On September 4, the Ironman 70.3 World Championship was held in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. The event took place on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, one of the world’s leading triathlon centres.
More than 3 000 athletes from 83 countries participated, 93 of whom were from South Africa. Potchefstroom’s Zoli De Kock and Cheri-Lee Oosthuizen also had the honour of competing in this prestigious event and were part of the female 30-34 age category. There were 180 competitors in this race and they are both very pleased with their performance they managed to do personal best times in the swim, bike and run.
Zoli is particularly happy with her swimming performance as she managed to set up the fastest swim split of all the women’s age groups. She finished in a time of 5 hours and 19 minutes and Cheri-Lee in 5 hours and 42 minutes.

Cheri-Lee has only been racing triathlons for a year but has a sporting background and has represented South Africa for show jumping numerous times. She is also a very strong cyclist and her father, Leo van Vuuren, also represented South Africa as a professional cyclist in his earlier days. Zoli also has a sporting background, the most prestigious of which was her swimming career. She is also a swimming coach and loves teaching children and adults to swim. Her new swimming school opens in October.

The women would like to thank their coach, Dawid Janse van Rensburg and their training group, Tri-Squad, for all their support but, more importantly, for making training an altogether enjoyable experience.

The world championship is the pinnacle event in the global Ironman 70.3 calendar.
Every year, 130 000 athletes compete in over 70 global qualifying events after which 3 000 athletes have the privilege of competing against the best in the world. Although there are only around 60 professional athletes, their fitness and endurance are astounding to witness.

Tim Reed made Australia proud as he took the Ironman 70.3 World Championship victory on home turf in the time of 3 hours and 44 minutes. The rest of the 2 900-strong field is made up of “age-group” athletes, most of whom have careers and families that make it a challenging task to maintain peak fitness in 3 disciplines.

Triathlon is a fast-growing sport with great health benefits. Many Potch athletes are busy preparing for Ironman 70.3 East London which will take place on Sunday 29 January 2017 and we wish them all the best.