ATC Awards - 2015
ATC Awards ‘15
After two weeks of frantic planning, sifting through hundreds of photographs, paging through scores of nominations and lots of debate over award winners, Chairman STeve Attwell called for calm and started proceedings at the 2015 ATC Awards Ceremony:
“Good evening and welcome to Mykonos’s Taverna for the 9th annual ATC Awards evening. It’s an evening of rich tradition, celebrating sportsmanship, acknowledging excellence and of course, awarding the best dressed at the Clanwilliam after party! And… let’s hope you didn’t, but if you did, you will be fined with tequila for really silly things you did during the year.
ATC has lots to boast about, (and don’t worry I WILL get to that), but right now, I am going to boast about our special guests we have here tonight. Before I introduce them, let’s explore the possibilities. Perhaps we have the President of Triathlon South Africa here, the rock solid, the buck stops here, the get up and go, Dr Debbie Alexander? Perhaps we have the General Manager of Western Province Athletics, the take it on the chin, work out a solution growing the sport while dodging bullets from all corners, Sue Forge. Perhaps, just perhaps, we have the VOICE OF TRIATHLON, the only South African commentator to have ever announced not only the World Ironman Champs in Kona, but also presented the coveted awards ceremony on the island, Paul Kaye! And perhaps, just perhaps, and I am not promising anything here, but we might just have the Reb Bull sponsored ITU heart throb, the pin up boy of South African Triathlon, the common wealth silver medallist, the one to beat in RIO 2016, all round great guy, professional triathlete and ATC member, Richard Murray! And last, but not least, there is a chance that the most popular weather man on South African TV is here tonight!
But before I reveal if we actually have these role players, I want to boast about the biggest asset that ATC has, and it’s not our new Kelfords 2.2 TDi Ford Ranger, or the Tri SPaza shop operating from the new look Container, or the club house in the sort after Green Lung on the Green Point Common, at the Green Point Cricket club, nor the scanning in and out system that the City of Cape Town wants to duplicate and integrate into the Green Point Athletics Stadium, or the canal in the heart of the city where we’ve been hosting a swimming event every week of the year since 2012. Nope it’s none of that. It’s potentially the sponsorship opportunity that our club and website has, that attracts over 16 000 hits on a monthly basis, and now has attracted attention of one of the biggest sports apparel companies worldwide.
But still, we are not even close…
This asset doesn’t need a 15000km service like our Bakkie, or updating from time to time like the website, or rebooting like the online shop. This asset, eats, sleeps and breathes commitment to the club. This asset goes to bed ONLY once the all the work is done, and wakes up before Australia to respond to anything before the work day starts. I have said before that if you find yourself at war then you want this guy on your team, but over the years I have realised that with this guy, I would be confident enough to start the war! And this, special guest is here: Gert Wilkins.
When Alexander Bell invented the telephone he had 3 missed calls from Gert Wilkins…
Gert Wilkins knows who let the dogs out…
Gert Wilkins does not sleep. He waits…
Anyways, big appreciation to Gert Wilkins for everything you do, selflessly, for the club.
Special Guests
So now back to who are actually here too from the special guests?
ATC Members, please welcome:
TSA President, Dr Debbie Alexander!
Sue Forge, GM of WPA, was unable to make tonight but sends here apologies.
The Voice of Triathlon, Paul Kaye. Unfortunately Paul is travelling abroad to another Ironman event but he sent us a video…
ECNA weather man Luis Fernandez!
And finally… and girls please don’t rush the stage, don’t throw sports bras, or empty sports drink bottles, let’s act sanely, no screaming, no pleading for autographs, just clapping and a little whooping please; special guests and members please welcome our super star, Richard Murray!”
The audience was treated to a welcome message from Paul Kaye, speaking from Bahrain ahead of the Ironman 70.3 Middle East Championship.
Richard was called to stage to accept a special trophy made by the wire & bead artisan ATC employs to make all our trophies and medals.
Said STeve: “Richard please come up and collect the ATC good luck charm as you chase your goals and our hopes for the RIO 2016 Olympics. And if you can imagine, while you are racing, in that final 10 Kms, we will all be sitting together, screaming your name at the TV, wishing you find the strength to fulfil every athletes dream and return home with a gold medal. Rich, we are backing you 100%!”
