We wish there were more letters in “HSBC” for us to expand the title of this report further, partly because it’s fun to come up with words that match each letter, but overwhelmingly because it truly was a special day with so many amazing achievements throughout.

Sunday’s sell out Triathlon was the last event of our season at Dorney Lake and after a long summer of memorable sporting moments today’s participants arrived with what felt like an ‘end of season party’ atmosphere bubbling in the air.

As always the day commenced with the LittleLife Scootathlon, which saw a whopping 150 children, aged between four and eight years old, complete a 390m Scoot, 390m Bike and 250m Run. All the children were rewarded with a T-Shirt and medal for their incredible efforts and two lucky families went home with shiny new Micro Scooters from our prize draw.

The main events of the day began with the Olympic distance triathlon races where participants completed a hefty 1,500m swim, 42.4km bike and 10km run. The Olympic distance tends to be the most popular of all distances across our events and today was no different, with no fewer than seven waves going off throughout the day.

In the men’s event Sam Proctor completed an incredible swim and very speedy transition times to be our clear winner in a time of 2:08:07. Finishing in second place was David Kettle (2:10:23) followed closely by Tom Lewin (2:10:59).

There was another stand out performance by Charlotte Bowsher (2:20:16) in the female Olympic race. Much like Sam, Charlotte was leagues ahead coming out of the swim and finished three and a half minutes ahead of her nearest rival. In second place was Catherine Linney (2:24:28), who also finished well ahead of the chasing field and third was Ann Fuller (2:36:05).

Also taking place over the Olympic distance was a traditional style relay event with one member of each team completely a single discipline; swim, bike or run. Taking the victory in the relay event were Router’s Rabble (2:08:42).

A large crowd of athletes gathered quite early on in the day, at the side of the event village, which signalled that we were close to the start of the Duathlon. The mood was jovial throughout the crowd of men and women with what appeared to be a sense of camaraderie, as opposed to competition, flowing through majority of the athletes; all apart from a selection of rather fit looking men and women towards the front, who definitely meant business!

Whatever their motivation, fun, fitness, competition or other, all of the duathletes completed a 5km Run, 21.2km bike and 2.5km run. The field was lead home by Dan Blake (59:43) who took the men’s title ahead of Will Hunt (1:01:51) and Paul Abeledo (1:02:07). It was a close race for first and second in the female race with Cathy Dawson (1:10:03) claiming 1st place, beating Heather Taylor (1:10:43) into second and Caroline Partner (1:15:30) finished in third.

It wasn’t long before we turned our attentions to the Sprint Distance races. All the ‘Sprinters’ were to take on a 750m swim, 21.2km bike and 5km run and both the male and female waves were hotly contested. Michael Marzetti (1:06:27), Tim George (1:07:33) and Xavier Salaun (1:09:30) took one-two-three in the Men’s race with Tracey Hare (1:15:52) winning the women’s race by a good margin ahead of Gesine Junker (1:18:21) and Michelle Sinclair (1:20:31).

Towards the end of the day there were some shorter distances events; A Novice distance race (400 swim, 10.6 bike, 2.5 run), Taster Adult race (200m swim, 5.5km bike, 2.5km run) and Taster Kids event (200m swim, 5.5km bike, 1.5km run).

The fastest male in the Novice event was Ollie Blagden who stormed to victory in a time of 36:56; Ollie was followed home by Aaron Westwood (39:54) and Rod Hamilton (42.03). The first three finishers in the women’s race were all Youth competitors. Isabelle Ellis was first, completing the course in 41:18 ahead of Lily Burnet (42:29) and Emily James (45:30).

Showing the potential to be stepping up from the Taster Adult event were Mark Lloyd who smashed the distance in 25:47, John Blake (29:31) and Jayson Bailey (30:45) as well as Louise Brown (30:19), Katie Robinson (30:44) and Polly Portwin (31:54); our respective first to third place finishers in the women’s race. We hope to see all of you and everyone who took on a Taster Distance event with us in 2015 at one of our SuperSprint (or longer) triathlons next year!

In the Kids in taster Ablerto Panicucci led the field home, finishing in 20:41, ahead of Ethan Reily (20:59) and Henri Bedford (21:08). The first three female finishers we Olivia Lowrie (21:43), Issie Purdie (22:06) and Marqaux Couffon (22:15).

All of the participants were fuelled around the course with energy products from Zipvit Sport and welcomed back home across the finish line with a cool pint of ERDINGER Alkoholfrei isotonic recovery drink. Next up for any triathletes looking for a winter challenge is the Human Race Off-Road Series which consists or Trail Runs and Off-Road Duathlons, perfect for keeping fit through the off-season. Why not give it a try?