Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Triathletes take the Spudman plunge

French among class winners

---

Ketchum's Charley French celebrated his 81st birthday a little early by winning his age class in the 21st annual Burley Lions Spudman Triathlon July 28 in Burley.

The 51.5-kilometer (31.9-mile) Spudman course consisted of a 1.5k (.93 mile) Snake River swim from Riverfront Marina, a 40k (24.8 mile) bicycle ride and 10k (6.2 mile) run.

French placed 536th overall of 1,125 finishers with a final time of 2.37:46. His splits were 19:15 for the swim, 1.11:49 for the bike ride and 1.01:44 for the run.

The Elite Men's winner was Michael Nordberg, 26, of Salt Lake City, Utah with a time of 1.45:37. The top woman was Charity Vernon, 25, also of Salt Lake City in 2.06:48, good for 40th place overall.

Having a solid outing was Hailey's Bart Davis, 37, 29th overall and third in his class with a time of 2.04:51 (17:26, 1.00:46, 43:10). Also third in his class was Dave Gundy, 29, who was 37th overall at 2.06:31 (16:10, 59:01, 46:52).

Jennifer Davis, 39, of Hailey was the 44th individual woman crossing the finish line and 310th overall with a final clocking of 2.26:11, good for 10th in her age class. Her splits were 16:02, 1.12:07 and 53:17.

And Susan Gundy, 52, of Hailey finished 558th overall and 120th among women at 2.39:04, 19th in her age class. Her splits were 19:09, 1.11:59 and 1.02:37.

In team results, placing sixth of 71 teams and third in the men's 138-and-over age class was Wegai.com featuring Michael Dunn, Terry Crawford and Derrick May.

Finishing 16th and third in the men's 75-106 team category was MGM with Brad Mitchell, Ben Young and Jeremy Young in 2.25:41.