Participants in the 35th running of the Greenfield Lightlife Triathlon are going to get an opportunity to challenge themselves Sunday morning when competitors take off swimming at the sound of the air horn at the Green River Swimming & Recreation Area in Greenfield.
This year’s field includes many returning champions. Three of the four individual champions from a year ago return to try and tackle the course that has made the first Sunday in August a scheduled date for triathletes for 3½ decades.
“This is the longest-running triathlon in New England and we are proud to have it in Greenfield,” race director Christy Moore said.
The triathlon features two races. The Sprint Division features a .31-mile swim, a 15.14-mile bike and a 3.09 run, while the International course features a .63-mile swim, a 30.28-mile bike and a 7.09-mile run.
Both the men’s and women’s Sprint welcome back last year’s winners. The women’s race was won by South Deerfield’s JoEllen Reino, who captured her third consecutive and fourth overall women’s title last year when she sprinted across the finish line in 1 hour, 18 minutes, 8.4 seconds to beat Northampton’s Tara Strassburg, who was second in 1:19:51.
Reino and Strassburg return to lead the women’s field. Reino became the first-ever woman to win three consecutive titles in the race, and she tied a record set by Don Dwight for the most all-time wins in race history with four.
On the men’s side, Conway’s Jay Gump unseated two-time defending champion Dan Bensen, of Greenfield, last season when he raced across the line in 1:04:52 to win the Sprint Division. Gump made a little history of his own last season as he also captured the International title in 2010, giving him wins in both courses. He returns for another shot at a title.
Bensen is a three-time champion with wins in 2012, 2015 and 2016. He was relegated to third place last season with a time of 1:10:39.
Hatfield’s Madeline Nagy eyes history. Nagy earned her fourth International women’s crown last year when she finished in 2:42:56. Nagy won titles in 2002, 2013 and 2015. Nagy, who was eighth overall last year, was nearly four minutes faster than the runner-up.
The only division without the defending champ returning is men’s International, which was won by Eric Kirouac, of Williamsburg, who cruised to first place in 2:18:33 to best the rest of the field by more than three minutes. Kirouac was not registered as of Friday evening, leaving the seat vacant.
The race does include Northampton’s Win Whitcomb, who won Sprint in 2002 and 2004, and was fifth last year in the International. He returns to the Sprint Division this year.
As of Friday evening, the results of bacteria testing in the Green River were good, and organizers are optimistic that the swimming portion of the race will get the green light.
As of Friday, a record 332 competitors were registered.