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Olympian Triathlon Club is one of the oldest clubs and has been running since 1984. It is based in Olympia Leisure Centre where we have the swimming sessions.
Running and cycling sessions are organised at suitable times by the members.
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Tribute to Tom Donnelly

Upon reaching retirement age, more common inclinations would be to lie back, take up bowls, peruse Saga magazine, softly enjoy the dying of the light. Tom Donnelly took up Triathlon.

Tom didn't exactly rage, rage against the dying of the light; his manner was the easy-going smile, a quip and a chuckle, perhaps not the prescribed starting point to excel in triathlon, but then Tom wasn't in triathlon for that reason. He wanted health and friendship, and he wanted to use his abilities to help where he could. He gave invaluable direction while sitting on the committee as he wound up his seventh decade.

Tom may have had a superficially easy-going manner, but he was no lightweight. He pondered upon life's nooks and crannies with an assured intelligence. He was an advisor and a counsellor during his time in Olympian Triathlon Club. Although he was no longer a club member when he died, he had forged unbreakable links and friendships; only last month he attended the club's book group to give his dollar's worth and no doubt would have waxed lyrical at the next.

A man of many talents he certainly was, but swimming was not one of them. Perhaps years behind a desk had fixed foot to ankle in immoveable perpendicularity. In the pool his feet pointed relentlessly downward, acting as brakes and, as his legs slowly sank, like leaden anchors. Fluid dynamically efficient Tom was not. He was saved by the combined buoyancy of wetsuit and sea water. And when he lined up for the start of the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon two summers ago, he would have been confident of reaching dry land but in some trepidation as to just what time of day he might arrive there. Fortuity smiled back at him that day and drew him across those difficult waters on the crest of some God-sent wave. He emerged as first Irishman, a little moment of triathlon fame. And by the time the cruel bike and run disciplines were over he had, as so often was the case, won his agegroup.

Despite all of this, Tom was a man of his time, old-fashioned and quirky by today's eye. But he was the essence of all that he would regard as correct for a gentleman. He was just that, a gentle man. And that's how he will be remembered, a friend and gentle man who smiled, smiled at the dying of the light.

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