Peck Takes Silver!
Dave Peck claimed second place in the 70-75 year age group at the event, staged at Corner Brook, Newfoundland, at the end of July. Dave also took silver in the world championships in 2003, the year he became European champion. "I was delighted with my performance," said Dave, who underwent a hip replacement six years ago and has never looked back. "I knew I was unlikely to beat Eric Barber, from Devon, who took the gold and from what I knew about the other competitors I thought I might finish in fourth and anything above that would be a bonus. "But the Canadian, who I expected to do well, had an off day and I was over the moon to finish second," he added.
It wasn’t until
Dave crossed the line and seen the result in black and white that he realised
that he had finished in the silver medal position.
Dave was among 415 competitors from 15 nations who braved difficult weather
conditions to compete round a hilly course. Four laps of a 2.5k running
course were followed by a 40k bike ride consisting of four 10k laps each
with a long hill section, and rounded off by two further 2.5k laps on the
run. Dave's medal winning overall time of 2hr 21min 58sec was made up of
50.39min for the 10k run, 1hr 21min 15sec for the bike ride and 30.04min
for the 5k run. "There was atrocious rain during the race which made
the downhill section on the bike very dangerous with speeds of 40 mph plus
– and I'm nervous coming downhill on the bike even on a dry surface,"
said Dave.
A special mention must
go out to Dave’s support crew aka Nigel Bonham. Nigel helped Dave
with all his pre race preparations whilst in Canada and made sure he was
in the right place at the right time!
