Some of St. Croic’s young athletes and – Who knows? Maybe future Olympians – came to Altoona Lagoon Saturday morning to race in the St. Croix Kid’s Duathlon.
The 22 participants ranged in age from 5 to 15 years old, competng in four diferent races. The kids ran, biked and ran again around the lagoon, with the top three finishers in each race receiving medals.
“We’ve got some good up-and-coming talent,” said Scott Fricks, president of the V.I. Triathlon Federation, which sponsored the event. “The ultimate goal is to train young athletes to get into the Olympics and to get them into international competition,” he added.
The number of triathlon athletes has doubled in the last decade according to Fricks.
The track was arranged so that competitors ran on a dirt loop next to the road circling the lagoon park, then picked up their bikes and pedaled them on the road path. After biking the athletes had to finish the race by running one more time.
The biking was by far the favorite part, the contestants said.
“Biking, because it was easier than running," said Jett Blaschka, 11, winner of the 9-to-11-year-old race.
No matter how tired the kids were when they finished, they all wore smiles and had fun competing. Plus, there were trays of cookies, brownies, bananas and oranges to enjoy afterward.
The first age group to compete was the five and six-year-olds, who had to run a quarter mile, bike a half mile then run another quarter. Six youngsters competed, but with parents running and balancing bikes along the way, it seemed like a lot more.
Khalil Francis, 5, a kindergartener at Manor School, won the race with a time of 11 minutes, 11 seconds, but his mom Dara Hamilton was with with him the entire way.
“He did the duathlon in October and I wasn’t ready for that, but I have been doing some bike riding preparing for this race,” she said about trying to keep up with her son this time around.
Brice Richards finished second in the race with a time of 11:34 and Odin Andrews took third, clocking in at 11:41.
The second heat was ran by three competitors in the 7-to-8 age group. They went the same distance as the younger crowd. The first place finisher was John Austin Jr., 8, a third-grader at Ricardo Richards elementary who won with a time of 8:11.
When asked about his favorite part of the race he responded biking, “Because we got to ride and go fast.”
Saturday’s event was Austin’s first duathlon and he only found out about it Friday, according to his father Austin Sr. Now he wants to race in more. Second-place was Cooper Crowther, 8:38 and third-place was Aaron Morales with a time of 9:58.
The 9-to-11-year-old group, with nine competitors, was the third and largest group of the day. Their race was one-mile longer than the previous two. They had to run a half mile, bike one mile and run another half mile.
First place was won by Blaschka, 11, a fifth grader at Country Day School, with a time of 14:11. Dominique Pugliese took second in 15:17, and third-place was won by Shawna Dean in 15:27.
“A lot of people put in a lot of effort,” said Pugliese, 9, who was one of the youngest in his group.
The final and longest race of the day was for the 12 to 15-year-old group. Their race consisted of running a half mile, biking two miles and running one mile.
Four competitors took to the track, with Adriel Sanes, 12, a sixth-grader at the Good Hope School, finishing first with a time of 22:34. Justin Noel finished second, 24:46 and William Galiber came in third with a time of 25:05.
Sanes has competed in all three Kids Tri VI races since last September, taking home the first-place prize for all of them.
“I haven’t practiced biking in so long and it felt so good exercising,” said Sanes, who hangs all his winning medals on his bedroom wall at home. He will also participate in the 26th CARIFTA Swimming Championships held April 23-26 in Barbados.
The VITF had 12 donated bikes on hand, eight of them new for this race, paid for by a generous private donation and with the help of Stamina Sports to supply them. The bikes are available for young competitors who don’t have or can’t bring their own. Five brand new riding helmets were also furnished and available for the race.
Cruzan Bikeways, the non-profit group spearheading the proposed South Shore Bke Path, donated a new Trek Jet Twenty bike that was a chance prize for the competitors. All the participants names were put in a hat and the name of Aaron Morales of the seven-to-eight age-group was drawn.
Saturday’s event was helped by 15 volunteers, but VITF is looking for more to help out during the upcoming St. Croix Kid’s Triathlon March 19 at Cramer’s Park. They are looking for volunteer life guards, kayakers and others to help man the water stations. Donations of bikes and helmets are always needed as well.
“These are sports you have all you life, so you can do them forever and it’s good to get the kids started early,” said two-time volunteer Linda Nelson. “If you’re an athlete yourself, you are out here whether you have kids or not.”
More information is available online at VITF’s website for race calendar dates and sign-up forms, http://www.vitf.org/.
