Forres triathlete Bruce Evans claims joint-first after rare photo finish in Forfar Triathlon
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A FORRES teenager claimed glory in the Open Sprint category at the Triangus Forfar Triathlon on Saturday, July 23, after the tightest of tight photo finishes.
Bruce Evans (18), of Forres Harriers, and Aberdeen's James Adamson (33) both crossed the line in a time of 1 hour 5 minutes and 27 seconds, finishing within 1000th of a second of each other.
The two were named as joint-winners of the competition, with Edinburgh's Sam Beattie (15), the next closest competitor, coming in 51 seconds behind in third place.
More than 200 amateur athletes of all abilities, including Scotland internationals, put their speed and stamina to the test in the pool and on the roads and paths around Forfar.
A total of 237 people, some from as far as Auckland, New Zealand, visited Angus to swim multiple lengths of the pool at Forfar Community Campus before jumping on to their bikes for a loop into the nearby countryside and finishing with a run to Forfar Loch and back.
From 11am, eight heats of 30 swimmers completed their allocated swim lengths of the six-lane pool – with novices doing 16 to cover 400m while more experienced athletes stroked their ways to 30 for to cover 750m.
Next, the bike ride challenged novices with one lap of the almost 10 kilometre course, while the Sprint competitors – including Bruce Evans – pedalled around twice to cover more than 21km.
Finally, triathletes slipped on their running shoes for a 5km dash down to the north shore of Forfar Loch and back before sprinting for the finish line at the Community Campus.
Event organiser Maggie Lawrie said: “Thank you to all the competitors, sponsors and volunteers for making the fourth Forfar Triathlon such a great success and great fun at the same time.
"I’m always blown over by the support we get for our events – not only from the triathlon community, but our local community too, especially when it comes to volunteering.
"We need a small army of volunteers to keep everyone safe and I’m very grateful to everyone who gave up their time to help us at the event this year. Without your support the event simply wouldn’t be possible.”
