WAIS triathlete Ryan Bailie has recorded a ninth placed finish at the WTS event on the Gold Coast last weekend.
Bailie – who recently earned a fifth place result in Auckland – backed-up to claim another top ten result in the Australian leg of the World Series that saw Olympic medallist and former World Champion Jonathon Brownlee take line honours in 1:46.53.
Bailie, dug deep to run his way into ninth place, holding off the never-say-die Courtney Atkinson who grabbed an eye-catching 10th place, in his first WTS race in over two years.
Bailie admitted Auckland had taken a lot out of him.
“My legs had nothing, I just had to fight the whole way; it was a real dog fight to tell you the truth, I felt flat across the board,” said Bailie.
“To finish in the top ten was definitely positive and you can take so many positives away from it. You just put that one in your memory bank when times are good when you’re close to a podium or trying to get the one position better and you know you can dig deep.
“I have finished 14th, fifth and ninth in the first three races so that’s a good base to build on in the back end (of the season).
“The goal this year is still the Rio Test event and the Chicago World Championships Grand Final and this is just a positive step towards those races.
“You know how you’re going to feel when you jump off the bike and the first couple of steps on the run were pretty painful; I had to do as much as I possibly could to keep my mind off just how much pain I was actually in.”
-TriathlonAus
