One way to psych out the competition is to look the part of a champion, another is to perform like one. Whitehorse’s Stephen Waterreus found some middle ground at the Dry Tri at the Takhini Hot Springs on Saturday.
“No man wants to be beaten by another man wearing a skirt, so it can demoralize the opposition when you go flying by with the kilt bellowing in the wind,” said Waterreus.
“Especially if you’re on your bike and they get a sight up the kilt - they might see something they might not want to see.”
Waterreus won his second Dry Tri in the individual men’s division in the fourth annual event on the weekend, coming in with a time of 1 hour, 28 minutes and 56 seconds - 52 seconds slower than his record time set when he won in 2008.
Adding to the spectacle of the race, Waterreus completed all three stages of the triathlon - running, mountain biking and running again with no swimming, hence the “Dry”- wearing nothing but a pair of sneakers and a black kilt.
“It was really well organized and really fun based,” said Waterreus. “The awards ceremony was something special with the water balloon gauntlet and the (wobbly-bat) spinning. These are the kind of events I look forward to.”
Facing some fierce competition, Waterreus overtook second-place finisher Ian Carswell towards the end of the first running leg, only to drop the lead during the transition to the mountain bikes. However, Waterreus retook the lead towards the end of the first of three laps in the 14-kilometre cycling stage.
Carswell, who is from Kitchener, Ontario, in town visiting family, was competing in his first Dry Tri and came in one minute, seven seconds behind Waterreus. No stranger to distance events, Carswell represented Canada at the Commonwealth Games for running in 1998 in Malaysia.
In the individual women’s category, Whitehorse’s Maura Sullivan took the win with almost a full eight minutes to spare, crossing the finish line in 1:42:48. Sullivan competed in the first Dry Tri in 2007, but had to withdrew from the race during the first stage.
More recently, Sullivan also finished second in the Olympic women category of the Whitehorse Triathlon at the start of June. She finished behind Colleen Latham, who was the overall fastest in the event out of all solo divisions.
She was also part of the fastest Yukon, mixed two-person team with Mark Connell at the Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay last month, finishing second overall.
Flying in the face of the “dry” angle of the triathlon, division winners were required to run a water balloon gauntlet to accept their prizes.
Tagged onto the award ceremony were “wobbly bat” races in which participants squared off against each other, completing 10 rotations with their foreheads lowered to bats - or in this case a hockey stick and a piece of wood - to reduce their equilibrium before running to the finish line for a prize. There were a few falls along the way.
Results
Individual men
1st Stephen Waterreus - 1:28:56
2nd Ian Carswell - 1:30:07
3rd Mark Connell - 1:46:31
Individual women
1st Maura Sullivan - 1:42:48
2nd Kealy Sweet - 1:50:18
3rd Kristena Sullivan - 1:55:29
Mixed team
1st A Whole Lotta BS (Sean McCarron, Brittany Smith) - 1:35:53
2nd Sex Panther (Jen Moran, Devon McDiarmid, Sam Reimer) - 1:42:55
3rd Call Jerry (Paul Burbidge, Carrie Burbidge) - 1:43:50
Women’s team
1st J-Biggy (Justine Scheck, Ziggy Reimer) - 1:57:34
2nd No nuts, All Klutz (Cassandra Kelly, Jen Roberts) - 2:15:38
3rd The Long Overdues (Shannon Meekins, Joyce Kashman) - 2:21:28
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com