Trudy Fawcett wins Sprint Aquathlon in first leg of Singapore Sprint Series

Story by Les Tan/Red Sports. Pictures by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports.

Tanjong Beach, Sentosa, Sunday, February 22, 2009 – Trudy Fawcett showed her running prowess when she came from behind to beat the early leaders to win the women’s category of the Sprint Aquathlon, the first race in the Singapore Sprint Series.

Trudy clocked 34 minutes 52 seconds (Swim: 14:45; Run: 19:26) to finish first while Chiu Suk Han was second (36:11) and Kyle Williams was third (36:14).

In the men’s category, Halligan Quin was the fastest finisher in 30:17. He was followed closely by Loo Chuang Rong (30:48) in second and last year’s Series winner Sebastien Calle in third (32:14).

Apart from individual race winners, the series also gives athletes an opportunity to rack up points over the three races after which an individual series winner will be crowned.

Trudy, a British national and a Singapore permanent resident, who finished fourth in the 2008 Women 10K, came out of the water trailing in 6th place, but her running experience soon saw her pick off the leaders in the second half of the 5km run.

“The girls are more aggressive than the boys! I almost lost my goggles at the start,” recounted Trudy after the race. “I think I was 5th or 6th after the swim. The local Singaporean swimmers are so fast! But I saw three girls at the (5km) turnaround and thought ‘Aha, I can catch up with them!'”

“The turning point (of the 5km) was scary as I could see the girls in my category,” said Christel Fung, 17, who was first out of the 750m swim in 11:06. “The swim was very calm, very easy,” said Christel, who led from start to finish. “But on the run, I was just dying trying not let anyone pass. The ACJC relay girls eventually passed me, including Trudy.”

Christel eventually finished first in the Under-20 category and 5th in the women’s category. Both Christel and Trudy will be back for the later two stages of the Singapore Sprint Series.

A team of six Singapore Sports School triathletes also took part, and swept up prizes in the Mini-Aquathlon event, a first for the series. Joel Wong (12:41) and Abdul Qadir (13:01) of Singapore Sports School finished first and second respectively in the Mini-Aquathlon (200m swim, 2.5km run). Gael Woon, of Hua Yi Secondary, was third in 13:03.

“We launched this event in 2008 with 1,500 participants in total,” said Kim Schoch, sales and marketing manager of Tribob, the event organiser. “This year we had to close registration for the first race earlier because we reached maximum capacity.

“We have over 1,000 participants for the Mini and Sprint Aquathlon and for the Duathlon and Triathlon, we are not far off from achieving similar results. We give our best always to create an unforgettable race experience for our clients and we believe yesterday we did it again.”

The next race in the series, the Sprint Duathlon, is scheduled for Sunday, March 15, 2009 at Upper Seletar Reservoir Park. The duathlon is a run-bike-run (3km-15km-3km) event.

The final race in the series is the Sprint Triathlon, a 750m-swim, 20km-bike, 5km-run event scheduled for Sunday, April 19, 2009.

Related post: Singapore Sprint Series Sprint Aquathlon – A Photo Story

More pictures in the gallery.