Triathlon outlook is rosy for Pink

The season started with a fantastic win at the Chichester starlet’s warm-up event at the Goodwood Duathlon in March, and next was the Chapel Tri in May at Southampton, where he came first by nine seconds.

The next event was the Trinity Triathlon at Crystal Palace which is a London area league event on a closed road course. Pink came second by just one second.

A week later came the elite drafting race at Dorney Lake for competitors from all over the UK. He came third overall and first out of the south-east entrants.

The final league event of the season was at Andover, where Pink won by an incredible two minutes, giving him a maximum of 30,000 points for the season, taking his best three results from the four league races - with a winning margin of 136 points over the previous two years’ winner.

The inter-regional championships (nationals) took place, for the first time at Dorney Lake, where Sam represented the south-east team.

He had a very good swim, starting with a pontoon dive coming 12th out of the 36 competitors at a distance of 350m in the lake.

Moving on to his bike, he quickly moved through the field to take the lead where he maintained it for the rest of the 5.3k bike leg into the second transition, going onto the 2.4k run in first place.

Pink held the lead until about the halfway point when a niggling knee injury began to bother him and he wasn’t able to hold his lead - but he continued to work hard and came a very impressive ninth out of the 36 competitors.

Pink was very happy with his bike time as it was the fastest in his age group, confirming him as the strongest cyclist of his age nationally in triathlon.

Looking ahead to next year, he moves into the Youth Super Series - a huge step up as he will be competing nationally at every event. It will be a big challenge but one he will look forward to.

Pink thanked all his coaches at Chichester Westgate Triathlon Club, Chichester Runners and Chichester Cormorants Swimming Club for their help and support.