Roy Flanagan has become the second member of his family to earn international honours in little more than a year.
The Rossendale Harrier has qualified for the Great Britain Duathlon Team which will contest the 2008 ITU Duathlon World Championships in Rimini, Italy, on September 27-28 after winning his place in the qualifying round earlier this month.
Last year, his elder daughter Emma, who also represents Rossendale, went to Susa in Italy with the England Junior Fell team where she was the travelling reserve at the Marco Germanetto Memorial Race.
To make the squad for the Age Group World Championships, Flanagan needed to finish among the first six athletes in the age 50-54 class at the Clumber Park Classic Duathlon in Nottinghamshire.
It is a grand setting in a National Trust Country Park, originally the seat of the Dukes of Newcastle, with outstanding gardens in part designed by Capability Brown.
More to the point, the two runs of 10 and then 5km, separated by a 40km bike ride, were very testing.
advertisement
Flanagan took them in his stride - even claiming that one of them was short - but had difficulty with the transitions as he isn't used to combining the two elements.
Despite losing several minutes, he fought his way through to finish fifth in half-a- minute under two hours.
He can now look forward to testing his own capabilities in Italy.
l Clayton-le-Moors Harriers Paul Thompson and Wendy Dodds have won the Manx Mountain Marathon, a 31.5-mile race the length of the island which climbs a total of 8,000 feet.
Thompson clocked 4:42:17, less than three minutes off the record, while over 50 veteran Dodds won the women's race by nearly half-an-hour in 6:02:41.
Clayton's Pete Booth won the men's over 50 class, while John Wright of Todmorden Harriers and Darwen Dasher Dave Naughton were among only seven athletes to break five hours.
Elsewhere over the Easter break, there were victories in the Rivington Pike Race for Chorley-based athletes Rob Hope and Katie Ingram and, on the roads, Pauline Powell of Blackburn Harriers was first woman at the Salford 10K.
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
Print
Email this
Comment
