Taylor wins BUCS Duathlon title

Second year student Charlotte Taylor produced a superb performance to capture the BUCS Duathlon title this weekend, dominating the race from start to finish, as well as leading Warwick home for silver in the team event.

Over 130 women braved the arctic temperatures at Castle Combe Race Circuit, making their way down to Wiltshere for the 2013 BUCS Duathlon, consisting of a two-mile run followed by a 10 mile bike ride – and then another two-mile run.

Despite her diminutive figure, Taylor dealt well with the usual barrage of elbows off the start line, quickly getting into her rhythm and taking a 25 second lead into the first transition. With Eloise Du Luart only a further 30 seconds back in sixth place, Warwick were already in a strong position.

With stronger riders in the field, Taylor was always going to lose time on the bike leg, and so it proved, with the windy conditions playing into the hands of the larger, more powerful riders. By the end of the leg her lead had all but disappeared.

But with only one leg remaining, the Warwick camp were quietly confident, and sure enough Taylor was once again the fastest on the run, opening up her lead and taking the win by almost a minute.

The individual gold was backed up by strong races from the rest of the Warwick contingent, with Eloise Du Luart producing a measured performance to come in a sixth, and Natacha Lee and Rhian Male both finishing in the top 30. This was enough to secure silver in the team competition, behind Loughborough but ahead of a number of larger universities.

In the men’s race second year chemist Andrew Rogers led the team home in 52^nd place, an excellent performance considering the huge field of nearly 400 entrants, including a large number of elite triathletes.