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Lisburn Triathlon Club’s, James Edgar, claims gold at the 2023 Asia Triathlon Cup in Hong Kong.

James Edgar and Luke McCarron travelled almost 10,000km to the city of Hong Kong, China to race in the 2023 Asia Triathlon Cup. Edgar, who is still chasing Paris 2024 Olympic Qualification points, put in the race of his life to claim the top step of the podium from 51 other athletes. McCarron, who recently graduated from Medicine at Cambridge University and is now working full-time, stepped back onto an international start line and finished 21st.

Lisburn’s Edgar, had a strong opening leg of the race, joining the front pack on the bike with relative comfort. Edgar commented, “I was able to have a strong swim to come out in the front group of around 10 athletes going onto the bike.” This put him in a secure position going into the next 21km of the bike course, “It was a tight and technical bike course with 5 dead turns a lap and a lap only being 3.5km. It was super punchy, but I was able to ride it well and put myself into a good position going into T2.”

Edgar, along with Hong Kong’s Jason Tai Long Ng, paced the opening stages of the run, before fully pulling away from the remainder of the pack. Edgar and Ng remained head-to-head for nearly the full 5km, before Edgar pushed ahead to take the gold, “The run ended up being quite windy which lead to a tactical race on the last lap and the race ended with me sprinting away from Ng from Hong Kong in the last 300metres to take the win.”

Gordon Crawford, Head of High Performance, praised Edgar’s impressive victory, “It was great to see James return to the form which he displayed earlier in the year. A great win, a fast finishing run split and beating the leader in the European flag competition capped a great performance.”

Derry’s McCarron came out of the water thirty seconds behind the leading group, and worked well with the chase pack to arrive into T2 for the run in 18th position.  He maintained his pace on the run course and ultimately finished the race in 21st place.

Carr Secures Silver in Agadir

Elizabeth Carr secures the silver medal at the 2023 Africa Triathlon Cup in Agadir.

Carr made the almost 4,000km journey to Agadir, Morocco to compete in the 2023 Africa Triathlon Cup this weekend, after being away from racing for the last 16 months due to injury, she commented “I didn’t know if I’d make an international start line this year at all.”

Despite her temporary hiatus, Carr impressively secured second place in the race. The triathlete was shocked by her result, “to make a podium at my second ever Continental Cup was unexpected.”

Carr was sixth out of T2, placing her in a strong position and allowing her to join the chase group on the bike. Hitting the fastest run time of the competition, Carr pulled ahead four spots, to secure her silver medal. Carr commented on her achievement, “This followed a good result from Tunisia 2 weeks ago, so it was a great end to a very short racing year but with lots of learnings.”