FEATURES

"So Let's Talk About...."

Friday, 20 September 2019 23:10

By Mike Buenting (mikebuenting.wordpress.com)

As a proud father I’m blogging today and making my case for my daughter Bella Buenting to be the junior female athlete of the year! 2019 was a very impressive season for Bella, sure it had some ups and downs but overall, she rocked it!

I simply love that myself and Bella share the passion of Triathlon together and that we spend our summer training and racing together! She is an amazing kid and the hours we spend, swim, bike, run (mostly biking together she swims mostly with Minnetonka swim club) is just awesome! I live for these moments and our workouts together! Racing with her is so fun as well! Especially events that I compete in the Olympic distance, and she competes in the sprint and we see each other along the race course, or at the finish line! Nothing better than a sweaty hug at the finish line from my daughter! Bella also teaches me some things in transition and at race sites, she is a very smart kid and sometimes gives me a nice fresh perspective on something I maybe miss.

The future for Bella is exciting! Triathlon is an emerging sport at the NCAA level for women and Bella is being recruited by several schools and has been taking visits all year long to visit schools, meet with coaches and so on. It’s also a lot of work and stress for her as she has to check in weekly with all of these coaches giving them updates, they call her, text her, email her often making their sales pitches for their schools and programs. It’s fun but it’s also a lot of work for her but she is very blessed to have so many great options to choose from! ...

So let’s talk Bella’s 2019 season!

Race #1 kicked off in April down in Greenville, SC for USA Triathlon Duathlon National Championships. This would be the first ever Duathlon that Bella competed in and it came in the middle of high school track season so she was not 100% dialed in to Duathlon mode, and it was her first outdoor bike ride of the season since we had a harsh winter. But against the fastest girls in the nation in a draft legal event Bella finished 4th at National champs! 2 of the 3 girls that beat her had won athlete of the year awards in 2018 from USAT so you can see the competition was stiff!  READ MORE