This was followed by the You Tube Video Clip: Richard Murray: Triathlete ready to dethrone the best in the world
ATC Committee 2015
“Before we get the awards started, I would like to make special mention of the current committee, without whom the club could not continue to run. Not only because it’s in our constitution, but because of the invaluable time and effort spent to the benefit of our members.
If you could come up and collect an appreciation of our gratitude:
Garth, the-go-to man, Dorman;
Paul, the-scrap, Gordon-Brown, our treasurer, chartered accountant, and as its tax season, speak to him if you need to submit your e-Filing by the 3rd of December;
Anthony, always-put-your-and-up, Dean;
Travys, my-dad-is-Gert, Wilkins;
Jay, I-beat-Ryk-Neetling-over-50m-at-World-Champs-last-year, Richards;
Jacqui Vockins and Ilze Els, Gert’s on-hand-help for over-flowing admin;
Kevin, no-sponsor-too-big to approach for help, Anderson;
Barry Goliath, development officer extraordinaire;
And last, but not least, Japie, pass-me-the-hammer, Bingle.
Special thanks to Hilda Visagie for her unwavering help towards the club for the past 2 years. She has stepped down from the committee earlier this year.”
This is our 9th (actually, the 10th, but the first awards ceremony was held shortly after the club started) awards ceremony and next year ATC turns 10! So next year will be our STEP UP celebration of the decade: A black-tie affair with a hot dog MC, at a grand venue. Next year, in addition to the annual awards, we will also award the athletes of the decade, most valued member of the decade and the ultimate legend! Best dressed of the decade and best fine for a decade will also be honoured.
After our first awards ceremony in 2006, ATC decided that the same person could not win our prestigious awards more than once. Next year we will reset the repeat award constraint and re-start the cycle for the next decade.
ATC currently has around 700 active members and we hope to reach the 1000 mark in our tenth year. This should be easily achievable as this year our base has grown extensively with scores of engagements, marriages and new-borns.
One of our major achievements this year was to get access to the Green Point Athletic Stadium for our weekly track session. As part of our agreement with stadium management, we have to send a weekly attendance register of all athletes who use the stadium. Stadium management have been quite impressed with the efficient manner in which we can produce the register and have expressed interest in using our system for all access control to the stadium. However, scanning through the list of attendees they must think that we make up some of the names: Famous name-sakes such as: Freddy Kruger, Jean De Villiers, Paul Kruger, Michael Jackson, Ben Stiffler, Mark Shapiro and Robyn Williams.”
Sunset Team Time Trial
We played a picture movie of photos taken by Simon Katz at the most recent ATC Summer Sun Set Team Time Trial, held in October this year. This year we hosted two of these events and this involves a huge amount of work. This year two teams, who did not race but did a lot of behind-the-scenes-work and was thanked with the ATC SSTTT Trophy.
February’s winning team included: Anneke Viljoen, who helped with preparing and running registration; Eckhard Scholtz, who has managed the marshals for the last couple of events; Esther Patience, who always helps out with handing out finishers cards in the chaotic transition zone; and Tamsyn Wells, who captured all the finishers cards for the results.
October’s winning team included: Bianca Krafft, who spent the whole day preparing and running registration; Inge Hansen, who handles all the event application duties (a huge task); Lara Browne, who helped with capturing results; and Jessica Hopley, who captured the finisher’s cards.
The Sunrise Team Time Trial open water swim, which we mentioned at last year’s ceremony is still on the cards but we are waiting for the building development, which has seen part of the canal blocked off and dried up, to be completed.
ATC Development
We then viewed a short move showing the ATC Kids and Juniors in action at various events through the year, reminding us of their dominance of the Spur Summer and Winter Trail Series, where they won both the Junior and Minimee categories. The kids and teenagers also performed exceptionally well in the Cross Country Series and a number of athletes were selected to represent their schools at the Western Cape Championships. For the Eleven Cape Town event, ATC Development teamed up with YEP CLAN Cycling, a youth empowerment organisation based in Khayelitsha, and our own swimmers, to dominate the team categories in both Olympic and Sprint Distances. We also joined forces with YEP Clan and Songo.Info riders to ensure that our development team was part of the historical finish on the blue carpet on the blue track at the Green Point Athletics Stadium.
