Kent’s Dean Ratcliffe has booked his place at the New Zealand triathlon after he competed in the Deva triathlon at Chester.

This was the last chance for British Athletes to to qualify for the 2012 Age Group World Triathlon Championships in Auckland New Zealand and was packed with a competitive field of Triathletes all hoping to grab the last of the age group slots on the GB team flying to New Zealand in October.

Speaking after the weekend’s event, Ratcliffe was pleased to have performed so well, but it came with some challenges:

“This has been a great week for me, last weekend whilst competing in the 2012 National Age Group Championships I picked up the title of National Age group Champion in the 45 to 49 year old category and this weekend at Deva winning my age group in packed field of triathletes trying to qualify to represent GB in Auckland.”

“Picking up the British National title at Shropshire last week guaranteed me a slot on the GB team, however I registered for this qualifier at the beginning of the year and was very keen to compete. I’d heard great things about the race and it did turn out to be a very exciting and well run event!”

“At Shropshire last weekend I was very disappointed with my swim and was determined this weekend to put that right! This race started with a 1500m river swim, so I spent some time the day before the race studying the current flow and river route to make sure that on the day of the race I took the best available line to each race buoy.”

“The first part of the swim was heading up stream against the current and straight from the race start I managed to pull away into clear water and get exactly the line I wanted to the first buoy, at the turn around buoy I could see that I’d already pulled a good few metres lead on the rest of my start wave and managed to extend this down stream to the swim exit getting out of the swim with a handy lead.”

“The 40km bike started very well and as the rain started to fall I was hopeful that I could extend my lead during the bike leg, however at the half way point of the 40km route whilst cornering my back wheel caught a wet drain cover and I took a heavy fall off of the bike. I managed to pick myself up and remount the bike but soon realised all was not well, the bike as well as me had taken a bit of a knock and was not performing well!”

“I managed to get back to transition and get my run shoes on, but knew that the rest of the Athletes in my wave would be catching me fast.”

“I tried to ignore the soreness from my fall and pushed on with the 10km run at best speed, it was an extremely nervy run.”

“I knew I’d thrown away a considerable part of my lead and wasn’t too sure how far or fast the runners were behind me. In the end, I crossed the line with just over a minute to spare, so although things could have gone a lot smoother I was overall very happy with my performance!”

“As I had pre qualified prior to this event, it was left to the Athletes finishing behind me to battle it out for the last of the qualifying spots at Auckland.”

“I’m pleased to say that another Medway triathlete, Christian Butler, from Rainham, picked up one of the last qualifying slots on the team. I know Chris well and train with him frequently so was very pleased that he made the team, I’m very much looking forward to travelling with him to New Zealand and putting on a good performance for the GB team!”