Athletes converge in St Malo for annual triathlon

It turned into a scorching hot day, but that didn’t stop competitors from testing their limits at the St Malo Triathlon June 21 inside the provincial park.

Patrick Labossiere was the first finisher in the Olympic distance. Labossiere has represented Canada at the group world championships and won the 2023 world police and fire games, which were hosted in Manitoba.

“I’ve done (St Malo) many years in a row now, and it’s always fun,” the 37-year-old Labossiere said.

“The swim was good, a little difficult, a little windy on the bike and it ended up getting really hot on the run, so I suffered there.”

Labossiere dominated the cycling portion after emerging from the water just 90 seconds behind the leader, and easily hung on for an eight minute victory over Julien Gagnot.

“I’ve really dialed in my cycling,” he said.

“I got to cut through the wind a little better than the average person. That was a good advantage.”

Labrossiere also had excellent transitions, as he was fastest to get to the cycling section after swimming and second fastest to transition from cycling to running.

Labrossiere will close out his season with an Ironman (longer distance) race in Wisconsin before heading off to the world championships in Australia this fall.

Amy Martin won the women’s Olympic distance event, falling behind by five minutes in the swim, narrowing the gap to under a minute during the cycling portion, before dominating the run. She completed the 10 km three minutes faster than both the second and third place finishers.

“It felt hot and humid today, I always find that tough in the campground with all the trees, I find it quite humid,” Martin said, adding she jumped right back in the lake to cool off after finishing the race.

“The swim is my worst (section) and it’s fun to pick people off as you go. I think that’s always the preference, to get better as the race goes on.”

Labrossiere said it’s tough to hold off everyone in the final run, but finds it easier to do in St Malo.

“There’s so much support on the track here, so you really can’t slow down when someone’s cheering for you to keep going faster,” Labrossiere said.

“It’s a mental game by the end, to just keep pushing through the pain.”

Martin has been racing triathlons for four years, with her first ever race taking place in St Malo.

“They do a really good job here, it’s a really nicely run race,” Martin said, noting the high athlete and volunteer turnout makes it an easy choice to come out.

“It’s a nice, flat bike course, with a decent highway stretch, that’s always good in Manitoba, where that’s not so common.”

The Olympic distance triathlon includes a 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike ride and 10 km run. The sprint version of the event has half the distance of the Olympic triathlon for each portion. St Malo also included duathlon (running and cycling), aquabike (swimming and cycling) and shorter “try a tri” events for first-time competitors.

Provincial team standout Turk Dingwall won the men’s sprint event, edging out Joshua Malenchak by 40 seconds thanks to a sub-17 minute run.

Megan Van Heyst took the women’s sprint event, with a sub-12 minute swim. Second place Paula Anders was able to eat away at that lead through the cycling portion, but Van Heyst held on as both top finishers had a 24-minute run to close out the event.

“I had a really good swim today,” Van Heyst said.

“I feel like after (the swim) is done, I know my hardest ones are coming and I just got to keep pushing to get to the finish line.”

Juniors got a chance in the Kids of Steel event, which was held the following day in St Malo.

For more photos from the event, check out thecarillon.com/sports, with our Second Shots feature published the Wednesday following our print edition.