James Davy wins Huskisson triseries Olympic distance triathlon

The seasoning opening round of the triseries in NSW saw young up and coming triathlete James Davy take the win ahead of a rebuilt Ollie Whistler and Wollongong’s Nathan Miller.

Davy lead the race from start to finish after Ollie Whistler stayed in touch until about a third of the way in to the swim before Davy put the power down and slowly pulled away to hold a 30 second advantage going in to T1.

For Davy this was his first race of the season and the chance to blow out some cobwebs for the steadily evolving triathlete in a race close to home was a great opportunity. “I was quite happy with how the race went on the weekend. It was my first race of the season so I wasn’t looking to get too much out of it apart from a good hit out. I wanted to mainly focus on having a strong bike leg as I have been putting in some quality kilometers over the past few weeks.”

With the every looming presence of Ollie Whistler, Davy was never complacent. Whistler has spent the last year rebuilding himself after promising   2-3 years ago to be the next big thing in 70.3 triathlons. Whistler was finding himself constantly sick. A few good results including a win at Canberra 70.3 showed that he had the talent. Under the watchful eye of Pete Clifford at HPT in the Sutherland Shire Ollie is getting himself settled and back in to training. There are still a few niggles including what looks like sport induced asthma and some allergy that is annoying him.

For Davy his swim is something that he is focusing on. “My swim will get stronger over the next few months with some more training. I was also happy with my ride given the conditions.” Davy has had a slight knee problem that has reduced his running over the past few weeks. “I was a bit unsure on how was going to go in the run leg. In saying that I was still pleased with how I ran on the weekend.”

Davy has been training with AP10 over the off season and is seeing the improvements it has made to his bike leg. “My bike leg is generally my weakest leg which has let me down in a lot of non-drafting races in the past.”

The future remains uncertain for Davy with University applications   still out there. “I will probably reassess my triathlon season after I know what my Uni plans will be. I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming triathlon season and may look at doing a few more Elite Energy races over the summer.”

Second placed Whistler is easing himself back in to training and racing with the long term future in the sport being his focus. A move to the Shire this year and work at Two Monkeys Cycling in Penshurst has settle Whistler down and he is now planning to find that potential that he has shown in the past. With wins at Yeppoon 70.3 in 2012 and Canberra Half Ironman in 2011 we know that Whistler has the natural talent and it is only a matter of time before we see this again.

After dipping his toes into the European triathlon world in August this year with some mixed results third placed Nathan Miller from Wollongong finished the season off with a few weeks holidaying with my partner in Europe. “On returning home I was forced to have few more weeks off after some self imposed damage from my last 70.3 race in Austria which didnt go as planned.”

Miller eased back into training over the past 5 weeks and has been slowly building his fitness. “I knew that I was in OK shape and willing to see what I could get out of myself.’

With the Open field numbering four (time to step up Ben Bell) there was plenty of talent there with James Davy (NSWIS), Ollie Whistler (HPT & 70.3 champion) and Miller’s fellow training partner Greg Lavelle (Project M) there was always going to bee some pushing to keep each other honest.

In the swim Davy & Whistler soon broke away from Lavelle and Miller with the latter two staying together until early on in the bike when Miller pulled away. Miller caught Whistler with about 5km to go on the bike and they came into T2 together. Davy was a fair way out in front at this stage and looking strong. By the 5km mark on the run Whistler had slowly ran away from Miller and he was just trying to hold his form together as knowing that training partner Lavelle had been running well in training and would be hoping to run him down.