It was a great team effort led by captain Dan Collins for Team Red to emerge victorious after the final round of the Envirobank Super Teams Series concluded at Umina today.
After the final couple of nail-biting races of the day, Team Black and Red were tied for first place. Victory for the Collins Team Red was decided on a countback.
The state’s top athletes were excited to be back racing after spending much of winter in lockdown and the concept for the Super Team Series was well received. Instead of teams assembled on club or branch basis, six of the state’s best athletes were appointed captains and then an NBL-style draft was conducted to choose mixed teams from all over NSW.
It’s great to win the inaugural Envirobank Super Teams event,” said Dan Collins. “A big shoutout to my team, but especially to my family and girlfriend who helped me decide the team I wanted in the draft.
“I was really happy with the result and the whole team’s performance and it’s great to come away with the win. We had some really tight races all day. I think our team races this morning had us on edge but we really pulled through late in the program and had some great results,” said Dan.
Captaining Team Black, Jackson Borg was gracious in defeat and complimented many of the athletes from other teams. He said it means a lot to him to have been chosen to captain a team in the series.
“It was really good to see Mitch Morris from Newport racing today – he put together a really good iron race. He’s a young up and comer who races really well,” said Jackson.
Borg and Jimmy Koch from Team Blue had a ding dong battle in the last race of the day, the Male Swim, with Jimmy saying he should have beaten Borg by more.
Borg’s excuse was he had done more racing than Koch. “He’s fresh for all the swims. Maybe he should do an iron,” nudged Borg. “Nah, Jimmy’s an amazing swimmer and in that race I was just looking for his feet.”
In the beach events, Jake Lynch was a late starter for the Red Team and went into the Beach Flags event against Sam Zustovich from Jay Furniss’s White Team with something to prove after coming back from injury. Unfortunately the young Zustovich wasn’t having any of it and claimed the event from the beach veteran.
In the female beach events, Payton Williams from Lizzie Welborn’s Yellow Team won both the Beach Sprint and Flags in commanding fashion.
The female athletes were also impressive in the water. Jemma Smith, captain of the Green Team, capitalised on her home beach conditions, winning the Female Single Ski after a contentious finish where 11 competitors came across the line together.
Nutri-grain Iron Series athlete Carla Papac from Team White won the Ironwoman, beating fellow Series hopefuls, Emily Doyle and Maddie Spencer.
Feedback from team captains and athletes was positive and bodes well for the series to return in 2021.
The event would not have been possible without the support of Envirobank, our beach officials and athletes throughout this unprecedented pandemic and start to the season.
Overall Pointscore
- Team Red (Collins) - 499
- Team Black (Borg) - 490
- Team Yellow (Welborn) - 445.5
- Team Green (Smith) - 429.5
- Team White (Furniss) - 427
- Team Blue (Pierce) - 425
Saturday 5 December 2020