Roy and Boyd take bronze for Manitoba’s first two medals

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This article was published 31/07/2017 (3020 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BIRDS HILL PROVINCIAL PARK — Kyla Roy swam, cycled and sweated out a five-kilometre run en route to a bronze medal this morning in the female triathlon of the Canada Summer Games at Birds Hill Park.

It’s Manitoba’s first medal of the multisport event.

The triathlon featured 30 competitors. Athletes endured a hot, breezy day at the provincial park just north of the city.

Roy, 18, from Winnipeg, emerged from the lake first after a 750-metre swim and was in the lead group of three athletes after a 20-km bike ride.

The two British Columbia competitors, Desirae Ridenour and Hannah Henry, created a gap in the run and finished one-two, while Roy maintained a steady pace and crossed the line third.

Exhausted but elated, Roy said she was thrilled to secure a spot on the medal podium.

“Right now I’m tired and hot but it feels great. I’m so happy,” she said. “This gets us going. Everyone else can go after medals now, too.

“This is so great doing it at home. Some people don’t realize how hard this is, how long the course is and how fast we actually go. It was great having all my friends and family here.”

Ridenour prevailed in a time of one hour, four minutes, 39 seconds, while her B.C. teammate was 23 seconds behind. Roy posted a time of 1:05:22.

Roy’s sister, Caitlyn, 15, finished seventh, while the third member of the Manitoba team, Claire Healey, was 14th overall.

In the men’s event, Quebec’s Paul-Alexandre Pavlos Antoniades, 16, captured the gold medal with a time of 58:13.60. Michael Milic of B.C. won the silver and Ontario’s Liam Donnelly took the bronze.

Ralphael Armour-Lazzari was the first of three Manitobans to cross the line, finishing ninth with a time of 1:01.52. Adam Naylor was 12th and Quinn Desrochers was 18th.

Armour-Lazzari was in a group of about seven runners pursuing Antoniades and Milic at the start of the run. He said the heat — about 27 C at that point in the day with a high humidex — wore him out.

“I think I did a good swim and bike but on the run I cramped out, so it was hard to run,” he said. “It was still a good race for me. It was the hot sun that made it hard.

“I’m satisfied. Competing where we train every day is good because we got to know the course by heart. It made it a little easier.”

The race features 30 participants on the same length of course as the female competitors earlier in the day.

Boyd wins first athletics medal for team Toba

Brooke-Lynn Boyd became the first Manitoban to win a medal in athletics at the 2017 Games with her bronze medal in women’s javelin on Monday afternoon.

The Manitoba Bisons athlete says she wasn’t expecting to medal and that the support of the crowd was incredible.

“Throwers usually don’t get a lot of support because we’re usually hidden off to the side. After my first throw, I heard everybody in the stadium. It was exciting having everyone here and now I’m walking around and everyone is congratulating me,” said Boyd.

Boyd, a graduate of West Kildonan Collegiate, is coming off a successful season with the Bisons where she won shot put gold at the Canada West Championships. The 21-year old says she’s been involved in throwing sports since grade nine, but it wasn’t until her senior year at West Kildonan where she started to invest her time into training.

“I didn’t really take it seriously until grade twelve when I realized ‘oh I like this pointy thing’,” said Boyd.

Boyd may be done with the “pointy thing” for the Games, but she will have a chance to add another medal when she competes in the shot put. The qualifying round starts today at the University of Manitoba Stadium at 6 p.m.

 

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

 

— with files from Taylor Allen