Write a commentBrendan Campbell can certainly lay claim to being one of Newry’s original triathletes!
Over 30 years ago (June 1, 1983), the then 25-year-old Campbell took part in an event called the Newry and Mourne Triathlon, organised by Pauline Lamph from Newry and Mourne District Council. The sport was so new that only four other events of this nature had been held in Great Britain.
On a wet Wednesday evening the competitors ran 5.5 miles up the Camlough Road, swam 40 lengths of Newry Pool before finishing with a 12-mile cycle to Warrenpoint and back.
Brendan Campbell finished ninth in a field of 55, and third from the locality (John O’Hanlon and Dessie McParland were ahead of him), thus he qualified for the Newry team in the Ulster Championship that was held a few months later at Craigavon.
Since those halcyon days Brendan, married to Breige with five children, Emma, Aidan, Eugene, Adele and Brendan, has packed a lot into his sporting life. The so-determined and speedy athlete has run a 2.38 marathon, completed the Zurich Ironman and finished tenth in the Irish half-Ironman Championship in Sligo, a competition that in the eighties was the top race in the triathlon calendar.
But in recent years, although he has continued running, triathlon took a back seat. And indeed he was only persuaded to return to the three-discipline sport last year when Paul McCann invited Brendan, and others who participated in the First Newry Triathlon, to take part in the inaugural Newry City race.
And he really enjoyed it, especially as he was competing against many of his old friends, Brendan O’Hagan, Tony Bagnall, John O’Hanlon and Martin Patterson, but more especially against his son Aidan. In the battle of the Campbells, 56-year-old Brendan did brilliantly to clock 1.18 (66th place) but lost out to Aidan who was three minutes quicker.
Brendan says: “In triathlon I have cemented relationships that have lasted decades. And some of those older athletes are amazing: Brendan O’Hagan recently ran 95 miles to complete the Highland Way ultra marathon, Kookie O’Hagan is a top national athletics’ coach while Sean Hughes has finished 10 Ironman races. I think age is irrelevant.”
Brendan says the changes in triathlon are astonishing. “The technology of the wetsuits makes swimming a lot easier, and the present day bikes with tri-bars have brought cycling to a totally different level.”
He cites his marathon pb of 2.38 and his tenth place in Sligo as the highlights of his sporting career.
But it wasn’t all sunshine. The year after he made the top ten in the Irish Championship his very ordinary bike was in the front row at Rosses Point, Sligo, sitting out like a sore thumb against the gleaming high-tech machines belonging the best triathletes in the nation. But that day he blew up on the cycle leg going through Bundoran.
“It was the low spot in my career,” says Campbell, “I was totally knackered and I’ll never forget a wee, old man on his way to work, with his socks tucked into his trousers and his lunch box strapped to a carrier on the bike, passing me.”
However, Brendan is currently flying on the bike and thus its highly unlikely that another wee working man (with a lunch box) will pass him on Sunday, August 31 in the Firmus Energy Newry City Triathlon.
