Budding kid triathlete, 9 year old Edward Liew participated in his third triathlon for kids at the EPSOM College triathlon recently. He might be small in stature, but has a wonderful view of triathlon. Here’s Edward’s race report.

You get to swim in refreshing cold water, cycle with a cold breeze blowing in your face and running on the soft wonderful grass into the wind. See, its so wonderful once you look at it in a different way.

This is my third time going for a triathlon. I was very nervous because I was one of the first groups to go and I am not so experienced.  I was also quite excited too. This was how it started.

That morning, I brought my bicycle to the transition area to get ready, and it was when I realized I forgot to bring my goggles so I had to use my sister’s. After that, we went to the briefing area and waited a long time for the briefing.  The briefing was quite confusing in giving directions. It was like “go left at side gate then go right, don’t go to the left then go right then left” and if you didn’t know the place well, you would be so confused (I got confused.)

Nervous little swimmer

Before my race started, I got nervous that I went to the toilet again. The boys were split into two groups and I was in the second group. After the first group took off, I got really nervous but tried to stay calm. After awhile I was like shaking on the inside and the next thing I knew… BANG!

The race had started, I swam as fast as I could and when I was on my third lap, the boy that always beat me was a bit slower.

When I came out of the pool, I was faster than that boy. He got a little bit confused too.  I was in front of him but he beat me at the transition.

Confusing routes muddles young triathlete

I got on my bike and pedalled with all my might, trying to catch the same boy in front of me. I followed him and then overtook him but it turned out he was going the wrong way back to the transition and so was I.

So anyway, I got back on track for running but failed as well because I got confused on where to go and took the wrong route. I ended up running extra distance because I had to run back to the right route.

I sped up towards that same boy and managed to overtake him again. I had to pace my speed so he wouldn’t overtake me.

I was so close to the end and nervous because I couldn’t sprint and someone could just pop up to overtake me. Fortunately, I maintained my place until the finishing line.

Learning from past mistakes

I did worst than last time but it’s alright. I have only just started triathlon and people make mistakes.

Triathlon is a wonderful and fun sport. To do it, you need to know three sports in one  and that’s pretty awesome, right? It might be tiring but it’s fun if you don’t take it as a competition.

You get to swim in refreshing cold water, cycle with a cold breeze blowing in your face and running on the soft wonderful grass with wind blowing onto you. See, its so wonderful once you look at it in a different way.

Credit to David Spence and his helpers for organizing this wonderful triathlon for us to do. It’s really wonderful for him and his crews to make this fantastic triathlon a dream come true for kids like me. I hope future events will have more marshalls around so we kids won’t get confused with where to go during the race.

The Epsom College Triathlon was organised by Compressport and Liv More Events, sponsored by Farringdon Group and Compressport.

More about the budding triathlete 9 year old Edward Liew – loves the challenge of mastering three sports in the world of Triathlon. With such fighting and competitive spirit within, watch him as he grows more into the sport!