NEVIS CYCLE & TRIATHLON CLUB

This years St Croix Half-Ironman event, now dubbed 70.3, proved to be the scource of both misery and joy for the members of the Nevis Cycle & Triathlon Club, misery came to Reggie Douglas, who has been training for this event since November 05' and was hopeful of earning a spot in the most famous Ironman event, Kona in Hawaii. Reggie developed a large cyst on his right thigh just days before he was due to leave, which he had to have drained and treated and under doctors orders banned from travelling to the event, it is hard to imagine his disapointment.
His support team Winston Crooke and Stanley Williams travelled with the teams female entrant Jessica Geist, who was also competing in the half-ironman distance, and decided to enter the sprint event, a pretty cool decision for Stanley as it would be only his third time racing a sprint triathlon. But Joy of Joys for Stanley especially, as he did far, far better than his forecast "2nd to last", placing 64th out of a field of 141 athletes, hearty congratulations to him, Winston also did well with a 21st overall finish and 1st in his age group, and noticably doing well enough to rank 5th overall on the bike leg.
Jessica was having a much tougher day than the 'boys' finding herself among some very stiff competition, as well as doing battle with the infamous 'Beast' hill climb, she was coping admirably untill it started raining during her bike leg, slowing her down, followed by the gruelling 13 mile run to complete the course in 6hrs 8mins, a very commendable performance.
The whole event was a wonderful lesson in sports tourism, with roads closed to accommodate the racing, and untold numbers of local fans out on the streets, from the 5.00am start right through to the last stragglers some 7hrs later, despite the rain, they were cheering everyone along. So look out St Croix and the rest of the world Reggie is promising to come back stronger than ever in 2007 to claim the Kona spot he missed this year.