Billy Loutit himself would have been proud of the 11th annual Billy Loutit Despatch Triathlon and the new Duathlon July 21 in honour of his run to Edmonton to inform authorities Athabasca was being flooded.
Loutit famously beat a horseback rider by an hour during his 1904 run.
Although organizers had hoped to attract more than 100 athletes, they were content with the 45-person turnout for the adult races on Sunday.
The weekend also featured a Kids of Steel event on Saturday for younger athletes, in which 32 kids competed — about half of what organizers had aimed for.
According to Mark Francis, one of the principal organizers, the Town of Athabasca provided assistance with stop signs and traffic control. The Athabasca Lions Club ran a BBQ and provided free hamburgers near the pool, and Billy Loutit’s son-in-law Charlie donated $1,000 to the event.
Six months of planning paid off, as the final day went without a hitch, said Francis.
“The race was on time, the weather worked out — all of those things that you kind of get a little nervous about, like this morning: I was driving in and fogged out,” said Francis.
Early into the biking component, one of the organizers remarked that there was no wind, and that would benefit the bikers. Despite cloudy skies, the rain held off.
More than 40 volunteers helped bring everything together over the course of the two days that featured standard and sprint events in which athletes swam, biked and ran as individuals or as teams.
The standard course took the adult athletes through a 1500-metre swim, 40-kilometre bike ride and 10-kilometre run.
The sprint triathlon was a 500-metre swim, 20-kilometre bike ride and five-kilometre run.
The sprint duathlon, an individual event only, took athletes on a five-kilometre run, 20-kilometre bike ride and another five-kilometre run.
The swim took place at the Athabasca Landing Pool, as did all transitions. After completing either the 1500-metre (60-length) or 500-metre (20-length) swim component, athletes exited the building, hopped on their bikes and hit the pavement.
Cyclists travelled west primarily on Highway 2; those doing the standard event then turned south on Highway 812 for several more kilometres before heading back to the pool.
Upon the cyclists’ return to the pool, they transitioned into either the 10-kilometre standard run or five-kilometre sprint. Both routes took them past Landing Trail Intermediate School and into one of two expansive Muskeg Creek Trails.
Athlete Jodi Bourne, a planning clerk for Athabasca County, took a little spill as she hopped on her bike. Although visibly injured, her bike chain displaced, she quickly repaired her bike, hopped back on and kept on trucking through 20 kilometres of biking and a five-kilometre run.
Bourne’s mother and stepfather came all the way from Kelowna, B.C., to see her race in her first Billy Loutit Triathlon.
“I think it’s pretty cool. They’re obviously pretty proud, eh?” said Bourne. “It’s still a little unreal; this is my first one. It was harder. Each individual part was exactly how I thought it was going to be, but it was harder,” she said.
Bourne finished in last place in the ladies sprint but remained in good spirits.
“What are you going to do? You just get back on. I was a little worried because I couldn’t get the chain back on, but I wasn’t concentrating on what I was doing. I was already down the hill in my head,” she said.
“It was a whole journey with me,” she added, having started training July of last year. “I crossed the finish line. That was the goal.
Paul Mickelson, Greg Beattie and Dylan Zilinski came out on top in the team sprint with a time of one hour, 24 minutes, nine seconds.
Olena Makovey, Jeff Loken and Sarah Haubrich won the team standard with a time of 2:44:03.
Colleen Elgert won the ladies’ sprint with a time of 1:24:49. Robert Winter came out on top of the men’s sprint with a time of 1:12:29.
Roberta Hyland’s 2:55:22 finish scored her first place in the ladies’ standard; Spencer Peterson crossed the finish line at 2:24:02 to win the men’s standard.
Emma Neigel won the ladies’ duathlon with a time of 1:33:17; Travis Guay won the men’s duathlon with a time of 1:22:45.
Winners of the Kids of Steel event were Mehr Kaur and Dryden McNamara (seven and under), Claire Francis and Levi Stiles (eight- and nine-year-olds), Yvette Guay and Maxim Makovey (10- and 11-year-olds), and Anna MacIsaac-Jones and James Tompson (12- to 14-year-olds).
“If you ask them who Billy Loutit is, they know,” said Francis of the younger competitors. “Every community needs those kinds of legends.
“It means a lot to the family,” he added, pointing out that several of Loutit’s descendents attended.
“There were a lot of new committee members, so it was a bit of learning curve this year, but I think we nailed it by the time the weekend came. It just took a bit to get going and get confident with it,” said organizer Glenda Gray.
“I think everything went very, very smoothly.”
