Robin Blunden, Pat Alliston and Elaine Bryden spent a few days with Pat Bryden at “Knockville” Yarrabandie last week. While visiting Pat, they went to the “Elvis” Festival in Parkes. A most enjoyable time was had by both and Elaine returned to Lithgow on Sunday.
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Robin Blunden and Wendy Gaffney returned to Trundle last Thursday and then both attended the “Elvis” Festival. Wendy had a great time and left for Wagga Wagga on Tuesday.
Family and friends were saddened by the sudden death last Saturday 14 th January of Margo Collard at her home in Trundle.
This weekend January 2 John Wheele of Trundle is competing in the National Paralympic Triathlon. This has been a goal for John over the past 12months. John started his triathlon debut in 2015 whilst just having ago with his family at the Dubbo club event.
He really liked the event and decided to train for Triathlon and came across the Paralympic events held around Australia and Internationally. John has his right hand and part of his forearm missing, including a shortened shoulder and sternum. He is officially classified by Triathlon Australia as a PT4.
John and his wife Jackie decided to compete in an event run by Elite Energy in Nowra, this was John’s first ever competitive triathlon against able body participants. John states he purchased a cheap road bike just to get the feel of triathlon, he had nothing fancy just the desire to have a go. Amazingly John came 2nd in his age group at Nowra and one week later he entered the National Paralympic Open Triathlon held at Penrith Regatta Centre.
It was a daunting event as all the Paralympic triathletes that were competing in Rio were there competing in the World Elite event. It was fantastic for John to see the World Elite Athletes, who by no means where fast and incredible athletes. John nervously went to the start line for the Australian Open Paralympic Triathlon and low and behold he won the event by 10 minutes.
The Director from the Institute of Sport Canberra was there and also members of the Paralympic selection committee.
They were very impressed with Johns performance and encouraged him to keep going and get a better bike.
This led to John competing throughout the last 12 months in a few of Elite Energy Triathlons to prepare for the big event on the Gold Coast this coming week end. He has done very well in his preparation Triathlons with a new bike, dedicated training and finishing with able body athletes in 4 th or 5 th place.
Even when John is out at Nymagee Mines where he works, he still keeps training and has shown amazing dedication to achieving his goals.
