Keegan Cooke will be brimming with confidence after claiming the senior title at the Nelson Mandela Bay Triathlon Championships at the weekend.
Cooke outclassed his opponents at Pollok beach to cross the line in first place overall in a time of 1hr 49 min 19 sec, to pick up his third title in as many years at the event.
Cooke 22, finished the race more than two minutes ahead of second-placed Travis McGrath (1:51.48) and Graeme Renard (1:58.37).
In the women’s race, Mariette Hattingh (53) took top honours with a time of 2:21:35, while Pauline Tunstead (2:26:15) was second and Rebecca van der Merwe (2:28:37) came home in third place.
There were three race distances on the day – the Youth Triathlon (300m swim/10km cycle/2.5km run), a junior triathlon (750m swim/20km cycle/5km run) and a senior triathlon race (1,500m swim/40km cycle/10km run).
“The day started off well for me,” Cooke said.
“I had a good swim and was out of the water first.
“The bike gave me a few issues and that caused me to drop back behind Travis to second, but I managed to stay in contention.
“I was about two minutes back coming off the bike, and I had to work hard to close the gap on him from the first of four laps, until I caught and passed him on lap three, and once I got to the front again, I had to manage my race till the end,” Cooke said.
A delighted Hattingh said her victory came as a complete surprise because she had not been in the best shape going into the event.
The youth section saw Francois De Villiers win with a time of 37:27 while Nicola Harcus claimed victory in the women’s race in a time of 38:35.