Trial Bay Triathlon co-coordinator Peter Needs said numbers are starting to fill with initial registrations  of over 700 competitors including children, individuals and team competitors entering this much loved event.

“The Nestle Mini Tri series is a five race program for 5 to 15-year-olds has doubled registrations in the last week with late entries taken up to one hour before each of the five separate races start,” Needs said. 

“We are expecting another 100 or so to enter on the Saturday and have close to 300 competitors on the day. Nestle provide each finisher with a finishers medal, a Milo shirt and of course a tin of Milo. 

“Celebrating 25 years of this event it is a must race event for junior competitors. I recommend getting in early as temporary road closures will be in place from 1pm Saturday.

“Over the years we have had people like Safety Beach local Emma Moffat compete in the Nestle series who went on to win a bronze medal in the Olympics.  That all started from working her way up from our race and others to achieve her dream.”

The Coastline Credit Union event starts at 7.30am on Sunday and attracts the main field competing in a 500m swim with eight wave starts at three minute intervals.  This event has over 400 competitors competing across the course.  The swim is then followed-up with a 26km two lap cycle leg around South West Rocks and Arakoon which is then followed with a 6km run over road, bush and beach tracks to finish beneath Trial Bay Goal. The winner expects to finish in 1hr 10mins.

“The race attracts many husband and wife competitors with approximately 40 per cent of the field being female,” Needs said.

“The Macleay Valley is well represented last year’s winner Fiona Bagley expected to finish well and Tina McEvoy, Nicola Craig and Wendy Olden are also expected to be right up close to the finish after placing well recently in Foster.

“The local males including Ron Smith, Peter Townsend, Dean Crotty and Gaven Killmore are some of the seasoned endurance athletes that have entered but there will be a lot of younger males chasing them down and plenty of older ones as well.”

Needs said the swim will be on a rising tide with the finish run back on the beach challenging in the sand.

“Late entries for the Sunday event are available but will only be from the South West Rocks Country Club registration on Saturday from 1pm to 5pm with no late entries are available on the Sunday with all the proceeds going to local volunteer groups who help run the event.”