Male Triathlete of the Year 2011

Triathlon is a sport that draws its participants from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Most triathletes don’t start out as triathletes; rather, they come to the sport from some other disciplines.  We have runners, swimmers, cyclists, soccer players, gymnasts, football players and athletes from just about any other sport that you can think of in our ranks.  Some sports purists might say that triathletes are individuals that aren’t great at any of the three individual disciplines. While there may be some truth to that to perception that is certainly not the case for this year’s Male Triathlete of the Year.

From a competitive standpoint, our award winner is regular fixture on the awards podium.  Regardless of the race distance and regardless of the age of the competition, our winner is always at or near the top of the pack.  To put our winner’s athletic credentials in perspective he is ranked in the top 200 of his age group nationally.   If that is not impressive enough, this year’s ranking is not even his best as he was ranked number one nationally in his age group in 2010.

Like a true multi-tasker, our winner did not just compete in our sport; he brought his love of triathlon to others.   Specifically, our winner served, along with his wife, as the Co-Race Director of the Red Hills Kids Triathlons and the Tallahassee Youth Triathlon Series.  I was fortunate enough to be a volunteer at two of the three kids’ races this year.  While I am not fast enough to see much of our winner in an actual race, as a volunteer I was able to see the tremendous amount of effort that went into making these kids races a success.  Despite having racers, some of whom were still learning to tie their shoes and whose bikes still had training wheels, to the parents of the racers, who didn’t always listen to the race officials, each and every race was a success. These successes would not have occurred without the hard work and dedication of our award winner. 

Ladies and Gentleman, I would like to present to you this year’s Male Triathlete of the Year, Mike Weyant.