Pretoria recently yielded a triathlon junior African champion when Matthew Greer won the African Junior Triathlon Championships held in Hammamet, Tunisia.

The 18 year old Greer competed against some of the top juniors in Africa.  The countries represented were South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritius and Jordan. He is coached by renowned Riana Robertson, which herself has already made her mark in the sport.

The Race consisted of a 750m swim in the Mediterranean Sea, followed by a 20km cycle and it ended with a 5km run.

“For me, it was not the perfect race, but thanks to previous experience I could come back from some setbacks during the race,” Greer said afterwards.

Greer told Rekord that he had an issue running into the water at the start, which put him on the back foot early on in the race.

However, he was able to recover and then had a strong swim enabling him to come out of the water 15 seconds behind the two leaders, Tim Hugnin from Mauritius and Farih Amine from Morocco.

Greer then had to work hard on the bike to catch the two leaders.  Once he joined the leaders, he and Hugnin then worked very hard together to distance themselves from the rest of the field.

Hugnin could shout in French to try and encourage the Moroccan to also help in the pacing. It was however only Hugnin and Greer who could keep up the pace.

“Coming off the bike and starting the run leg, Hugnin and I were neck in neck.  After about one kilometre into the run, I started pulling away from him.  I felt strong and was able to build a lead of 30 seconds and went on to win the race,” said the new African Junior Triathlon Champion.

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