NEWS photo Neil Lucente

AFTER NINE months of intense training for lronrman Canada, Paul Granger is ready. He is aiming to
finish Sunday's race in under nine hours.

NorWesters bring home medals

NORWESTER TRACK and
field cihletes have — recently
returned from the Canadian
Juvenile Championship meet in
Toronto where they achieved
several medals.

Erin Bell placed second in
both the long jump with 5.43
metres and the triple jump at

141.30 metres to score two per-
sonal bests. She was also
fourth on high jump with a
1.69-metre jump.

Yvonne Passmore won a
silver medal in the 3,000 metres
with a personal best of
10:29,48.

Pole vaulter” Bryan Jeffries
was fourth at 3.60 metres and

sixth in the 400-metre hurdles.

Also in the 400-metre hur-
dies, James Leishman finished
second with a personal best of
$4.86 and third in the 100-
metre hurdles with another
personal best of 14.07. Io the
medley relay, Leishman’s team
placed third.

Jeyaseelan takes two tennis titles

West Vancouver won third place
ja the boy's singles while third-

NORTH VANCOUVER’S Sonya
SJeyaseelan completed a sweep itt
the Canadian ounder-f8 junior
tennis championships in| Ottawa,
winking both che singles and the
doubles crown.

The diminutive Jeyaseelan —
Sy" ar US years of age — scored

——

a 6-1, 6-3 drubbing of Dorota
Wesniak of Quebee on Saturday.
She also combined with Cathy
Dixon of New Brunswick to win
the doubles final.

Several North Shore players
competed at the national tourney.

Fifth-seeded Alex Klimek of

ate from
consolation

Moore,
won the

seeded Scott
West Van,
plate.

fn othe doubles, Moore and
Ashley Heghind of Calgary reach-
ed the semi-finals.

Wednessay.

-Norh Shore News - 13

cal athletes
training

or lronman

competition

IF HE can stick to his game plan on Sunday, Paul Granger
will become the first-ever Canadian triathlete to complete
Ironman Canada in under nine hours.

Granger and approximately 20
North Shore residents will join
1,200 triathletes in Penticton Aug.
25 for this gruelling annual test of
endurance — a 2.4 mile swim in
Okanagan Lake, a 112-mile bike
from Penticton to Osoyoos and
Keremcos and back, and a 26.2
mile run to Okanagan Falls and
back.

A North Vancouver City
firefighter, Granger, 31, has been
training since November for his
third and most serious shot at
lronman.

[In 1984, he entered the race
with the goal of finishing which
he did in approximately }! hours.
The next year fe was into mile 2
of the run before dehydration
took its toll.

Since then Granger has chalked
up a impressive list of ac-
complishments to his triathlete ca-
teer: first in his 25-29 age group
at the First World = Triathlon
Championships in !989 in
Avignon, France; two-time winner
of the World Police and Fire
Games triathlon in Vancouver and
Tennessee; fourth in the Canadian

By Elizabeth Collings
News Reporter

three-time fronman Canada
champ Ray Browning, also of
California. (The course record is
8:32.52.)

“When JT come off the bike,
that (racing the top pros) could
just do me in,”’ says Granger, ad-
ding that he will wear @ heart rate
monitor on Sunday to make sure
he doesn't go outside his range.

Although he doesn’t want to
name his goal time for fear of
jinxing himself, Granger says he’s
mentally and physically ready to
become Canada’s fastest lronman
triathlete.

“Right now I'm really confident
in my ability to do it."

For North Vancouver’s Gordon
Corby, Sunday will be his first
crack at Jronman.

Only in his second season of
triathlons, Corby, 29, has been
training between 20 and 24 hours
each week for Ironman Canada,
some of the time with Granger.

“The challenge of the distances

NEWS photo Mike Wakelield

GOING THE distance, Gordon Corby is deing Ironman for the
first time. In his second season of triathlons, he chose to do

ironman for the challenge of the distances.

championships in 1990 in) Mon-
treal; and ninth overall at the
World Duathlon Championships
in Palm Springs.

This year Granger has made
painstakingly careful preparations
for the race; he has familiarized
himself with the course and has
planned times to mark his pro-
gress along the race course. He
has even made mental notations
of certain points when he should
eat for optimum energy before,
for example, a big hil,

Granger says his biggest
challenge will be to. resist the
temptition to race with the com-
petitors expected to be among the
top finishers, coming in’ around
the 84-hour mark. These pros in-
clude Californian Seott Tinley,
who finished third last year, and

is why I wanted to do it — plus a
lot of my buddies are doing it,’
says Corby, a Lynn Valley Stong’s
employee.

Corby echoes Granger's senti-
ment that he will need to focus on
himself rather than) race with
others.

“T think you just have to do
your own race.”*

While he says endurance — is
more his forte than speed, Corby
broke three hours in a 1988 mara-
thon.

As for lronman, Corby has set
a time goal bur approaches the
race with a nonchalant attitude.

“TY would like to break ]Ohours,
but being my first one, it wouldn't
bother me if { didn't — just go

See Difficult page 18