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2026 Australian Standard Championships Race Report
Wollongong Triathlon Race Report Wollongong Triathlon is technically a standard-distance race—1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run—but in reality, it’s a little less predictable. With the lighthouse road kept open, the course distances end up slightly off. The swim can range from 1200m to 1600m thanks to five turning buoys per lap (forming more of an “M” than a straight line), the bike is closer to 38km, and the run comes up about 200m short. Despite that, it’s my local race, and one I keep coming back to. Race morning had a later start than usual, which made for a more relaxed lead-in. I arrived early, got transition set up without…
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2025 Australian Standard Championships Race Report
Risk, Resilience & Racing in Wollongong About a week before Wollongong, it hit me—leaving my world champs qualification to the last race of the season wasn’t the smartest strategy. What if I flatted? What if I crashed? This was my home worlds, and I really wanted to be there. I’d been managing a few niggles leading up to race day, so confidence wasn’t exactly sky-high. But as always, when the gun goes off, I give it everything I’ve got. The forecast didn’t help—unpredictable weather loomed—but that’s racing, and we were all facing the same conditions. Race morning flew by in a blur—as it always does. A late change from non-wetsuit…
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Australian Standard Triathlon Championship Race Report
The day before the race, Wollongong hosted elite racing with many categories including para, juniors and senior ITU athletes. It was quite spectacular to watch, although the weather was far from ideal. I find it inspiring, although I didn’t sleep terribly well. Race morning I was in quite a good headspace though, and was excited to race. It’s been sometime since I’ve felt this way about a race. I was quietly confident I could string together a solid performance, but whether it would be enough to win.. with an Aussie AG title up for grabs I was keen to give it a crack! Swim Leg They started us on the…
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Wollongong Sprint Triathlon Race Report
Wollongong triathlon is a local race for me, only being 15-20mins away from where I live and on roads, I know quite well. My race was scheduled to start at 10:15 which meant quite a relaxed start to the day, with no alarm clocks to start race day! Swim Leg I dislike rolling swim starts. It wrecks race dynamics, but I knew this is what I’d signed up for. Being a more mature (aka older) athlete, I’d have to wait a little while for my wave to start. I got into the queue near the front, which meant when it was my time to start I got about 100-150m of…
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Wollongong Triathlon Race Report
Living quite near to the start line of the Wollongong triathlon, I signed up for the standard distance event. I had mixed emotions leading up to the start, some excitement as I put together some showing of great form, but also indifference due to work stress and travel. With mixed weather predictions I awoke to see an amazing lineup of planets in the dawn sky (drop me a message if you’re interested in the photo I took!), it looked like it was going to be a good day! At the event location, things were calm and ready for racing. I had plenty of time, so went down to the water…
Copyright © Luke Jones
