Regina athletes continued their dominance on the triathlon course on the third and final day of competition in the Saskatchewan Summer Games in Estevan, which was July 27.
The third day featured mixed (male-female) teams with some athletes representing zones other than their own home region to ensure that all athletes who wanted to compete, had a partner.
When the shouting was over, it was learned that South East had come the closest to claiming a medal than in the two previous days of energy sapping challenges in the pool, bicycle and marathon course.
Adah De Leeuw, a member of the Eels competitive swim team, teamed up with Nicklas Yuzdepski from Saskatoon, who ran under the South East banner as they claimed a fifth place finish, just six seconds from the fourth-place team from Saskatoon and less than three minutes behind the gold-medal winning Regina team of Jonathan Warawa and Molly Lakustiuk who had claimed individual gold medals on the first day of competition in the 12-13 age division.
Zach Makari and Hunter Schroeder from Saskatoon took silver, finishing 22.3 seconds behind the 40:28.4 time posted by Jonathan and Molly while another Regina duo, Ella Perras and River Custer finished third with a time of 42:21.2.
Adah and Nicklas posted a time of 43:07.2.
Josie Andrist, another Estevan Eels swimmer, who teamed with Dorion Gaberik to be the second South East representatives, posted a time of 46:36.5, good enough for eighth place, with Josie making a desperate bid to overtake the seventh-place finisher, falling just short by two seconds.
A total of 15 teams were entered in the final day of competition and officials noted the 14-15 age grouping was run as a demonstration event since at least one competitor, had actually “aged out” and was too old to
compete in that particular event, said the triathlon’s executive director, Chris Gdanski.
A third Estevan athlete, Mikayla Hack,who is also an Eels team member, got to run under a Saskatoon banner with Ana McComas, in the female team run, finishing third in the female-only competition that was run parallel with the mixed event. Their time was also good for 11th overall at 48:51.5, just four-tenths of a second ahead of the mixed team of Sydney Gdanski and Cosmas Markatos of Regina.
