The UCSD triathlon team competed in the 2001 Jamba Juice Wildflower Triathlon on Sunday, May 6. It was the National Collegiate Championship event and attracted over 50 schools and 500 athletes from around the nation.

Competing in temperatures in the low 90s, the UCSD team overcame fatigue and placed eighth on the basis of the total times of its top three male and female finishers. The team’s time of 15:41:00 placed it behind University of Colorado-Boulder, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Poly San Luis Opisbo, University of Florida, UCSB and Navy.

Despite one Triton involved in an accident and another with terminal bike failure, all members of the UCSD team were able to finish the race. Esther Merki, one of the top finishers for the Tritons, finished with a time of 2:33:18, which placed her fifth out of a total of 198 female competitors.

In the men’s division, Brendan O’Brien had a time of 2:17:00 to nab 10th place out of 305 collegiate male participants. Dave Schurig of UCSD finished in 2:31:02, while Eric Mellers had the third best time for UCSD with 2:35:51.

For the women, UCSD’s Megan Anderson took 2:45:41 to finish the three events, while Evelyn Kwok finished in 2:58:08.

For more information on the UCSD triathlon team visit http://www.ucsdtriathlon.org.