News
Large participation year for HamTrek
By Emily Eisler ’17
May 4, 2017
Tags news
The 14th Annual HamTrek Triathlon and walk took place on Friday, April 28. All together the event had over 200 participants, most of which were students. The event was also open to college employees, the immediate families of either employees or students, Hamilton alumni and Clinton residents. Non-Clinton residents may participate with a $50 donation to the Shawn Grady Memorial Fund. The event took place on campus as well as the surrounding area. The triathlon begins in the Bristol Pool with the swimming event, continues with the bike race and finishes with the foot race ending in the field behind the fitness center.
The event description on the HamTrek website is as follows: “As a sprint triathlon event, the distances are 525 yds of swimming (21 lengths in the pool), 9 miles of on-road biking (two times around the Griffin Road loop and 5k of cross-country running (the cross-country course).” The first place winner in individual categories for the triathlon were Onno Oerlemans, Professor of Literature, in his fourth time winning. The first place woman was Wei-Fang Lin, Assistant Director of Institutional Research. Interestingly enough, neither winner was a student despite the population of participants being overwhelmingly students. The relay team winners were as follows: “Team Varga” in the CoEd category, “Team Mowat” for the Women and “Team Casey” for the Men, which included President David Wippman. David Thompson remarked on Wippman’s participation, “Not only did he participate, but he was actually quite good!”
The event encouraged donations to the Shawn Grady Memorial Fund, which helps families with sick children. Shawn Grady was the son of Phil Grady, the previous Hamilton Men’s Ice Hockey Coach who was at for 20 years. Shawn himself was a student athlete who passed away during his sophomore year at the College. This year, they raised over $2,000 in donations for the fund from participants.