21st Annual
September 16th, 2005
Weather: 77 degrees F, sunny and warm. Participants: 273 finishers.
Overall male winner: Yaron Spitzer in 59 minutes, 21 seconds
Overall woman winner: Arwen Lawson in 1 hour, 08 mins, 48 secs
Sprint distance biathlon in the 2005 Big Apple Biathlon Series.
The racing venue was in Central Park, on the well known course of a two mile out and back run (from the boathouse up to 96th street and back), and the bike leg was the two loops of the outer loop of Central Park.
At the start of the race at 7.30am, with Sunday morning turning out to be a bright, warm and sunny morning, Central Park was already well populated with a mix of runners, rollers, cyclists and Sunday morning walkers, but despite this, New York Triathlon, under the direction of Dan Honig, once again assured the smooth running of the event, despite an unannounced running race taking place at the same time.
Even with the absence of regular top athletes that normally frequent the New York Triathlon Club series events, such as Whalen, Mc Govern, Sossens, and Yockelson etc, a fine field set out at the start of the race and assured the spectacle in a very exciting first split run. The first three athletes completed the first run split with a time of 1222, 1300 and 1303 respectively. The ensuing bike split saw a change in the positions with a fast 3238 split (including T1 AND T2 transitions times), by Chris Bohannon. A three second difference in the bike splits favoured Chris, yet despite this, the young 24 year old Quebecois, Yaron Spitzer, came in on first place in the last run split, in a glorious 1334, and thus taking the first overall male place with an overall time of 5921. Second placed overall male was Chris Bohannon, with an overall time of
A lot of newbies, or first-timers competed at this event, which is very encouraging, and goes to prove the popularity of these friendly, well organized and affordable events that are hosted by Dan Honig and New York Triathlon.
