James Stewart James entered the world in 1971 and bought his first road bike some 31 years later. 'After suffering ligament surgery, Tom was running a spin class every week and I became addicted to the suffering,  taking 4 hours of it every week'. All of the exercise to rehab the knee didn't go to waste as after much talking James finally entered his first race in 2002. In 2005 and many sprint races later, comments like 'I would never race Ironman, it's just too long!!!' were forgotten as James entered Ironman Lanzarote. Further comments were thrown about now such as 'I am only going to do one, so I chose one of the toughest' were mentioned. So the next step was naturally a 70.3 race where James qualified for the first 70.3 world Championships in Clearwater Florida where the long distance bug was firmly caught!

 

Tom Hills Triathlon biography of Tom Hills: Born in nineteen hundred and freezing to death in South East London. My school years were not noted for sporting prowess, except that at 6st 0lb aged 11 I was S.E. Jnr. Boxing Champion!. At 47 (1989) I competed in my first Sprint Relay race. I ploughed on through the years competing in as many triathlons as I could, but it wasn�t until 1992, under the wing of Chris Jones (now BTA Head Coach) training me, that I began to get some good results, coming 2nd in my agegroup at the Ironbridge middle distance national championship race. National titles followed:-

1993: Sprint and Middle distance1994: Middle
1995: Sprint (& Gold Medal at Corporate Games)
1996: Middle
1997: Middle
1998: Olympic, Middle & Long
1999: Middle
2000: World IRONMAN Champs, Kona-Hawaii* via Calif.Ironman
2003: Olympic
2004: Sprint & Olympic

(*where I had a chance meeting (in a cafe)with Navy Commander John Collins who invented the Triathlon back in 1978!! ) So, having competed in the pinnacle of races, & got the t-shirt, I've been content to compete in local events since but, with the evolution of the THE team, am now training hard again. Is there life in the old boy yet????

 

Graham Graham was born in 1964, grew up not being remotely sporting or even interested in sport, but on starting work realising that I had to get there a full 8 miles away, so a Raleigh Quasar 12 speed bike was brought and after 12 months of slogging up and down the A3 I realised that I was actually quite enjoying the ride (even in full mechanics overalls) then came cars, music, girlfriends, marriage then your 38 and getting out of shape. So it is time to join the gym. That is when I met Tom and then James and started doing a bit of biking again and before I know it I am doing a sprint tri, then Olympic culminating in 2 ironman races in 2007 never on the top step but slowly getting a bit faster .

 

Stinger Stinger says 'I have been keen on sport and working out at the gym for many years and felt I was getting nowhere and not achieving anything. I was never, what you call, any good at any sport. Then one  weekend my brother in law lent me his race bike for a little bike ride and within days I had bought my own and was cycling every weekend. Then a chance meeting at a wedding reception three years ago I met Graham, who convinced me to take up triathlon. After watching one of his races I then entered two or three sprint races. I fell into some stinging nettles on my first outing, landing me with the name Stinger. I also entered London triathlon last year. My focus for this year is the Ironman 70.3 and a couple of team events with the guys.