Club Spirit Award: Duncan Birse – TriWorks Edinburgh

Duncan Birse is your 2024 Triathlon Scotland Award winner for the Club Sprit Award. 

In late 2022, Duncan had never directed a multisport race before but made a bold decision to create the brand new East Fortune Duathlon event, set to launch in March 2023. With the help of TriWorks Edinburgh club mates and Triathlon Scotland’s investment and support, he set up and directed the race, receiving substantial positive feedback and winning Event of the Year 2023.

Following this initial success, he has pushed further and invested many hours of voluntary time into directing an even bigger and improved East Fortune Duathlon event in 2024. This includes adding a University Championship Event and continuing TriStar races in March, followed by a new event at Floors Castle in September featuring a standard distance duathlon, TriStar duathlons, and trail runs for adults and children.

Both of these events have created significant opportunities for children to participate in closed-road duathlon and running competitions. Duncan has also taken time to accommodate visually impaired athletes on two occasions. He ran a webinar before the East Fortune Duathlon to educate competitors and provide a Q&A about draft-legal racing for those who were new to it.

Many of the banners, equipment, and unique branding at events were personally designed and/or created by Duncan. His wife Alice has also played a huge part in the entire process. Thanks to Duncan’s hard work, he has helped secure the financial stability of TriWorks Edinburgh and given everyone in the club an opportunity to volunteer at races and give back to the triathlon community.

As a testament to the success of the East Fortune Duathlon, after just two years of existence, it has now been awarded the status of British Sprint Duathlon Championships for 2025. Duncan is already well into planning for next March and has seen over 100 entries submitted in the first week of opening.