The First Welsh Triathlon Champion?

 

Sitting on the shelf in our front room, a little bit neglected, is a silver trophy. As always the trophy needs cleaning but if you look closely at the engraving it says;

TRIATHLON
CHAMPIONSHIPS
MENS
WELSH CHAMPION
1978
M. J. G. BATTERSBY

 The event was held in Haverfordwest on Sunday, 19^th March 1978. That’s over 35 years ago. It’s interesting to note that the first ever Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii took place on 18^th February, 1978, only 29 days earlier.

However this was not exactly a triathlon as we know today. These first Welsh Triathlon Championships were arranged and held under the auspices of the Modern Pentathlon Association of Great Britain. The three events were swimming, running and.... pistol shooting!  We had heard mumblings about these triathlons (with cycling) as they had started a couple of years earlier in the USA. I guess the MPAGB wanted to get on the bandwagon.

At the time I was studying for my A-levels and was asked to participate by my local swim club. I’d “retired” from swimming, well the training bit of it anyway, a few years earlier (girls, pubs – you know how it goes) but I was still fairly fit. I also had done some cross country running at school so I thought I would give it a go. I remember learning how to shoot a pistol accurately at the Territorial Army target range in the Drill Hall in Llanelli. The event consisted of a 500m pool swim, a 5km cross country run and 0.177 target pistol shooting. There were breaks in between events, so not continuous like today’s triathlon. It was a cold and wet day (much like most of this Spring 2013) and the XC was run through a bog. Afterwards I was asked to represent Wales at the forthcoming British Triathlon Championships at Crystal Palace but unfortunately it clashed with my A-Level exams.

There can’t be many people on this planet who can say they’ve raced triathlons in five different decades.

So if those pesky cyclists hadn’t got their hands on the sport I could have been a contender!

Here are some old local press clippings.

The pic is mostly the Llanelli swim team. I’m on the far right with the “easy rider” glasses on (it was a stage I was going through!)