Westport duo in action in Portugal

It was a solid international opener for the rising stars of triathlon over the weekend in the Quartrira ETU European Cup in Portugal following the senior event on the Saturday, Sunday saw the junior elite athletes take centre stage with Ireland having two representatives in the Junior Men’s race in the shape of Westport’s Con Doherty and Aichlinn O’Reilly. With 75 men on the start line the 750m opening swim was always going to be congested and hard fought. The super swimmers to the front were out in under 9:30 with Christopher Perham of Great Britain in the lead. The Westport duo of Con Doherty and Aichlinn O’Reilly found themselves towards the back of the pack exiting beside each other in 10:16 and with plenty of work to do. Doherty shot through transition and went about closing down the leaders over the testing 20km bike leg. The pack up front were working well together and would stay away and go into the run with a nice advantage. Doherty went on to clock the fastest run in 16:08 but was left with too much to do following the swim. His blistering run was by far the quickest from the chase pack and brought him up to 13th overall. O’Reilly came off the bike in a chase pack behind and clocked 18:05 for the 5km run to finish 49th in just his second junior elite level race.