Worcester Tri Club Member Nixie Turner achieved her best result of the season so far on Sunday with a top-ten finish in the Blenheim Palace Triathlon. A time of 48.44mins over the tough 400m swim / 13.2km cycle / 2.9km run course saw her home in 9th place in the third of the 2013 British Triathlon Youth Super Series events.
Emerging 15th from the swim in the Queen Pool in 5.49mins and having successfully negotiated the first transition, spectacularly situated in front of the main Palace entrance, a 25.50mins cycle leg through the landscaped park enabled her to make up two places to emerge in 13th place from the second transition. A strong run time of 12.11mins then saw Turner make up a further four places to finish just under four minutes behind winner Bronwyn Owen.
Turner now sits 8th overall in the series rankings after 12th place finishes in both the British Elite Duathlon Championships at Loughborough on 7th April and the Youth Relays Qualifier at Eton Dorney on 26th May. There are three more events in the series to come, the next being the British Triathlon Championships in Liverpool on 13/14th July, with the best three results counting towards the final score.
Turner, who has been awarded a £250 grant by Sport Worcester and has also been admitted to the Wet Midlands Triathlon Academy, coached by Steve Lloyd, commented: ‘it’s been a big step up for me to move from competing in the West Midlands Children’s Triathlon Series to the national Youth Super Series. The standard is very high and I am competing against girls who have represented Great Britain and many of them are a year older than me, but if I can achieve a top-ten finish in the series overall this year then I will be very happy’.
Chairman of Worcester Tri Club Duncan Jenkins added: ‘This is a great result for Nixie against tough competition and it is made all the more remarkable by the fact that the day before this event she competed in the County Schools Athletics Championships at Nunnery Wood, winning both the Intermediate Girls 1500m and 3000m races!’