Jervis Bay Triathlon Club make strong start to South Coast Interclub Series Championship title defence at Huskisson

Despite COVID-19 restrictions limiting entry to fully-vaccinated competitors, both the sprint and standard distances on Sunday were sold out, creating a hot field for locals to test themselves.

Jervis Bay fielded its biggest field in the sprint race where interclub performance points were up for grabs.

Although they were forced to compete in 10-year age groups, as opposed to the usual five, a swag of South Coast athletes made it onto the podium.

Leading the charge was Jessica Rosskelly who won the 40-49 age group and was the fifth female overall, completing the 750-metre swim/20km bike/5km run in just 1:17, despite the wet conditions.

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Bill Stahlhut took gold in the 60-69 age group finishing just behind Rosskelly.

Jervis Bay's fastest male was Darryl Callaghan with a time of 1:15. Callaghan placed second in the 50-59 age group and 16th male overall.

Rob Duffy also won silver in his age group while Elisha Bell, Sile Crowe, and Mandy Meredith won bronze.

In the standard distance race, Natalie Mort won gold in the 60-64 age group, while Justin Field and Jackie Lyons also had strong performances.

A range of multisport races were held on the Saturday including the super sprint triathlon where Jervis Bay's newest member, Sophie Stepford, completed her first triathlon.

She finished a promising fifth in the 40-49 age group.

Sile Crowe won her age group in the 1km ocean swim and Matt Lewis was third overall and first in his age group in the 2.5km swim.

Following the weekend's action, Jervis Bay is tied on 23 points with rival Kiama in the Interclub Series.

"I'm expecting a really tough battle with Kiama again this season," Club president Rod Rose said.

"It was great to be racing again and to see strong interest from members in the season ahead.

"It was also exciting to see some new names among the podium finishers."

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Rose said the club is currently working on its 2022 calendar now that community sport is allowed again and is keen to encourage new members interested in giving triathlon a go.

"We're particularly excited about building a juniors program for the next generation of triathletes," he said.

"But our next group training session on November 21 is a great chance for anyone to come along and see what triathlon is about."

The next event on the interclub calendar is Tri Callala on December 18.

"It would be great to get a lead on Kiama there," he said.

"We're also encouraging our longer distance athletes to commit to the Batemans Bay Standard distance at the beginning of February."

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