The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net IN its inaugural year, the Great Abaco Family Fitness Weekend, with a full slate of events for athletes and their families, set the tone for the success of future editions of the event. The three-day series of events featured over 70 competitors throughout the Bahamas and across the globe. Greg Lowe finished first overall in the Olympic triathlon, Dale Hill of Marsh Harbour, Abaco, took the sprint triathlon while Peter Wagner won the open water swim. Teenage competitors dominated the running events with 19-year-old Abaconian Adrian Whylly taking first place in the 10k run. In the relay events, Adam Isaac, Rob Rothwell and Phil Cumming took the Olympic male event while Lindsey McCoy, Nakia Wong and Kristin Williams took the female sprint version. "It went great. We had a little lower numbers than we had hoped for but everything went well. The weather was beautiful and we could not have asked for a better weekend in that regard," said Lee McCoy, managing director of the GAFFW. "We had a pretty fast field. Greg Lowe has done many of these before and he talked about how impressive the event was in terms of the field and for a first time event." The one-mile open water swim was hosted by the Abaco Swim Club and took place on the north side of Treasure Cay beach - voted one of the region's top 10 beaches in a reader poll by Caribbean Travel & Life. The sprint triathlon featured a 500m swim, 20km (12.4 miles) bike and 5km (3.1 miles) run while the Olympic triathlon was made up of a 1,000m swim, 40km (24.8 miles) bike, and 10km (6.2 miles) run. "We had families registering the weekend of the event that were there on vacation. The winner of the 5k run was a 15-year old and his parents were there supporting him. The female winner was a 13-year-old and her father ran as well. We also had a kids race on Saturday which we had about 10 kids participate and they had a great time as well," McCoy said. "We have positive feedback. Everybody said it was a perfect event. We had people saying if they had known about it before they would have brought more people so we do have to work on our marketing and getting it out there. Treasure Cay was very impressed. We had people already asking us about next year's date because they want to set their schedules around it." McCoy said the event is primed to become a welcome addition to the country's sports tourism product. "It would not have been possible without the Treasure Cay Resort and the Ministry of Tourism, they were great in terms of support, particularly the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board. I think they have seen the potential and next year we can only grow from here," he said. "We had somewhere in the vicinity around 75 competitors and we hope to double or go even further next year. We look forward to not only working with everyone in the Bahamas but around the world. We had people from the Faroe Islands, UK, the US and Canada so we want to make this a true destination event for our international competitors."