SwimSwam Contributor Jerry Shandrew has submitted the
2-time Olympic Gold Medalist, Ous Mellouli, completed in his first ever triathlon over the weekend at ‘The Day at the Beach’ sprint triathlon in Hermosa Beach, California. Mellouli (a London Olympic Gold Medalist for Men’s Open Water and a Beijing Gold Medalist in Men’s 1,500 Meter) finished 12th overall and 3rd in the 25-29 Men’s Division with a time of 55:39 for the ¼ mile open-water swim, 10-mile bike ride, and 3-mile run.
Photo Courtesy: Jerry Shandrew
It was Mellouli’s first time competing outside the water. “I’ve been doing some cross training this year to mixed up my routine at bit, so this was a perfect event to test my skills,” stated Mellouli. My run felt really strong and I’ve done very little biking, so I’m really happy with how the race went for me.”
The triathlete ‘newbie’ was first out of the water (this goes without saying) and 3rd after the bike leg, though he had some difficulty finding his transition area to change into running shoes. “I made a lot of mistakes in the transitions area. I couldn’t find my rack to replace my bike with my shoes, then I took my time washing my foot and tying my shoes,” mulled Mellouli. “This was a fun race for me and I learned a lot! Next time I’ll pay better attention to where my transition area is.”
Photo Courtesy: Jerry Shandrew
Next up for Mellouli are the Doha and Dubai stops on the World Cup circuit, followed by a trip to the Tokyo World Cup.
For full results, visit the official ‘Day At The Beach’ Results Page:
http://www.dayatthebeachtri.
To Follow Ous while he completes across the globe, visit:
https://twitter.com/
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Maybe OUS can go for the 3 sport medal in Tokyo. That would surely be a first, at least for a swimmer. Pool, Open water and Triathlon. Phelpsian type of feat!
The good thing is there is a whole lotta improvement potential from that 55:39. Good luck, it would be nice to see a swimmer cracking into the elite triathletes. It’s a huge hurdle since the swim portion is so small relative to the total time.
He seems to be on much better physical condition than at Barcelona.. if he keeps that.. medal contender again on 1500 and favorite for Open Water..
FYI Andy Potts, former swimmer from Michigan in the mid 90s is an elite Ironman triathlon competitor.
That he is !! We need more like him and perhaps a bigger push to change the triatholon format to more an equilateral format. An idea proposed at times in the past, but hasn’t gone anywhere. Right now the definition of Triatholon or Ironman is “unfair to swimmers”. The running distance of the ironman is 48X the swimming distance. Should be for like 4X.
PAC12BACKER – 26.2 run/2.4 swim = 10.9x as long…