There was more of everything than last year - competitors, flash bikes and more and more rain! As usual Bintan brought us steaming heat leading up to the race start, then a monsoon for the bike, followed by steaming heat for the run, perfect especially for those beginners!

A few key highlights were:

1. Robert Bruce’s amazing run to the start of the sprint race – he looked like Lindford Christie charging into the water. Mike, Joss and I watched in amazement and wondered how that first 100-200m swim would feel after such an impressive run – pretty horrible according to Rob afterwards be he got his moment of glory at the front of the pack - check out the pictures!!
2. The Bintan Lagoon Hotel have banned all future corporate events using the golf buggies to get to and from dinner venue’s!! Thankfully we used them pre-race and not post-race after way too much booze, as I can be sure that a few would have ended up in the lagoons……..it was funny enough watching the hotel staff chase all these stray buggies and drivers all over the golf course on the route back and those things sure fly when you hit speed bumps at full pelt!
3. After a weekend of laughs, we thought that was it until the group had further fun and games trying to leave the island…..Rob Bruce (yes, that man again) got collared at immigration and scolded for loosing his departure card. Over here, filling another in simply isn’t an option and he was seen disappearing off to a dark room followed closely by an immigration officer slipping on his rubber gloves.  15minutes later he emerged with a smile and USD100 less in his wallet.  Only minutes later, bike mechanic Derek made the same mistake and we were sure he didn’t have USD100 in his wallet so we waited and waited…….finally he emerged with another smile and had managed to pay off the officer with some duty free cigarettes he had bought for a mate back in HK…….guess it sometimes pays to have less in your wallet or not loose those bits of paper!!

Well onto the more serious……..race day by Joss Pollock:

The swim start was the usual crazy fiasco, especially since the women started in the left lane and the men in the right. It appeared that the woman might have had to swim a few extra meters, so when you check out the times keep this in mind for the girls.  As usual chaos set in (just check out the photos!) and it was every man (or women) for themselves.  It didn't take long before we were swimming into a lovely swell (one of those ones where you end up doing every breathing stroke under the water because the swell keeps changing!). We swam about 800m and then we had a 30m run up the beach to turn around and get back into the water again for the final 600m.  This might sound like a rest, however when you stand up from a swim your blood goes to your legs, then when you get back in the water you somehow have to redirect the blood back to your arms. The first 20m of this is total agony as you try not to drown and this is coming from a good swimmer!

Then as we got onto the bikes, the clouds rolled in.  Last year it bucketed down for the first 5km of the bike leg but this year it absolutely pelted down for almost the entire ride. At one stage the lightening was so bad and close that we were looking around to see which tree was on fire!  Claire and I were both worrying about all our first-timers and thinking they must be cursing us for getting them into this crazy sport!!  It is normally nice to see everyone on the out and back section but this year you could barely see more than 15m ahead and everyone was concentrating simply on staying upright.  Poor Ado had some idiot ride into him about 5km from the end and had to negotiate the only hills on the course in one gear!!

The run leg is one of the toughest Olympic distance runs in the world.  Quote by Courtney Atkinson, one of the world’s best triathletes "This is the hardest OD run leg I've ever
done".   It started off with some slippery pebble Crete footpaths and then just starts winding up and down and around and through and under and over anything and everything that you could find on a golf course. The bottom line is that there is a 200m hill at the 3.5k mark and if you can run up that on your second lap without stopping at all, then you
have done very well indeed! We felt lucky as when Claire and I started the run it was still raining which was refreshing but the sun decided to come back out after about 15-20 minutes and punish anyone who was only just starting the run leg. You could feel the humidity pushing you back with every stride.  I had a fun run to the finish with 1km to go I heard Claire behind me forcing me to work even harder to get to the finish holding onto my second place!

Anyway, we all crossed the finish line and had an awesome massage with the CLSA massage girls and started to prepare for the real tester - the awards party! These always seem to go on FOREVER…….it will be awesome when race organizers finally understand that we don’t want to hear hours of waffle and just want to get it done and onto the drinking!!  It was good to see them take the mickey out of a few individuals and in particular one guy who really had spent the entire day walking around in his time trial helmet…..yes, he arrived at the start with it on his head and never took it off again except for the swim!! 

A Big Congrats to everyone who finished the race in such tough conditions. There were a few outstanding performances including, Will Roberts for his 2nd place in the men’s 20 – 29 Sprint race in his FIRST triathlon – no sprint race for you next time!! Our Coach, Mike Maiers 3rd in the men’s 30 – 39 Years Olympic distance race and first Hong Kong male home. Team B and C for 3rd place overall in the team division and Joss and Claire for 2nd and 3rd place in the professional women’s race.

Bintan race results

Olympic Distance: 1.5km/40km/10km

Sprint Distance: 750m/20km/5km