Podium finish for Niall Cornyn

Dunboyne AC's Niall Cornyn produced a barnstorming performance to secure an excellent second-place finish in the BMW National Senior Elite triathlon at Castlewellan, Co Down on Saturday. 

The first race of the day was the men's senior elite event which was due to get underway at 9am.

However, since there was no confirmation from the PSNI regarding road closures, the event was delayed for almost an hour.

A final decision was taken to change the 'draft legal' on the bikes to the 'non-draft legal' which meant that the roads stayed open during the cycle stage. 

Cornyn worked this to his advantage. He emerged from the 750m swim in 11th place but powered his way to a stunning bike split over a very hilly 20km course to arrive at the transition point in fourth place.

A super quick change over meant he came out of the transition stage in third position and set out on the run to chase down second place. 

Cornyn produced an excellent run of just over 16 minutes over the course, the the fastest of the day by over a minute, allowing him to catch the second-placed athlete after 1km.

The chase was on to try and catch the leader Killian Tierney from Tralee who had over two minutes on the field after the bike stage. 

The Dunboyne AC athlete made up over a minute on Tierney on the run but could not bridge the gap. However he finished an excellent second for his first ever podium finish in the BMW National Elite series.