Kelvin Johnson endured the rough, murky waters of the Berbice River, and the gruelling cycling and running segments to outdo the rest of the field in defending his 2007 Triathlon title and winning the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport 2008 Triathlon this past weekend.
Twenty athletes were registered to participate in the annual event but only 13 actually competed on the day of reckoning as seven Linden athletes (five males and two females) were late and missed the transportation from the Ministry’s Main Street Office to take them to Rosignol.
The event got underway at approximately 8:10 hrs with the 1,600m swim from the Blairmont Stelling to the Amazon Caribbean Guyana Limited wharf.
Junior national swimmers Henk Lowe and Orlando Mc Rae were the first two out of the water respectively while Kester Croal was the only one of the 13 swimmers who could not complete the leg.
A gruesome 25K cycling event was the next stage of the triathlon which was dreadful for some participants.
In this stage, Mc Rae and Lowe were braced with the reality of being overpowered.
Johnson was trailing in third by some distance in the 25K cycling event but he put his superior running skills to work being a national track and field long distance athlete as he stormed past his opponents to finish the 5K run and the event in one hour, twenty six minutes and seventeen seconds (1:26:17s).
Andrew Spencer and Garfield Lorimer finished behind Johnson in the senior male category in 1:32:42s and 1:34:23s respectively.
Fourth and fifth were Noel Culpepper (1:39:41) and Deon Spencer (1:43:52s) with Mario King (1:58:09s) and Mc Rae (2:08:39s) finishing sixth and seventh.
Rochelle Allicock was the only senior female, finishing in 2:09:12s and Carletta Cornelius the lone junior female competitor posted 2:21:15s.
In the junior male category Dameon Williams was the victor in 1:38:36s with Alan and Henk Lowe grabbing second and third positions with times of 2:18:48 and 2:22:40s respectively.
