Groutville triathlete makes international debut at World Duathlon Championships in Australia
Huge local support made the trip possible for the Ballito lifeguard.
Groutville triathlete Ernest Phungula (31) has returned from his crowd-funded trip to compete in Australia with his head held high.
The Willard Beach lifeguard competed against athletes from five other countries at the World Duathlon Championships in Townsville, on Australia’s east coast last Friday, finishing 14th in his category in a field of 22.
He enjoyed huge support from the North Coast community who, alongside the KwaDukuza Municipality, fundraised for him to compete.
“It was a wonderful experience and I would like thank all those who supported me to make it possible,” said Ernest.
“I appreciate it more than you will ever know and words alone are not enough.”
Ernest arrived in Australia a few days before race-day last week and hit the ground running in his first international competition. A national duathlon champion in 2023, he was raring for a chance to prove himself at the highest level of competition possible.
His event was the men’s 30-35 duathlon sprint, which meant a 4.8km run to start, followed by a 19.4km cycle and final 2.5km run to close. Ernest started with a bang, leading the field after the first run in a time of 15:47.
“I think the event went well overall. I felt good to start, hitting a good time in the run, but it was the bike where I had a challenge,” he said.
“I need to improve more on the bike because the internationals are in a whole other world.”
His final run split was competitive but he had unfortunately lost too much time on the bike leg, finishing almost seven minutes off the winner in an overall time of 1.02:13.
“The big thing for me was competing with other international athletes and trying to learn a lesson from the experience. Locally, winning and being on the podium is not challenging compared to these races so I know the level I need to hit.”
He will have another opportunity to test himself soon, when he travels to Torremolinos, just south of Malaga, Spain, for the World Triathlon Championships from October 17-20.
Such was the outpouring of support during the initial fundraising efforts that Ernest has enough left over to cover that trip too. Make sure to give him some words of encouragement next time you see him fly past you in training.
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