The University of Colorado had a dominating performance in tough conditions in Lubbock, TX and was able to secure an eleventh national title for the team. This is the first overall title won by the team since winning three straight in 2003, 2004, and 2005.

The CU Tri-team was led by runner-up finishes from Cedric Wane and Jessica Broderick. Colorado had a combined score of 109 points, which significantly outpaced Army, who scored 166, and Navy, who grabbed 187 points. Cal Poly was fourth (276), and led by the individual national champion Chris Stehula of CalPoly.

Stehula described his race: “I’ve been thinking about this race since my disappointment last year – every day just like ‘I want to go win this; I want to go win this. There was so much emotion during the race because I thought I’d lost it during the bike … In the last mile and a half I’m like ‘I think I’ve got this.’ I kept turning around, and I was so excited coming across that finish line.” He added, “Cedric was killing it on the bike. He out-biked me by a minute and a half, and he had a 40-second lead on me. I thought that the race was over on the bike. I was like ‘I can’t catch him,’ and then just because I got one of those fantastic, really lucky breaks I was able to catch him. I just buried in the first mile and a half on the run and caught up to him.”

On the women’s side, Nicole Kelleher won in 2:03:10, which beat the 2009 champion Jessica Broderick of Colorado by two minutes.

Kelleher is a former collegiate runner at SMU and Dartmouth. She was third off the bike and ended the race with an evenly-paced run to win. 28-year-old Kelleher is a medical student at Virginia and is unbeaten in triathlon over the past two years after transitioning to the sport. She was the female age group winner of the Nation’s Triathlon in Washington, D.C., last September.

Jessica Broderick described Colorado’s team victory: “The program has really developed over the last year. We are so lucky to Mike Ricci as our coach, and we have an incredible amount of respect for him. He is a wonderful person and a wonderful coach. To see how far our team has come with him guiding us is amazing. With our work ethic and the ability for us all to push each other, I really think that in the years to come we’re going to be a big threat. We have so much young talent and we work so hard together.”

Related posts:

1. University of Colorado Triathlon Claims National Championship #12 CU took two team titles, highlighted by a record-low 23...
2. Buffs Have Much to Live Up To As They Defend National Collegiate Triathlon Title The Colorado Buffaloes Triathlon Team certainly has a lot to...
3. Monday Motivation: This Is How Bad We Want It Now that it is 2012, most people have begun working...
4. Colorado Triathlon Welcomes Specialized and Tri-Massage as Sponsors Tri-Massage, a Boulder, Colorado based massage, pain treatment, injury prevention,...
5. FAQ What is the CU Triathlon team all about? We are...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.