St. John’s Antigua- Wayne Henry was Antigua & Barbuda’s top finisher at the 2012 Caribbean Triathlon Championship (Tri de Spice) held in Grenada over the weekend.
The athlete, who returned to Antigua on Tuesday along with Andre Simon who competed in the Olympic Distance, earned a podium spot after he finished third in the Sprint Distance of the competition.
Speaking with OBSERVER Sports, Henry said he felt he would have done much better had it not been for the inclement weather experienced over the weekend.
“Well, I feel good about it except for the weather (which) kept me back a little bit down there on the ride because the bike felt a little unstable under me, but I still pushed a little hard just to get up there. I saw some guys in front of me that I knew I would catch so I did my best and I came out third,” Henry said.
Meanwhile Simon, who finished fifth in the Olympic Distance of 1,500k swim, 40k bike and 10k run, said he was hoping to mirror Henry’s final position. He added however that a number of factors played against his performance.
“The game plan was to come in the top three and hopefully get to first, but unfortunately I couldn’t do so; but in the end I am still happy with the performance considering I had the flu going into the event,” Simon said.
“I fell off the bike during the fourth lap. I guess I was not focussed enough. I was trying so hard to catch up because I came out some distance behind in the water so I was trying to catch back up as much as possible so I took a hard fall on the bike.”
The national triathlete added that he would forgo his next scheduled competition to work on the swim aspect of his game.
“Tobago has a big annual event every year that should be later this month, but I said I would sit out and go back to the drawing board, do some more training for my swim, and come back stronger for the next race in Brazil in the summer,” Simon said.
Simon also thanked a number of sponsors including LIAT, National Olympic Committee (NOC), and the triathlon association for contributing towards making their trip to Grenada a possibility. (By Neto Baptiste)
