Gold for Bayliss and Bronze for Comerford at the Czechman Long Distance Triathlon

Tuesday, 19th July 2005

A contingent from the  GB Long Distance Elite Squad  headed off to the Czechman Triathlon for a race over the 3km 80km 20km double Olympic distance at the weekend.

Fresh from their success in Sater two weeks ago Stephen Bayliss and Bella Comerford were again on the podium.

In the men's race Stephen Bayliss exited the water in 4th on the swim, and built on this foundation coming into T2 in 2nd place 50 seconds down on the leader but with several other athletes hot on his heels. A typically determined run saw him take the lead and stretch this to take the Gold Medal with a winning margin of just under 3 ½ minutes on the second placed Jan Wainer and over 7 minutes ahead of Petr Vabrousek.

Also racing for GB in the men's race was Duncan McKerracher who took 13th slot.

Meanwhile in the women's race Comerford was joined by fellow GB Elite Squad Athletes Rachel Nolan and Anne Fallows.

Comerford exited the water in third place and went onto to demonstrate a consistent race by posting third fastest bike and run too. Previous Winner Eva Novakova was first out of the swim and into T2 but was overhauled on the run by Tamara Kozulina, the reigning World Champion. The top three were Kozulina 4hrs 18mins, Novakova in Silver 1 ½ mins later and Comerford slightly over a minute behind to take a well deserved Bronze place.

Nolan was 5th and Fallows 8th .

This race formed the second race in this year's ITU Long Distance Ranking Series and is likely to mean that Comerford and Bayliss currently head their respective World Ranking.

Attention now turns to the World Championships in 3 weeks time in Denmark.

Article Source:  BTA website, 18th July 2005