Bradley earns top 10 finish at New York City Triathlon

Contributed Photos by Rebecca Walzer Bradley – Scott Bradley heads toward a top 10 finish at the New York City Triathlon.

It’s been a busy summer of professional triathlete competition for Lyndonville native Scott Bradley highlighted by a top 10 finish at the New York City Triathlon which had a field of 22 professional and 3,213 overall competitors.

In earning his second pro top 10 finish, he posted a personal record overall time of 1:55:25.
This was an Olympic distance triathlon consisting of a 0.93 mile swim, a 24.85 mile bike and a 6.21 mile run.

Bradley came out of the water 19th out of 22 male pros in a time of 15:55 but then, as usual, made his biggest move up the leader board in the bike competition. He posted a time of 0:59:29 which was the sixth best of the day as only six riders broke the one hour mark.

He finished by running the 10K in 0:35:31 to complete a personal record overall time for the Olympic Triathlon by five and a half minutes.

Bradley then just missed out on a top 10 finish at the Ironman 70.3 in Calgary, Alberta finishing 11th both in the Male Pro Division (18 competitors) and overall (899 competitors).

He had an overall time of 4:04.52 which was a personal record for him at the 70.3 distance by over four and a half minutes.

The 70.3 Ironman includes a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 (half marathon distance) run.

He came out of the water 12th out of 18 male pros with a personal record time of 28:32 and again then made his biggest move up the leader board in the bike competition. He finished the bike in seventh place after riding the 56 miles in a personal record time of 2:06:25. This was the third fastest bike time of the male pros and of the overall field.

Bradley in action during the bike competition at New York City.

Interestingly, the only two pros to best Bradley in the bike were Ben Hoffman (by 1:24) and Andy Potts (by :30), two of the bigger names among the full-time, fully sponsored professional triathletes. Last year they finished second and fourth respectively at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

In fact, Hoffman’s time was only 1.5 seconds per mile faster than Bradley’s over the 56 miles and Potts’ only one half second per mile faster.

“The bike has been Scott’s strength since beginning the sport, but a new coach and a new training philosophy on the bike have made significant improvements in this discipline for Scott this year,” said his dad, Wes Bradley.

Unfortunately, several mitigating circumstances, including a bee sting, resulted in this run being some three minutes slower than in his previous two 70.3’s.

Bradley’s most recent competition was the Timberman Ironman 70.3 in New Hampshire which had the largest and strongest Male Pro field that he has competed against since turning professional last September. Thirty-three Male Pros started the race, with 13 of them having broken the 4 hour mark at least once this year.

Unfortunately, trouble in the swim sealed his fate before he ever got out of the water. Just as he was rounding the last turn bouy he was kicked in the face and swallowed a significant amount of water as he went down under the water. When he resurfaced, he inadvertently swam toward the wrong bouy and by the time he corrected his error he ended up swimming an extra 0.2 of a mile.

He came out of the water 33rd out of the 33 Male Pros but made up ground on the bike. In posting the 12th best bike time of the day, he finished 27th among the Male Pros and 30th overall out of 2,288 competitors.

Bradley will be completing his triathlon season in September with two events – the Toughman 70.3 Championship Race in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. on the 13th and then the Ironman Chattanooga in Tennessee on the 27th.

Bradley will be returning to his position as an Intern Coordinator at Wayne Central School next week.