Superleague jersey was the last triathlon of the season and was also the biggest. It was an international race which had some of the best triathletes in Europe competing. My school, Ripley St Thomas gave me three days off so we travelled on Thursday by plane ready to race on the Saturday morning. We were staying in the Raddison blu hotel which looked over the race venue, it was also the hotel that the pros were staying in which included Vicent Luis and Johnny Brownlee. I was the youngest person racing and most of the competition were two years older than me so I was just going to go out and enjoy the race. The swim was done in the harbour and the bike course was a very technical 1k loop, for the run we would just run around the bike loop. on the Friday we did a recce with the pros.

On the morning of race day I started with breakfast but could barely eat due to nerves. I watched the junior girls and boys, got my race stuff ready and heady to the briefing room, we were given our numbers and new race details which meant we were missing the second swim due to bad weather and doing swim,bike,run,bike,run. This format would suit me but with most of the other boys being 2 years older than me it was going to be a tough race. After our briefing we were taken out to transition in number order, I was number 05 and had a really good spot in transition. We racked our bikes, zipped up our wetsuits and headed to the pontoon. The atmosphere was crazy, there were loads of people looking down at us eager for the race to start. We were allowed some practice dives before we raced, I was surprised with how warm the water felt but the saltiness was probably going to cause severe dehydration. I was in position 09 on the pontoon and had a direct route to the first buoy, the one minute signal sounded so we all got ready, it was longest one minute of my life but eventually it came to an end.

When we dived in I got pushed under someone and they ended up diving on-top of me, after that I got dunked and spat out the back. I carried on and pushed hard to the second buoy and ended up catching a few people I carried on pushing really hard until the end and came out in a reasonably good position. I had a swift transition and got on my bike in a large group, I wasn’t able to keep up with the bike pace of the older lads so I ended up doing most of the bike on my own. I had another good transition and setted of on the run, my run legs just weren’t there and I struggled for most of the run, I caught up to one person before entering transition again, I had another swift transition and went onto the bike with one other lad. We worked together for most of the bike and didn’t end up losing any more positions. Going onto the last run my legs felt just as worse as the first run, I struggled but made it to the finish in 27^th.

I wasn’t happy with my result but I had an amazing experience and can’t wait to hopefully race in superleage again next year. thank you to Ripley St Thomas for giving me time off, my coaches Mark Smith and Colin Gemson, and to my sponsors, pedal potential and blitz eyewear for the support.