New record’s set at 6th Triathlon games

GH Dolphins, Zakari Abdul-Rauf and Leila Werburi Zangwio set new records at this year’s 6th Kempinski-Cowbell triathlon games held at the University of Ghana Swimming Pool on Sunday.

GH Dolphins made of Kow Jackson (swimmer), Isaac Sackey (biker) and Kassim Mohammed (runner) put up a sterling performance as they set a new record time of 0:57:41hours to emerge victorious in the teams category, they were awarded with gold medals and souvenirs from sponsors.

Zakari Abdul-Rauf set his personal best record after he accumulated a time of 1:07:40 seconds to deafeat his American and French contenders Sam Papai and Pierre Kervennal who elapsed 1:08:15 hours and 1:14:49 hours respectively in the male category.

The excited Triathlete Zakari said, “This competition is quite okay for me compared with previous ones. We competed in three events – swimming, biking and running and the swimming was my biggest challenge but I was able to sail through it. For the next event, I will work so hard to reduce my time.”

In the female category, defending champion Leila Werburi Zangwio finished at the apex and elevated the bars over her personal best of 1:26:59 hours to overcome second placed Ann Besancon from France who completed in a time of 1:28:54 hours whilst South African Tracy Gerber came third with a finishing time of 1:46:37 hours.

From left - Tracy Gerber, Leila Werburi Zangwio and Ann Besancon

According to the 23 year old final year student of the University of Ghana Business School, “It feels very great to win again. This edition is a lot more challenging because we had a lot of females from other countries taking part and these are people who have been triathletes all their lives and they really know the sport. But I was able to come out first from the pool, on the bike, as well as in the running. I am very excited that I was able to make a two minutes drop of my time.”

Addressing the Media after the well-organized event President of the Ghana Triathlon Federation Mr Bawa Fuseini said their main target was to see more Ghanaian’s participate and win medals at the next Olympic Games in Tokyo and also build a young team to replace the older generation in the years to come.

This year’s Triathlon games witnessed 56 athletes and seven relay teams compete in the event sponsored by Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel, Promasidor Ghana Limited, producers of Cowbell and the University of Ghana.

A triathlete is a person who participates in three different events during a competition.

The next round of races is scheduled for November 12.?

From left - Pierre Kervennal, Zakari Abdul-Rauf and Sam Papai

GH Dolphins with the their fellow competitors

The Foreigners were not left out as they participated in all events

Zakari Abdul-Rauf doing the running after getting off his bike