Under hot and sunny skies on Saturday, Warwick Academy’s Iron Kids dominated the field.

The Iron Kids Triathlon, sponsored by Clarien, was held at Clearwater Beach with a huge number of junior triathletes from ages seven to 15 taking part. Warwick Academy’s students won overall champions in the male and female category making it a clean sweep of the triathlon.

There were two main age categories, ages 7-10 and ages 11-15 with there being two overall champions for males and females. Overall Female Champion saw Warwick Academy’s Year 10 Maddie Moore taking first place and followed by just one second, was our Year 10 student Alyssa Rowse. In the male overall Matthew Oliveira won convincingly, making this the second year in a row that he has won the male overall title. Both of these students won $1,000 each, which was very generously deposited into an Iron Kids account at Clarien Bank.

There were additional categories for the racing bike and non-racing bike. The 7-10 male racing bikes was won by Year 5 Blake Oliveira, following in his brother’s footsteps. The 7-10 non-racing bikes were won by Year 6 Tayla Horan, and Year 5 Rachael Betschart came in third. Alyssa Rowse was second in the 11-15 female racing bike with Matthew Oliveira taking first and Nick Pilgrim taking third honours in the male category. The 11-15 non-racing bikes had our Addy Malpas coming second.

Warwick had a record number of students participate in what they described as a flat and ideal course. “There was great competition, which kept me motivated throughout the race,” said Maddie Moore. She knew Alyssa Rowse, her friend and school mate, was right behind her and they pushed each other to the finish line. Tayla Horan had a lot of her school friends out there with her. She said: “It was so much fun being there with my friends and my little brother Luke, who is six, came out too”.

These very talented Warwick students have an amazing Warwick Academy role model to look up to — alumna Flora Duffy was ‘Queen of the trails’ on Saturday as well, as she easily won the Xterra USA Championship in Utah. This gave her the US Pro Series title and domination of the off-road triathlons. An amazing weekend for our Warwick athletes and congratulation to all.