President, Dave Fitzhardinge said the evening was a wonderful chance for members to get together and celebrate the season gone.

“We recognised some of the amazing achievements of the members over the previous season,” he said.

“The graded point score is always a hard fought contest and this year, a few of the grades came down to the result of the last race of the season to determine a winner.”

The winner of the F grade male competition was Ethan Fitzhardinge, with Tracey Sewell taking the top spot for the women.

In E grade, David and Julie Castle claimed the number one spots, and in D grade female honours went to Jo Croker.

In C grade, Tristan Marshall was in first place for the men, and Margaret Gordon took the women’s top spot.

B grade’s number one male was Ryan Oxenford, and the A grade spot went to Dave Fitzhardinge.

Junior triathlete of the year was Ethan Fitzhardinge, and Margaret Gordon and Tristan Marshall took out the club’s most improved male and female. 

The athlete of the year was Paul Nixon, and club people of the year went to Richard and Tracey Sewell.

“Saturday night was also an opportunity to acknowledge the amazing race career of one of our life members, Keith Pearce,” Dave continued.

Keith and Roberta have been in Forster since 1999 and have been involved with the Tri Club ever since, after taking up triathlons quite late in life after being a world class runner growing up in Zimbabwe.

Keith has won every world title there is available in triathlon, duathlon and aquathlon racing.

He qualified for the Australian team this year again but had a crash on his bike in April and has not recovered in time to be able to compete again.

Keith has sadly made the decision not to compete any more but can still be seen out training most days somewhere around Forster.

As a tribute to Keith’s incredible career, the last race of the season each year from now on will be known as “The Keith”.

It will be a handicapped, sprint distance triathlon, one of the distances at which Keith has won a world championship.

Anyone will be welcome to race on the day but as Keith has had to do so many times in the past, anyone wanting to be in contention for the prize has to qualify by competing in a minimum of three club races over the course of the season.

In other news, the club is aiming to hold all its events on the second Sunday of each month, starting in July with the winter duathlon series.

Triathlons will start in October and run through to April.