en masse and if you take a trip by car or bus expect to see them passing you out on a bike...

The course itself is a pretty daunting one. The Ironman swim is in the sea with what can be pretty heavy waves (it's great on a surfboard, but I don't know about swimming it). The olympic distance is an approx 1.5k swim in the river. The cycle is 40k out of the town and back with a few nice steep hills that are gentle on the way back down. It makes for some real work on the way up with no break on the way down! The final hurdle is the run - 10k in and out of the town. Believe me, I had sympathy for these guys when I saw them coming in afterwards.

There are also other events organised for non-triathletes; such as a 1k swim race, road races and so on. The town descends into triathlon mania for the day and approximately 30000 spectators turn up for it. Coming from Ireland where triathlons are an up and coming sport - I would have to say we can learn a lot from these guys.

The event is organised from the ground up by locals with the support of almost the entire local population. I have to admit, the town had the feeling of Dublin on All Ireland day (or All Ireland Semi Final Day if you're from Wexford like me). To stand there and see guys swimming at such pace, leg it out of the water, cycle faster than most cars would cover the distance and finally run 10k as fast as i would probably (hopefully) run it if i hadn't done the other two events is a truly humbling experience. The training and dedication of these guys is unreal.

I do have to admit though, they did know how to party. That nite in Noosa was unreal - the afters party took place all over town and all those you had seen swimming while surfing and running on the streets suddenly became the guys (and girls of course!) throwing all sorts of shapes in niteclubs around the town. Business over, the attitude now seemed to be lets party! We were lucky enough in that the hostel we were staying in also had a number of triathletes staying who we had befriended and they took us along to all the after parties as if we were competitors (when backpacking getting into niteclubs for free is always welcome). The nite went on into the wee hours of the morning and the sun was coming up again as we finished our bottles of VB and headed for bed.

Without a doubt it was one of the greatest sporting events I have witnessed, and it had an afters party which equaled the prowess shown on the course. If you're ever in Oz I would highly reccomend checking out the Triathlon Scene. It's highly professional, but they really do know how to party as well.

Comments (2)

PiranhaTri
http://www.piranhatri.com/article.php/20040219152507278