Blackwater Triathlon Club Christmas Party and Awards Night
On Saturday the 1st of December, members of theBlackwater Triathlon Club took a break from training for our annual Christmasparty and awards night. The club now has over a hundred members and as a resultwe had to change the venue for this year’s event. Due to the numbers in theclub these days this year’s event was held in the Pitch and Putt Clubhouse atThe GAA pitch. Once again we had a big turnout on the night with deliciousfood, a few well earned drinks and loads of craic. Following an excellent mealthe final proceedings of the night began with a ten minute video featuring someof the events of another very successful year for the Blackwater TriathlonClub. This was followed by the presentation of the various awards to clubmembers. Deciding on the winners of each category has become increasinglydifficult over the years as the club grows and members take part in many moreevents. After much debate amongst the members of the awards committee, wecouldn’t separate the two main contenders for the Rookie of the Year award andit was decided to have a double award this year. The 2018 award for Rookie ofthe year went to Ashleigh Byrne and Martin Feeney. Both Ashleigh and Martinhave competed in multiple events this year. Both competed in their firstOlympic Distance events, and Ashleigh also managed to fit in the little matterof getting married. Well done to both of them. The next award was for theFemale Triathlete of The Year, which was awarded to Gina Lyons. Gina had a had a remarkable year competing in lots ofdifferent events, including our own Olympic distance race and culminating inher first half Ironman Distance event, the infamous Lost Sheep triathlon. The Male Triathlete of The Year award wasalso difficult to decide upon this year, and the committee eventually decidedthat there was nothing between the two main contenders so we had another doubleaward. This year the winners were Brian Baker and Julian Boeg. Julian completedhis first Olympic Triathlon this year and took part in many other events, aswell as doing his part in helping club members with their swimming. Brian wasonce again mister consistency, constantly placing in his age group categoriesin races during the year, including winning his age group category in thejailbreak triathlon in Cobh. Well done to both of them, further proof that ageis just a number. The final award of the night, Club Person of the Year, wasdecided upon by a poll of club members. This year’s Club Person of The Yearaward went to Shane Collins. Shane had taken over as Chairman this year andoversaw a year where we increased our numbers and ran our first ever OlympicTriathlon. He has been a tireless worker for the club for years now and thiswas a well deserved award. The face that he also won it in 2016 is a testamentto his value to the Blackwater triathlon Club. Well done to all of our winnersand to all the members of the club who have helped to make this our mostsuccessful year yet. Hopefully we’ll go on to even bigger and better thingsnext year.