By Brad Culp
April 24, 2007 -- Teams from over 70 schools headed to Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Saturday for the USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championship. At the end of the day, the United States Naval Academy stood atop the podium, as they took the men’s, women’s and combined team titles. The win marked the first time that a team East of the Mississippi River took the overall title.
Leading the way for the Midshipmen was Justine Whipple, who sealed up her second consecutive women’s title in impressive fashion. Her final time of 2:02:44 dusted the field by over three-and-a-half minutes.
Stanford’s Laura Wadden led the way out of the water, with a blazing 17:05 split, but after that, it was all about Whipple. She posted the day’s best bike split and topped it off with an incredible 36:16 run to seal the win. Kate Ellis of Arizona State picked up second (2:06:21), with former-champ Amanda Felder of UC San Diego third (2:08:21).
In the men’s race, Kevin Collington, from the University of Florida proved that the Gators are on top of the food chain in yet another sport. Collington trailed Nicholas Vandam, of Westpoint by 20 seconds after the swim before posting one of the day’s best bike splits. However, leading the way off the bike was Eric Bean, from the University of Wisconsin and Thomas Brown, of Navy.
“I knew I wouldn’t lead start-to-finish”, said Collington. “I just wanted to stay close to the lead heading into the run.”
After a quick 36 second T2, Collington was back with the leaders and a lead pack of four athletes were running for the win. Midway through the 10K run Collington pulled away and sprinted to a 1:52:07 finish. Close behind were Steven Sexton, from Cal (1:52:40) and Ethan Brown, of Michigan (1:52:54).
“I’ve raced Collegiate Nationals four times and this was without a doubt the best one yet”, said Collington. “Everything ran smoothly and everyone seems pretty happy.”
Finishing behind Navy in the combined-team standings was Cal-Berkeley and the University of Colorado.
Colorado was also awarded the Team Spirit Award, but elected to give the honor to the 20 athletes who represented Virginia Tech.