The first stop of the World Para Series took place in Devonport, Australia, at the weekend. This year there will be four stops in the Series in total, with the next events taking place in Yokohama, Montreal and Swansea.
PTVI
In the women’s race, Maggie Sandles beat Maria Williams. After being comfortably ahead in each discipline, Sandles won by a margin of over 20 minutes. Notably, Sandles was only born in 2002 and so will be an athlete to expect plenty from over the coming seasons.
On the men’s side, Sam Harding won ahead of Lazar Filipovic. Jose Luis García Serrano rounded out the podium in 3rd.
Harding and García Serrano actually shared the fastest run split of the day with times of 16:50. Harding’s work on the swim and the bike, though, meant that there was no real chance of catching him in the third discipline.
PTWC
Lauren Parker was the only athlete to contest the women’s PTWC event. She produced a professional display to cross the line in 1:09:49.
In the men’s PTWC category, Howie Sanborn continued his fine run of form. After recently being crowned Americas champion, Sanborn beat Jumpei Kimura of Japan. Nic Beveridge took bronze.
Sanborn was actually the last man out of the swim in the category. However his field-leading bike and run splits propelled him to his win.
PTS
In the women’s PTS2 race, Yukako Hata won gold ahead of Rakel Mateo Uriarte. Hata was less than 30 seconds ahead after the swim. On the bike, she stretched that lead to over 2 minutes. As much as Mateo tried to respond, Hata extended her lead over the 5km run to win in comfort.
Meanwhile, in the women’s PTS4 race Sally Pilbeam took the win. The runner-up, Emma Meyers, was the youngest athlete in the race. Meyers was only born in 2006 but she pieced together a consummate performance to beat Kelly Worrell.
While Meyers had the slowest run split of the three medallists, she had the fastest bike, recording a split of 42:03 for the 20km.
On the men’s side, the PTS5 race was perhaps the best of the day.
The young Australian Jack Howell got out to a fast swim and built a lead of 34 seconds over David Bryant. Bryant came surging past Howell on the bike, out-splitting the younger man by over 2 minutes. Howell was not done, though. He took the fight to Bryant on the run, producing a time of 16:24. With a run split of 17:25, Bryant nonetheless took the win, but his margin of victory was a mere 25 seconds. With a bit more road, Howell would almost certainly have caught him and so can take heart going into his next races.
The silver medallist at the recent World Para Cup in Abu Dhabi, Antoine Besse, won bronze in the PTS5 race.
Mohamed Lahna won the PTS2 race. Following him home were Adam Popp and Glen Jarvis. Lahna had beaten Popp a week earlier at the Americas Championships. The winner that day, Mark Barr, elected not to race in Devonport, enabling Lahna and Popp to upgrade their medals this time round.
Justin Godfrey beat Björn Maas in the PTS3 category while in the PTS4 event Jeremy Peacock won with Carson Clough and Hideki Uda coming away with silver and bronze, respectively.
View the full results from Devonport here.
