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Daniel bags third place at the World Duathlon Champs

The SA team left Canada with great memories, firmly united with two world championship medals in the bag and a tangible hunger to race faster at future events.

HIGHWAY athlete Daniel Forer was among the South Africa’s finest athletes who participated in the 2013 ITU World Duathlon Championships in Ottawa, Canada recently.

The 2013 race involved racing the olympic distance of 10km run, 40km bike and 5km run. The race was structured as two laps of 5km run, two 20 km laps on bike, a and a 5km lap run. The route was mostly flat with some undulations in places.

Daniel said he felt honoured because this was the highest level at which an athlete could race duathlon.

“To be selected as an athlete for the SA team, individuals were required to race at their provincial duathlon champs from which athletes would qualify to represent their respective provinces at SA Champs, where they had to finish in the top eight to be eligible for selection. In my case, I finished second in my age group (men’s 30-34) at the KZN Duathlon Champs and fifth at the SA Champs,” said Daniel.

He said the whole event came to life on Thursday 8 August with the Parade of Nations opening ceremony where the national teams competing were paraded down Spark Street. More than 25 countries were represented with roughly 28 athletes from SA.

“The SA team stole the show with members from various other teams wanting to take photos with us. They were already offering to swap national kits, which is a tradition at the event, but usually only after the racing is done,” said Daniel.

Daniel finished third in his age group in a time of 2:07 which he said he was very proud of as a first effort at Duathlon World Champs. The SA team had one other medal success at the event in the women s 20-24 age group where Natalie Ross from Grahamstown won gold.

“This is an incredible achievement and it is great to have one of the team secure a world championship title,” said Daniel.

He added that overall, SA, fared well in a competitive environment, which was by and large dominated by Great Britain which is a powerful nation in multisport racing.

“The SA team left Canada with great memories, firmly united with two world championship medals in the bag and a tangible hunger to race faster at future events,” said Daniel.

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