Saturday 7 May 2022 proved to be an exhilarating day in the world of triathlon, with the delayed 2021 IRONMAN World Championships taking place in St George, Utah and the Super League Arena Games closing the eSports World Championship in Singapore. It was an incredible weekend for several INCUS Enabled Athletes who dominated the professional races and finished among the top in the world.
Ruth Astle is definitely one to watch in the world of long-course triathlon, finishing first overall Age-Grouper in Kona in 2019 and going pro in 2020. She’s gone from strength to strength over the past few years and has made a name for herself on a global scale after claiming victories in both Mallorca and South Africa in 2021. Ruth had a sensational race in Utah and finished in 5th place, behind such world-renowned athletes as Daniela Ryf and Anne Haug, placing her among the top in the world of well-established professional triathletes.
Ruth said, “I was more than ready for that finish line to have come about 30km earlier. But as always, there was a great crowd out there and the support was unbelievable. Being able to run down the famous IRONMAN red carpet at my first professional World Championship race was a great moment.”
INCUS Enabled Athlete David McNamee also had an incredible race in St George, finishing 9th overall and beating eventual winner Kristian Blummenfelt out of the swim by three places. It was an incredibly tight race for the men, and McNamee battled hard against seasoned professionals to earn his place among the top 10.
David said, “IRONMAN is about you versus yourself; finding your own personal limits. I wanted to find what my personal limits are.”
Among the Age-Groupers, INCUS Enabled Athlete Tom Davies took 2nd Overall in the 25-29 category, finishing in a time of 9:24:16. St George is notorious for being one of the toughest IRONMAN courses in the world. It features 7,000ft of climbing on the bike and another 1,500ft on the run, meaning it’s not for the faint-hearted and a podium finish is a huge achievement. Tom raced wearing his INCUS performance enabled race suit, and almost didn’t make it to the start line having had a run-in with a car while training only a few weeks before.
Tom joined the INCUS team while studying at Loughborough University, where INCUS Performance is headquartered. In 2015, he became the youngest person to cycle around the world and at the age of 19, he rode 29,000 kilometres over 6 months through 21 different countries. It was during his time at Loughborough and with INCUS that he made the change from cycling to triathlon and now lives in Girona, training and racing full-time as a professional triathlete.
Over to Singapore, and INCUS Enabled Athlete Beth Potter stormed to victory over rivals Jess Learmonth and Georgia Taylor-Brown to take the win at the Super League Arena Games. With a close field of incredibly talented athletes, transitions would prove to be a key part of Potter’s win.
One of Super League’s most attractive features is its playful adaptation of the triathlon format. The first round of the race followed the traditional swim-bike-run, while the second went in reverse for run-bike-swim. Having finished the first stage in first place and with Jess Learmonth unfortunately forced to pull out due to a hip injury, Potter was looking and feeling strong going into round 2. For the final round, Potter was to start neck-and-neck with Hungarian Zsanett Bragmayer and they raced down to the wire. Although Bragmayer took the win for the final event, Potter had more than enough points to take the title of eSports World Champion.
