Penticton products produce top-10 placings
Symonds finishes 7th, Annett 8th in long-course world championships
Penticton’s own professional triathletes both scored top-10 finishes in Sunday’s long-course world championships.
Racers began with a three-kilometre swim, followed by a 120-km bike ride, and concluded with a 30-km run.
Jeff Symonds placed seventh on the men’s side and hopes the result will serve as a springboard to get his career back on track.
“It’s been 11 months since I had even an OK race, so it’s good to finally get one and kind of turn that momentum,” Symonds said after staggering to the finish line in a time of five hours, 37 minutes and eight seconds. “I said before this it’s not been a good year and it’s been a terrible couple weeks, physically and mentally, but coming off all that I’m pretty stoked.”
Symonds, whose season has been hampered by injury and sickness, was the 14th man out of the water in 40:49, but went on to post the eight fastest bike ride with 3:00:40 and fifth fastest run at 1:52:15.
He said he was able to gain ground on the bike course by exploiting a hill with which he became intimately familiar during training, and then chased down the eventual eight-place finisher on the run course with just under two km left in the race. Heather Wurtele of Kelowna, left, drapes herself in the Canadian flag en route to a third-place finish on the women’s professional side. Jeff Symonds of Penticton, right, looks skyward after staggering across the finish line.
“I had to scrap for every inch today. It wasn’t my ultimate best, but it was my best effort,” he said.
Symonds, who earned $2,000 for his efforts, admitted the spotlight that was on him as a local favourite was a bit too bright for his liking.
“There was a ton of pressure on me for this race, and you can’t really escape the pressure when you’re training in town,” he said.
Symonds’ next race will be a local triathlon Sept. 24 in Santa Cruz, Calif., after which he’ll figure out what to do with the rest of his season.
Jen Annett, who placed eighth on the women’s side, will be racing that same day, but at Ironman Chattanooga in Tennessee.
She clocked a time of 6:10:44 on Sunday in what she described as a “tough” race.
“That was a crazy women’s field. Probably the toughest I’ve ever competed in,” said Annett.
She was the 14th woman out of the water in 45:23, and then posted the fifth fastest bike ride at 3:12:28 and ninth fastest run with 2:09:40.
Annett, who earned $1,200 in prize money, enjoyed the pressure of competing at home — “I like being local, it’s fun” — but admitted she was still fatigued after racing to a second-place finish at Ironman Canada in Whistler a month ago.
The long-course triathlon brought to a close the ITU Multisport World Championships Festival, which, for the first time, brought six different disciplines together for a 10-day event open to professionals and amateurs alike.
Annett said the format, which saw daily road closures and thousands of visitors flood into Penticton, created a buzz around the sports not seen in the city since the last Ironman race in 2012. Yet, opinions were mixed about this event. “I know there are some people in town who hated it,” she allowed, “but I think it’s absolutely phenomenal.”