For over 20 years, The Caribbean Cross Training and Multi Sport Club has been quietly turning out race-winning triathlon athletes without much fanfare.
The club’s director Andrew Eligon together with coach Alison Elliott said their training methods go against the grain of “traditional” triathlon training with the club’s athletes training for shorter intervals allowing them faster recovery times and no burnout.
Some of the club’s members, Jorja Sierra Jalim, 13, Ayomide Gilbert-Semper, 15, Ethan Miller, 15, Hayden Reid, 18 and Justin Boynes, 12, are the rising stars and future of triathlon in T&T.
The challenge for the club, however, was to find corporate, private or government sponsors.
Speaking with the Sunday Guardian on Wednesday at Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, Eligon said “The reason why we’ve had so much success is because we’re following the principles of the ITU (International Triathlon Union).
“If you look at the result we have with Hayden Reid who got into the sport just under three years, he won by two minutes last year in the national championships.
“The athletes follow scientific principles and proper diets, they all use heart rate monitors and have protein after training.
“T&T can hold its own against the world in triathlon and multi-sport but a lot has to change and we need to stop with the over-training.”
He said top athletes who had been in the sport for 12 to 15 years, their times had not really improved in the last five years.
Eligon said the club’s athletes, who had only been in the sport for an average of three years, have seen their times improve every year.
He said the children at his camp trained a lot less than in other programmes and were producing better performers as well as doing extremely well academically.
But funding continues to be a big challenge. Eligon appealed to corporate T&T, citizens and the Government to provide support. Eligon said it was a worthwhile cause and with funding the club can invest in its young people, provide them with additional coaching, more staff qualifications, equipment, physiotherapy and give more swimming scholarships.
He said a good carbon-fibre bicycle cost from US $3,500 and up. National sprint and junior champion Hayden Reid and Ayomide Gilbert-Semper needed bicycles, while many other top athletes at the club were not funded and most of them only had one pair of running shoes. They also need monitors.
Attorney Ronald Boynes, whose son Justin is participating in The Caribbean Triathlon Age Group Championships today in Miami, said heart monitors were important especially with the younger athletes. The monitors help their coaches gauge that the athletes do not overtrain for a prolonged period with an elevated heart rate. Boynes said by using the monitor, his son was able to beat athletes who were training much longer than him.
Boynes said T&T could be an ideal destination for international triathlon competitions. He said the Western Peninsula, Chaguaramas and Invaders Bay, were conducive to the disciplines of swimming, running and cycling.
Boynes said the riding trail through the Chaguaramas area around the golf course, biking up in the mountain trails had the natural infrastructure for well organised triathlon competitions to take place here as part of the country’s divestment and sport tourism programmes.
He said this was more important moreso in these stringent economic times to look at those areas to diversify the economy.
Boynes said T&T had a rich history of excelling in sports producing icons such as Wendell Mottley, Brian Lara, Richard Thompson and Ato Boldon. T&T had many world-class sporting facilities and world-class athletes can be invited to participate in sporting events.
He said T&T needed to invest in its athletes to reap the rich rewards for the young people inspiring and supporting them.
Boynes said the sport was not cheap, however there was the potential glory it could bring to the country.
He said everyone under coach Eligon’s charge excelled, the reason for that was he took the parents into his confidence because he realized that there had to be a partnership with parents, athletes and their coaches.