Maitland Triathlon Club trio Lorcan Redmond, Courtney Weavers and Declan Irvine were successful by 12 seconds in taking out the teams event, which was part of the Newcastle Triathlon Festival held across the weekend.

Each competitor completed a 300 metre swim, five kilometre ride and 1500m run in succession with six clubs – Maitland, Newcastle, Tomago, Singleton, Gunnedah  and Forster – participating.

The format of the race was similar to the one used for the first time at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where an Australian team, including former Maitland Triathlon Club member Aaron Royle, claimed a bronze medal.

Event organiser and Maitland Triathlon Club president Paul Humphreys said the debut race was a crowd pleaser and would be back on the agenda again in 2015.

“It was the first time it has been done anywhere in NSW,” Hunphreys said.

“Everyone was raving about it at the end and we’ll certainly run it again in that format.

“From a spectator point of view the event only goes for an hour with the swim entry and exit, bike transition and finish line all within 25 metres of one another.”

Maitland finished the race in 57 minutes and nine seconds, narrowly ahead of second-placed Newcastle (57:21).

The winning team was led by Redmond, who capped off a successful summer of racing last month with a third victory at national level ahead of a title defence at the Australian All Schools Triathlon Championships in April.

Maitland’s second squad in the TriNSW Club Relay Challenge finished fifth with Richard Roxin and the Hollingsworth sisters, Nikki and Chloe, stopping the clock in one hour, three minutes and 43 seconds.

This event was one of several held from Friday to Sunday with almost 1500 people in action.

In Sunday’s main race Michelle Gailey won both the women’s Olympic and sprint distance events while Shane Ilgen took out the men’s Olympic and Liam Templeton the sprint. 

In Friday’s five-kilometre fun run Nick Marriage recorded a time of 16 minutes and 17 seconds. 

In other event news Maitland Triathlon Club’s final two rounds will be held on March 22 and April 26, followed by the NSW Club Championships at Forster on May 16.

And finally the 2015 Maitland River Run has been set down for May 31 with Bay Adventures (March 21) and Hill2Harbour (April 19) taking place in the lead up.