Chantilly Para triathlon – Double Trouble!

Chantilly Le Condé 800m / 40km / 8km (or was it 1000 / 45 / 9?)

Race Reporter: Bettina, the pilot and Stéphanie, the stokerHow did it all start? Stéphanie : well I have a visual impairment and it turned out rather quickly that I wouldn’t be able to cycle on my own, not safe enough, so I started considering cycling in Tandem, with the help of several members of the club and of the ISVHN , an association which helps blind and partially sighted people to ride. I didn’t expect to have so many people showing interest, and I certainly didn’t expect Bettina to stick to the idea and ask me week after week “when are we going to have our tandem session?” But she did, and there we were, registered for the Condé of Chantilly Bettina: When Stephanie talked about doing a triathlon on a tandem for the first time, I was immediately hooked. I went on tandem rides with my dad when I was younger, but it was me the person behind. Also riding a tandem wasn’t completely new to me, doing a triathlon together is a whole different story. What motivated me most was Stephanie’s determination throughout the whole journey. Getting ready Stéphanie: We started training with an old mtb tandem, which was too small for us, and then, ISVHN lent us our road bike hybrid tandem – which we called Georgette – and we had a few training sessions with other Expats, that’s where I kind of started to feel I was becoming a real triathlete. You know, waking up at 6 on a Sunday morning to go cycling then swimming then cycling back and all of this without a beer… We chose Chantilly because this race has already welcomed disabled people in the past; they were very helpful, they answered all my questions and were very friendly. Bettina: For our preparation we didn’t really have a training plan or specific knowledge on how to do a triathlon together. Lots of improvising and learning by doing. We tried to fit in as many tandem rides as possible as this was certainly the most technical part, but also did some swim sessions attached. With the other girls we also went to Chantilly the week before to check out the bike course. Being less agile on a tandem it gave me more confidence already knowing the road. The race