Our development program has been running almost since the inception of ATC. In 2011 we seized the opportunity to become part of WP Athletics’ Kids Athletics program and have been participating ever since with a new batch of kids arriving each year. As the kids outgrow the Kids Athletics program, which caters for ages 8 to 14, they move in to the teenager group, which ATC started as we and Barry were reluctant to leave the kids to their own devices during the teenage years. So our count of development runners have been growing steadily each year. As the teenagers grow older, the natural progression would be to start an Elite Development Team, which we will look into next year. The dream continues and with devoted coaches like Barry Goliath we are only limited by the fund available to ATC to grow our development initiatives.
The ATC Kids and Juniors will have their own awards ceremonies later this week and next week.
Award Categories
STeve Continued: “Tonight we are going to acknowledge and reward the members for top achievements, for improvements and for dedication to the club. But don’t leave early, as we are also going to fine members for silly things they do during the season!
The awards up for grabs tonight are: Rookie of the year, Club Champs, Best dressed at Clanwilliam, Most Improved, Swimmer of the Year, Cyclist of the Year, Runner of the Year, Legends Award, Supporter of the Year, Junior athlete of the Year, Female Athlete of the Year, Male Athlete of the Year and finally, the Most Devoted Member.
You will note that Richard Murray was nominated as Male Athlete of the Year. Whilst we love to acknowledge the performances of our professional athletes, they can unfortunately not win any of the performance awards. This was a decision taken at the inception of the Atlantic Triathlon Club.”
Achievements off the Field
But before we get in to the performance awards of our athletes we have some more people to thank. 2015 was marked by some major achievements for the club off-the-field.
We established our base at the Green Point Cricket Club (GPCC).
We purchased a container and equipped it for use as storage, office and shop space for the club.
We joined forces with Embark and Kelfords to purchase a branded vehicle.
We purchased a new gazebo and airtex banners.
We started training on the Green Point Athletics Track (GPAS).
The above would not have been possible without the help of the members listed below. So we would like to extend our thanks to the following:
Bradley Jocum for his assistance in getting access to GPCC.
Mark Sochen for his assistance in sourcing the container as well as arranging free transport.
Jonathan Bernstein from All-Phase Electrical for equipping the container with electrical and light fittings as well as the dry wall separating the shop and storage areas.
Luca and Davide Del Fante from Delmar Paints for the heat resistant paint used on the container’s exterior.
Pinchas Hack for arranging free storage for the club at Stor-Age in Claremont.
Tristan Kelly and Roan Strydom from Kelfords in Somerset West for their contribution towards the Ford Ranger.
Jessica Cloete from Hello Monday for ongoing graphical design work she does on our kit and gazebo branding.
Simon Katz and Craig Brandenburg for the coolest pics at significant ATC events and sessions.
Sue Forge for her assistance in getting access for ATC to GPAS.
Garth Dorman, upon acceptance of his award as the Most Valued Member for 2015, seized the opportunity to thank STeve Attwell. As Chairman, Steve’s contribution towards the above mentioned activities of the club is often taken for granted. STeve played an instrumental role in all the major achievements of the club and his negotiation and leadership skills are of huge benefit to the club.
Garth also wished Ilze Els and Chantel Rall, who were both absent due to illness, all the best for the challenges they face over the next couple of months. Ilze and Chantel are both cancer survivors who are now suffering a relapse of the dreadful disease.
Twitter-Vote, Male Athlete of the Year
In a first ever for ATC, the committee could not decide between Male Athlete of the Year Finalists, Darrin Hofmeyr and JD Neill. So it was decided to let the members decide through voting via Twitter. After tallying the votes received via our Twitter feed throughout the evening, JD Neill was elected as the winner. JD celebrates his 30th birthday this coming Wednesday so if you can catch up to him at track, say Happy Birthday JD!
After treating the audience with some entertaining images from this years’ dress-up “T” after-party, STeve announced the winner of the inaugural “Best Dressed” award: Peter McEwan
Awards
The evening continued with STeve highlighting performances of the nominees and winners of the various categories. There were over 70 nominations from which we picked 24 winners.
