Cornyn secures brilliant second place finish
Niall Cornyn from Dunboyne finished a brilliant second place in the National Senior Middle Distance Triathlon Championship (1.9k swim, 90k bike,13.1 mile run) held in Kenmare ,Co Kerry last Saturday.
This was an outstanding performance and return to form for Cornyn who has not raced since September 2022.
He had been injured for three months up to December last year and then illness and injury in the early part of the year meant he missed the whole National Duathlon season.
Back training for a few months he had planned to race the Harbourman Olympic distance triathlon in Wicklow in July but three days before hand had to withdraw due to a knee injury.
A slow recovery from the injury he turned his attention to the last National Senior Championship of the year with hope to defend the title he won in 2021 & 2022.
The race started at a very early 6.45am just after sunrise in Kenmare bay. A calm sea saw 350 swimmers enter the water for the 1.9k swim.
David Higgins from Cork was first out of the water on the swim with Cornyn an excellent fourth and Colm Turner from Limerick a few places further back.
Higgins produced an outstanding bike split on the 90k course which included 3 very steep mountain climbs and which included The Healy Pass then back to Glengarriff in Cork before returning via The Caha mountain Pass to Kenmare.
A brilliant bike split over the mountains saw Colm Turner into second position about 2.5 minutes behind Higgins with Cornyn now third, a further 2.5 minutes back as they approached Kenmare.
The talk as the athletes left T2 was could Higgins be caught on the run and alot reckoned with a 2.5 minute gap on Turner and 5.5 minute gap to Cornyn it would not be possible but things did take a dramatic turn on the run.
After 1k nothing had changed but Turner has had an excellent season winning BHAA cross country and road races earlier this year and was running very strongly. Cornyn has build a reputation as one of the fastest runners in Triathlon in Ireland.
By 10k into the run all had changed. First Turner passed Higgins and not long after Cornyn did the same. It was now a battle between Turner and Cornyn for gold.
On a very hilly run course by the 16k mark Cornyn had cut the deficit to 50 seconds but that was as tight as it would get. Turner never wavered and finished the last 5k very strongly to take the National title with a run of 1hr 16.43 for the half marathon, Cornyn had the fastest run of the day with a 1hr 16.20 run for second place and the silver medal and Higgins held on for the third spot and bronze.
Colm Turner had a total time for the race of 4 hours 7 min .45 seconds. Niall Cornyn finished in 4 hours 9 minutes and 40 seconds .
David Higgins finished in 4 hours 13 minutes and 59 seconds.