Race Coverage
Bringing Out Their Best...
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Wednesday, 21 September 2022 00:10
ONE LAST TRI COVERAGE - The MTN Guys love to "drop names." Put differently, we love to talk about people, especially those who set the performance standards in our region.
In most of our posts, we talk about the "ususal suspects," i.e. those that consistently race at the front, both overall and in age groups. It delights us when we have the opportunity to write about new people, those whose names we've not previously mentioned.
We get to do that here. Three of the four overall winners of last Sunday's One Last Tri are names that haven't been mentioned on this site in the past, and those athletes recorded their first career multisport victories.
Let's start with the OLT OLYMPIC, which was won by LEVI ARNEBERG and CHARLEEN STOECKEL, both of whom threw down breakout performances. Levi's previous best tri effort was his 16th at Chisago Olympic. A time comparison--yes, the distances were not identical--nevertheless demonstrated a significant improvement, especially on the bike. His final 2:13:31 gave him a narrow 27-second victory over runner-up KRISTIAN STOECKEL, another athlete we had yet to hghlight on our site. ...
And Kristian wasn't the only Stoeckel to rock out at OLT Olympic, his wife CHARLEEN won the women's race and finished 3rd overall, just 55-seconds behind her spousal unit. Charleen's performance at Maple Grove Olympic - 8th place woman in 2:26--was noteworthy, but her victory on Sunday in 2:14:54 showed dramatic improvements in both the swim and the run.
Finishing 2nd for the women in this 59-finisher event was 2019 St. Paul Olympic winner WHITNEY GREILANGER, who was also 2nd the last time she raced here (2019).
Releaved of parenting duties for the morning, EMMA ADRIEANS finished 3rd.
That dog-loving QUIN SEILER (Photo) won the OLT Sprint was unsurprising. Her race results have been consistently impressive. Her margin of victory--2::37--over runner-up MELISSA NOEL, who placed 6th at Chisago Olympic, suggested that her (Quin's) performance here was one of her finest yet,
Noel's hold on the silver medal spot was precarious, as 3rd-placer WHITNEY TAYLOR's final time was only two-seconds slower. We were unable to unearth prior multisport results for Ms. Taylor. If she is indeed a newbie, then additional applause is deserved. Keep racing Whitney! You certainly have the aptitiude for success in the sport of triathlon.
The men's Sprint winner, another breaker-outer, was MALEKAI MISCHKE. Our research on Malekai reveals that he, at only 26, is a mind-bogglingly accomplished person. Born and raised in Beijing, he is a multi-lingual world-traveling former college basketball player (Top Photo) who according to his LinkedIn page is an entrepeneur, athlete and musician. He has a job with a multiple big-word title that sounds very very important and probably lucrative.
Malekai posted a 1-hour even time, which gave him a 54-second win over 20-year-old UM swimmer NATHAN KIM, who is from Middleton, Wisconsin. We suspect that like Noel, Kim is a tri-newcomer. His outswam the field at OLT Sprint, and we were also impressed with his bike and run splits.
GREG SHOBERT, 21, thanks largely to a great run split, which elevated his overall position to 3rd. After his 6th at Chisago Olympic, we were not surprised to see that he podiumed at OLT.
The Sprint race had 145 finishers. RESULTS
