White finishes 36th in the men’s triathlon at Baku European games

Russell White exits the water beside world number 15 Joao Pereira of Portugal at the Baku European Games. Credit: European Triathlon Union / Janos Schmidt

His finish time of 1:54:41 was not enough to achieve his aim of a place in the top 20.

He got off to a good start in the swim as he exited the 1500 meters in 19:28 and well placed within the top 20 athletes.

A problematic 50 second transition saw him lose some time but he had enough in hand to remain comfortably within the main pack.

The early swim leaders were looking to make their advantage pay but by the 20 kilometre mark they were all but reeled in.

Team GB used their domestique, Phil Graves to make a second bike break stick and they did just that pulling out over a minute and a half by the time they entered T2.

Once onto the run, White was moving well amongst the massive chasing pack however fell foul of the technical officials for a transition infringement.

That resulted in the Banbridge athlete having to serve a 15 second stop go penalty during the run.

Great Britain’s Gordon Benson claimed victory in a time of 1:48:31. Joao Silva of Portugal posted the fastest run of day to claim silver after starting the final discipline from the chase pack. Local man, Rostyslav Pevtsov delighted the hometown supporters as he rounded out the podium positions.

White’s Ireland teammate, 20 year old Limerick native, Aaron O’Brien found the pace a real challenge and did not finish the race.