ATC Multisport Service Awards |
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ATC Multisport Performance Awards |
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Title
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Awarded
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Title
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Awarded
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ATC Multisport: Most Devoted Member
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Winner
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Garth Dorman
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ATC Multisport: Male Athlete of the year
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Winner
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JD Neill
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Nominee
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Barry Goliath
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Nominee
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Darrin Hofmeyr
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Nominee
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Gert Wilkins
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Nominee
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Dean Hopf
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Nominee
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Inge Hansen
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Nominee
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Jean de Villiers
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Nominee
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Paul Gordon-Brown
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Nominee
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Richard Murray
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Nominee
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STeve Attwell
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ATC Multisport: Female Athlete of the year
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Winner
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Robyn Williams
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ATC SS TTT Helpers' Team Award
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Team
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October '15
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Nominee
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Caitlin Van Den Berg
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Winner
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Inge Hansen
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Nominee
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Caylan Bromley
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Winner
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Bianca Krafft
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Nominee
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Helene Rabie
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Winner
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Lara Browne
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Nominee
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Marilyn Fischer
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Winner
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Jessica Hopley
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ATC Multisport: Junior Athlete of the year
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Winner
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Caylan Bromley
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Team
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February '15
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Nominee
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Bruzano Britz
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Winner
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Tamsyn Wells
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Nominee
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Daniel Arendse
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Winner
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Anneke Viljoen
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Nominee
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Dawood Goeiman
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Winner
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Eckhard Scholtz
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Nominee
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Tim Langerman
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Winner
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Esther Patience
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Best Supporter of the Year
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Winner
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Katherine Neill
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Nominee
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Ceejae Miller
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ATC Multisport Improvement Awards |
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Nominee
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Eve Hopf
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Title
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Awarded
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Long Service Award
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Gert Wilkins
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ATC Multisport: Most Improved Athlete
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Winner
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Alexander Schubert
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Nominee
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Darrin Hofmeyr
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ATC Multisport Club Awards |
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Nominee
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Helene Rabie
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Title
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Awarded
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Nominee
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JD Neill
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ATC Swimming: Swimmer of the year.
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Winner
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Emma Alsop
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Nominee
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Stewart MacKay
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Nominee
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Amy Barnes
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ATC Multisport: Rookie of the Year
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Winner
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Travys Wilkins
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Nominee
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Caylan Bromley
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Nominee
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Caylan Bromley
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Nominee
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Emma Alsop
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Nominee
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Luis Fernandes
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Nominee
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Karen Graaff
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Nominee
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Peter Adolphs
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Nominee
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Nicholas Mortley
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ATC Multisport: Best Beginner
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Winner
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Meagan Botha
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ATC Cycling: Cyclist of the year.
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Winner
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Helene Rabie
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Nominee
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Lucy Gauntlett
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Nominee
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Jean de Villiers
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Nominee
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Luis Fernandes
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Nominee
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Piet Viljoen
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Nominee
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Peter McEwan
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ATC Running: Runner of the year
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Winner
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Caitlin Van Den Berg
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Nominee
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Meagan Botha
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Nominee
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Bernard Griesel
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Nominee
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Robyn Elford
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Nominee
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Jean de Villiers
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Nominee
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Taschyana Hurter
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Nominee
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Michael Gombart
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Nominee
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Thalia Charalambous
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ATC Club Champions |
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ATC Legends Challenge |
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Event |
Type |
Club Champs |
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Name
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Events
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Points
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Clanwilliam Festival
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Sprint Tri or DU
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Jonty Low
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Piet Viljoen
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24
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6291
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Alice Oosthuizen
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Gert Wilkins
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24
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5386
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Half Ironman EL
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Ultra Dist Tri
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Dean Hopf
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Caitlin Van Den Berg
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18
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4503
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Helene Rabie
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Helene Rabie
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24
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4327
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WP TRI Champs
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Std Dist Tri
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Jean De Villiers
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Steve Peirce
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15
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4111
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Vivienne Williams
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Douglas Burges
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20
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3737
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WP Duathlon Champs
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Std Dist Du
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Henry Wolstenholme
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Esther Patience
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21
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3631
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Elrika Calitz
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Taschyana Hurter
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17
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2598
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Xterra Grabouw
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Off-road Std Tri
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Douglas Burger
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Karen Graaff
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16
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2295
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Robyn Williams
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Wouter Vink
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12
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2251
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Ironman PE
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Ultra Dist Tri
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Jean De Villiers
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Peter Adolphs
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16
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2224
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Marilyn Fischer
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Alexander Schubert
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20
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1835
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Knysna Xterra
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Off-road Std Du
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Dean Hopf
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Chris Loker
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24
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1776
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Ilana Steenkamp
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