European silver medal for triathlete Lynsey in Ireland

Triathlete Lynsey Henderson won a silver medal in the European Age Group Championships, staged at the weekend at Athlone in Ireland.

Lynsey was a member of the Great Britain team, which she had qualified for at the Grendon Sprint Triathlon in May.

The event started early in the morning with the 750 metre swim in the River Shannon, with athletes lining up at 7.30am. Weather conditions were favourable with a light wind and overcast and Henderson had a strong swim as always, leaving the water first in her age group.

The first transition took longer than expected given the distance between the side of the river and the bike collection area. At this point it started to rain and wind gusts picked up.

However, that did not slow Henderson down. If anything the wind on the return leg of the 20km cycle helped, and she gained a personal best time of 34 minutes.

During the cycle Henderson was overtaken by Emma Pearson, also of Team GB, who had narrowly beaten her at the Grendon Qualifier.

The five km run consisted of two and half laps through downtown Athlone, crossing over the bridge of the River Shannon and passing around Athlone Castle.

Henderson was only a minute behind Pearson when starting out on the run, but Pearson is a particularly strong runner and unfortunately widened the distance, which meant Henderson would not be able to catch her.

Henderson remained strong on the run and finished with a time of one hour 15 minutes in second place, bringing her first medal at this level of competition.

The result opens new doors for Henderson, with the possibility of being able to compete at the World Championships in Budapest later this year.