Fewer competitors in the Weet-Bix Tryathlon this year helped reduce the annual ''bottleneck''at the Mosgiel Pool, organiser say.
The Memorial Park event attracted 824 entrants on Sunday, down on the more than 1000 who took part the previous year.
Spokesman Steve Andrews, of Sanitarium, acknowledged the reduction in numbers assisted organisers ''as the pool can sometimes be a bottleneck''.
Memorial Park was a fantastic and safe site to hold the Dunedin leg of the nationwide series ''but the pool is a little bit smaller than what we would like . . . but it does the job'', he said.
''Ideally, if it was longer then it would be a wee bit easier. But apart from that it is a great site, and works very well.''
The Memorial Park leg was the eighth of 14 Weet-Bix Kids Tryathlons around the country and attracted 7 to 15-year-old participants from throughout Otago and Southland.
Swimmers using the 25m pool had to swim 50m (7 year olds) or 150m (11-15 year olds), the bike leg ranged from 4-8km, and all children ran 1.5km.
Spare a thought for 10-year-old Ryan Johnston, who was snapped by the Taieri Times running with just one shoe.
And the reason?Well, Ryan told those at the finishing line he didn't lose his right shoe. Rather, his dad forgot to pack it.
