Tenola’s Ambassador Caitlin Sendt Season Review of 2020

The 2020 race season was a season like no other. In Australia we began 2020 with horrible bushfires affecting the entire state of NSW where I live and cancelling a national event that was scheduled to occur in the middle of January and then immediately after the worst of the fires had eased, COVID-19 began to spread and we were forced into lockdown. However, thankfully in Australia the lockdown has not affected us too much and I have been able to participate in a number of race opportunities within my own state the past few months.

In March 2020, weeks before Australia went into lock-down, I flew down to Devonport Tasmania for the Australian Junior Championships where I placed 9th overall and 8th Australian in the Junior Category. I was then selected to compete for my state in the number 1 NSW mixed team relay where we placed 3rd overall and 2nd Australian Team in the National Championships.

From here I then travelled to Mooloolaba Queensland where I placed 4th overall female in the Sprint distance race, however, little did I know this would be my last race for the summer and I would be unable to travel to New Zealand to compete in the Oceania Championships due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The lockdown in Australia was not as intense as other countries and whilst swimming pools were shut for about 3 months, I was still able to swim in my backyard pool using a bungee cord to maintain swim fitness and I was still able to train outside to ride and run.

In September, racing in Australia commenced once again and since then have competed in 3 state events and a super sprint race weekend held in the ACT where I placed 2nd in the U23 category for the first 3 events and then 4th at the ACT Super-sprint Race Weekend.

So far in 2021 I have attended a 2 week training camp about 6 hours from where I live with the state team in preparation for the up-coming events this season. At this stage the plan is to compete once again in Devonport Tasmania in the end of February to competed in the elite/U23 category and then compete in the Oceania Championships in New Zealand pending border restrictions. I will then see how COVID restrictions evolve to decide on which races I will attend interstate.

Read more about Caitlin Sendt here >