Ollie Whistler wins Hell of the West Triathlon

TMSM's Rod Cedaro reports on all the action at this year's Hell of the West Triathlon.

Goondiwindi, if you’re heading north, turn left at Brisbane and head west – way west, 400 kilometres in fact.

Before this year’s edition that is about all I knew about it, but let’s face it, the name is a bit of a giveaway – the Hell of the West (HOTW).

So what is it about this event now in its 21^st year that draws multiple repeat offenders back like bees to a honey pot or the faithful back to Mecca?

For me personally it was the chance to stretch the legs after a ‘20-year taper’ and ascertain how things were shaping up for Ironman Melbourne seven weeks later. For others it is the pitting of themselves against the furnace like heat; humidity you can cut with a knife and winds that howl like a cat with a peg on its tail.

As I read back on my description above I could have just as easily have been describing the course of the Hawaiian Ironman, although ‘Gundi’ is a lot flatter and almost picturesque in comparison with lush vegetation in comparison to desolate the lava field deserts of Kona.

With northern NSW and Central Queensland being lashed by heavy rains all the talk in the week prior to the event was, “would it go ahead?”

A couple of emails back and forward to hardworking (and I’d anticipate exhausted by race day) race director Anna Dawson confirmed that the race was a goer – regardless. There was just a small matter of the Macintyre River that was running higher and faster than usual due to the floodwaters.

Not a problem, the organising team simply moved the swim to the lagoon at the local Botanic Gardens, relocated a couple of hundred angry ducks and replaced them with about 500 scantily clad triathletes from far and wide. The swim location change also necessitated a change of race format as the swim exit was now some three and a bit kilometres from the bike transition, so the 2/80/20 format became a two-kilometre swim, 3.2-kilometre run, 80-kilometre ride and 16.8-kilometre run – novel.

As my alarm sounded at 3.00am, as I’m sure it did for majority of competitors, I hazarded a glance outside – pitch black. It was the middle of the night, anywhere else in Australia on a Saturday night/Sunday morning you’d be contending with the obligatory drunken hoons coming home from a big night out, but not Goondiwindi on HOTW morning. Aside from triathletes wheeling their bikes to transition there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

It was a strange feeling joining the masses as I wheeled my trusting Orbea towards the transition area. It was pitch black aside from the scant street lighting and torches many of the competitors wielded. With a 5am start there was just enough time to pump up tyres, fill bidons and arrange equipment before jumping on one of the shuttle buses provided by the race organisers for the trip to the Botanic Gardens.Upon arrival at the gardens there was another transition to set up (for the run back to the bikes). The open male elite were joined by 30-to-39 male athletes in the first wave.

I was feeling somewhat old and decrepit at nearly 50 as I glanced over and saw Ollie Whistler toeing the start-line. I’ve been a close family friend of the Whistlers for years and have known Ollie since he was about seven and, as he pointed out the day before, it was surreal to be “racing” (his word not mine) one another. My aspirations were not that lofty, nor did I have any such illusions of grandeur to be “racing” the likes of Whistler, Berkel, Thompson, et al. I simply wanted to belt myself and bring out the mongrel in preparation for Melbourne.

With daybreak still not quite upon us, and sighting off a flashing red light in the distance, the starting gun sounded.

Argh yes, now I remember the experiences of yesteryear, as I was smashed from every conceivable direction. I had been pleased with my split times in the pool but open water is a completely different kettle of fish, as I watched the leaders not so slowly draw away. Three laps of misery to endure before hitting dry land once more.

By the time I got out of the water Ollie Whistler was halfway back to Brisbane and the leading women had also managed to blow by. At least the 3.2-kilometre run back to transition acted as a solid warm up. Onto the bike and my objective was to suffer, which I quickly set about doing. The notorious winds and heat of the HOTW is renowned for hadn’t materialised, but the monotony of the course is not to be under-estimated as you sit and grind away.

As I headed out towards the turnaround the leading male appeared in the distance – just as I suspected it was Ollie and he was carving up his pursuers headed by Tim Berkel, who was a good kilometre or more behind a little over 40 kilometres into the ride.

The top three men were racing clean but by the time positions four-to-16 and then again 17 through about 30 odd came into view, which included the leading women, one could have been excused for thinking you were witnessing a team’s time trial – so much for the 12-metre drafting rule set down at the pre-race briefing the day before!

Whistler was well and truly first to trade cycling for running shoes and he hot-footed it out of transition knowing that the fleeted footed Berkel would be gunning for him. Behind these guys an assortment of open and age-group men and women hit the transition with Brisbane women Kym Jaenke and Sarah Crowley well within striking distance of one another but it wasn’t long before Crowley started to assert herself on the run.

At the pointy end of the men’s field Whistler was playing the hare to Berkel’s hound as the mercury and humidity climbed. Whistler was digging deep, but Berkel was still slashing into his advantage off the bike with each lap seeing the Lennox Heads-based athlete whittling away at Whistler’s lead.

By the time the leader made the final turn to the finish chute it was a patently relieved and obviously spent Ollie Whistler claiming the winner’s mantle followed a scant 20 seconds or so later by Tim Berkel, who, at day’s end simply ran out of tarmac in his pursuit of victory with Luke Harrison claiming the final spot on the podium exactly seven minutes behind second-placed Berkel.

The women’s race saw Sarah Crowley exerting her dominance during the run opening up the best part of a two-minute gap back Kym Jaenke with the fleet-footed Rachel Paxton scurrying into the third spot on the dias in a tune-up event for her tilt at Ironman New Zealand in the near future.