TWO thousand athletes took part in the annual 9BAR Chilly 10k and Duathlon at Castle Combe Race Circuit.

The Chilly 10k got the day under way with Avon Valley’s Edward Knudsen taking an early lead.

Team DB’s Lee Rankin and Tom Jordan battle hard to rein in Knudsen, but the Avon Valley athlete came home in 33 minutes 38 seconds to take the win.

In the ladies race, Nicola Wilkinson held off a strong challenge from Rachel Bunting to win in a time of 39:19 – three seconds ahead of Bunting.

The 9BAR Chilly Duathlon consisted of two 2-mile runs with a 10-mile bike ride sandwiched in between.

From the start, Ride 24/7’s Dave Roper and Team Truestart’s Brett Halliwell were the early pace-setters.

Richard Peters, from Bristol and West, briefly took the lead, but he was soon hauled back by Roper and Halliwell as they made it a two-horse race.

Roper was eventually victorious with a time of 44:03 with Halliwell 20 seconds further back, Bradford on Avon’s Max Hazell was third.

The ladies race saw Katie Synge from Charnwood AC take a dominant win in 50:02, while Avon Valley Triathletes’ Anne-Marie Watson finished second – more than three minutes adrift.

The main event of the day was the SPARX BUCS Chilly Duathlon with more than 800 students from as far afield as Edinburgh taking part.

In the Men’s Elite race, Loughborough’s Rich Horton was first into T1 and out on the bike.

He was quickly followed by Luke Grenfell-Shaw (Durham Uni) and Chris Perham (Loughborough Uni).

Grenfell-Shaw took the lead from Horton and produced a stunning bike split of 20:47 to lead heading into the second run.

However, he was quickly chased down by Horton and Paul Kerr (University of Edinburgh).

Horton took the lead with 400 metres remaining and won with a time of 41:40, with Grenfell-Shaw and Kerr second and third respectively.

In the ladies races, Pippa Woolven (University of Birmingham) opened up a 47 second lead in run one with a split of 10:05.

Astonishingly, Woolven was overtaken on the last lap of the bike by Elle Twentyman (University of Bath) as she put in a sensational bike split of 22:55.

However, Twentyman could not do anything about Woolven’s running prowess as she won by 57 seconds.