Hello there

I hope I find everyone fit and healthy. The race season is nearly upon us so its time to see if all your hard earned training is going to pay off!

As you can imagine its exciting times for Triathlon in Scotland as we have appointed a New High performance development coach in the name of Chris Volley. No Chris has a wealth of experience coaching top quality athletes and has been based at Bath for the last 5 years or so. He is a real good guy and I am really looking forward to working with him and most importantly learning off him.

In the last month we have held two camps up in Aberfeldy. One for the Development squad and the other for the Potential medallist squad. A big thanks to Linda and Stephen for organising the camps and all the other coaches who helped out. It was good for me to get to know the younger athletes better and it is good to know that we have a good group of talented yougsters coming up through the ranks. This will be the last time that any Triathlonscotland camp will be held in the recreational centre in Aberfeldy as it will be getting refurbished later this year. It will be strange as I have been there many a camp over the past 7 years.

On the performance side of things we have had a few of our elites racing over the last month. Fraser Cartmell placed 3rd in the SA 70.3 which qualified him for the World Champs in Clearwater later this year. Catriona Morrison has been out in Spain and has won two local Duathlons- the last one she beat Spain's top ranked Triathlete, and when she returned back home she placed 2nd in National X Country champs at Callendar park in Falkirk. David McNamee was also out in Spain and raced in the first Duathlon and raced strong. He also did the Grangemouth 10k last week and ran a good PB. Kerry Lang raced in South African points race at the weekend and placed 2nd behing Germany's Ricarda Lisk which gains her valuable Olympic qualifying points. Finally Scott Neyedli is racing Ironman New Zealand this weekend in a strong early season field.

Well thats all for now, I will keep you updated in the next couple weeks as to how everything is going.

Blair

After a busy start to the New Year things are starting to settle down again. The calander is on the website and will be updated as more events are confirmed. There are a few new events this year, in particular we have a lot more aquathlons for the youths & juniors which is great to see.

The search for a new high Performance Coach is progressing with interviews taking place next week, so hopefully we will have someone in place soon after that.

Club affiliations have been issued and it looks like we will see another increase in the number of clubs we have, which is great, and the online membership system is up and running so you should get you race licence for the coming season.

I wanted to take the time to mention that getting a race licence is not just about getting a few quid off race entries and a bit of insurance cover - although this is welcome if you are in the unfortunate position of having to use it.

Its about more than that, its about supporting your sport and making sure that it continues to have a voice and representation on things like revision of the road traffic regulations regarding small events, providing cash to support the junior programmes and funding of championship races, it gives us a voice at GB level, and so on.

So please, take the time, make the effort and get a full race licence, only by doing so can we continue to develop and expand the sport for your benefit.


John Lunn

Hello,

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas break and are all raring to go in the New Year!

Congratulations to all those who braved the conditions on New Year's day. I have to say apart from the heavy rain it wasn't too bad... well maybe watching wasn't too nad but I know what its like to race that course in that weather, so well done to all who finished- A great way to kick off your New Year.

We had two of our Elites racing there- David McNamee had a very good race to win by a clear margin, showing that his hard work over the past 3.5 months is starting to pay off. Kerry Lang also raced well and even had a sprint finish for 2nd place overall but was just pipped at the post- The day later Kerry headed back out to Aquilas to join up with some of the other British girls for an intensive training camp in preperation for early seson world cups and ultimately leading up to the big race in Madrid in March- The last qualification race for the Olympics. We wish her all the best.

Catriona Morrison has also been out in Aguilas over the Christmas break getting the miles in and taking the advantage of being a full time athlete once more.

Fraser Cartmell has been out in Stellenbosch, South Africa since the end of November getting some very good training in alongside some very good athletes. He is racing the SA 70.3 next Sunday the 13th January and is looking for a good result there. He is in SA until the 21st February. After that he is heading to America mid March to race California 70.3 and a number of other big races.

Scott Neyedli has based himself in Aberdeen until now, but he is off to the gold coast in Oz to train and prepare for his first big race of the Year- Ironman New Zealand in March.

On the domestic front,interviews will take place on the 24th January for the National coach position- This will be a big step forward when we have this in place. The first 2 weekends in February will see 2 camps take place, each 3 days long where we will accomadate all the athletes currently on the programme. I am looking forward to working with these athletes again.

Well thats about it for now,

Blair Cartmell

So its nearly Xmas, and whilst most of you will be no doubt busying yourselves with the buying of pressies and adding some "go faster" bling to your own Santa list things are gearing up for the New Year at TS.

The Youth / Junior Aquathlon Series is being reviewed and there will be a bigger, better model introduced! This has beed an excellent series with great events put on by an enthusiastic, committed and professional group of organisers.

Hopefully, next year will take this to a new level and create a series that will allow us to find and develop athletes in the run up to the 2012 Olympics and 2014 Commonwealths.

So watch out for details in the New Year.

The search for a new National Coach has begun (at last). Its taken a while, but the advert and job spec are finally out and we should have a new coach in Feb or March.

I've also been sorting out the "Little Book" for next year. This was something we did this year rather than a handbook. I think it has been well received, with over 7,000 distributed. Our plan in to increase this next year and we are currently looking for advertisers to take up some space in this. So, if your work / club etc might benefit from something like this get in touch!

Thats all from me, happy Christmas, see you in the New Year!

John Lunn
Development Manager
development@triathlonscotland.org

Sorry its been so quiet recently, ive been in Florida doing the Ironman with Alison my wife - her first one in what has been a BIG learning curve for her as she only did her first novice race last year. So well done to her, 15:28!!! Much respect!

As well as this we also were fortunate enough to take in the World 70.3 Champs in Clearwater, which was only a couple of hours drive away. With Catriona, Fraser and Andy racing we had people to shout on! It was a great event with great results for our athletes, i'm sure you've all read about that elsewhere so i wont go into details.

What did strike me though was that the quality of the field in both races really was top notch! We are starting to see top athletes from the shorter distances take on the loonger stuff, and this is creating much more depth in these races.

Elsewhere, the search for a new high Performance Coach is starting soon. Its taken a while to pull this together as there will be changes in how this role fits in with the BTF etc. As usual, these things are never easy! So, whilst it might appear that nothing has been happening, there has been a great deal going on behind the scenes.

Progress is being made in pulling together the events calendar for next year, so this will be out as soon as the last few organisers confirm their dates - You know who you are!

We have several new board members in place, so there are a few more keen people with new ideas and a little time to spare. This will help greatly in moving the sport on. I'm starting work on the Aquathlon Series for next year, which will see some big, exciting changes, but more on that leter!

Oh, and i nearly forgot, Glasgow winning the bid, GET IN THERE! FANTASTIC!

John Lunn
Development Manager
development@triathlonscotland.org