This week we have the first appearance of the youth & junior athletes to throw into the mix alongside our senior athletes!

This weekend, three athletes on the Welsh Triathlon Performance Programme Zoe Thomas, Iestyn Harrett and Morgan Davies took on the European Cup in Melilla, supported by our head coach Luke Watson. Both Morgan & Iestyn delivered a tactically astute race (especially on the bike) with Morgan finishing on the podium in 3^rd and Ieystn in 7^th. Zoe Thomas backed up her early season result from the indoor triathlon in Lievin, with a 14^th place finish in Melilla.

Results are here: https://www.triathlon.org/results/result/2019_melilla_etu_triathlon_european_cup

Sticking with the international theme Adam Bowden continues his impressive form with a 3^rd place at Ironman 70.3 Oceanside. Adam’s preparation for the race has been hampered with a foot injury, so this performance really shows his class. Sam Wade opened up his 70.3 account with a 14^th place in the pro field in Challenge Salou. Sam has recently returned to training full-time with the squad in Cardiff after working as a Pentathlon coach at Whitgift School following the completion of his degree at Cardiff Met.

Results are here:

• http://eu.ironman.com/triathlon/events/americas/ironman-70.3/oceanside/results.aspx#axzz5kUyJP4Rq  
• https://challenge-salou.com/en/race-information/live-timing/

Moving onto the domestic scene, we have also recently had the performance assessments for the British Youth & Junior Super Series. This year we had 32 Welsh Youth & Junior athletes taking part with 4 athletes taking top-10 positions within their respective age groups, and an impressive 45% securing a slot in the top-30. Notable performances on the day came from Osian Perrin who won the youth boys event with the fastest run of the day, and Laura Sharp who secured a  4^th place in the Youth B wave and a joint fastest swim (09:21 for 800m!). Whilst results are nice the main focus for athletes at this level is learning and development and every single athlete who attended came away with some valuable experience and lessons to take forward.

Results are here: https://www.stuweb.co.uk/events/2019/03/31/3547/

To conclude this week’s roundup, we head to Bedford for the British Duathlon Championships. Tia Froom (WDA) followed up on her 13^th at the Performance Assessments with a win in the Youth Girls wave and Michael Taylor took the win in the Paratriathlon PTS4 race. Michael has been training with the NTPCW since October 2017 and is now under the guidance of our Development Coach Vicky Johnston. He will now be targeting international races in pursuit of a slot on the British 2020 Paralympic Games team.

Results are here: https://chiptimingsolutions.com/results/result.html?race=227#1_94D641

That concludes this week Elite Racing Round up. It is still early in the season, so keep an eye out for more updates on Welsh athletes’ performances both domestically and internationally!