ISLE OF Wight para triathlete Laura Curwood had one of her best-ever days of competition by winning the Para Tri Festival and earning a place on the podium with partner, Nick Curwood, in the Arctic One Tri at Dorney Lake.
The Wight Tri athletes, who enjoyed success in last year’s events, spent the winter months fine-tuning Laura’s new training regime and using new equipment — and it paid off in fine style.
In the Para Tri Festival, Laura exited the 400m swim with a time of 8mins 32secs and, after a swift and controlled transition, the 24-year-old, of Apse Heath, took to her bike and flew off onto the 10km route, earning herself a new bike PB of 24.55.
Laura entered the second transition phase and headed out on to the 2.5km run — quickly overtaking her closest competitors.
With another PB under her belt 11.36 later, Laura sped up the finishing straight to win the race with an overall time of 46.21 — some two minutes ahead of her nearest competitor and four quicker than last year.
About 20 minutes later, Laura was back in the water taking on the mixed Super Duper Sprint Relay with Nick, over distances of 200m, 5km and 1.5km respectively, finishing third.
Laura said: “I gave it everything. You can’t slacken off for a moment, but it was good fun.
“I haven’t ruled out one day being part of Team GB’s paralympic team, so watch this space.”
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