True Grit Australia started their 2023 season with a bang on the 4th March at their beloved NSW venue in Dargle Farm on the outskirts of North West Sydney. Unfortunately my flight in was cancelled while on the runway Friday evening so I missed the event, but we got some reports of the action from some of the OMR crew in attendance and TG themselves filled me in on the rest! This is the first TG event in Sydney that I've missed since 2017 and it's one of my favourite venues as it's the site of the 24hr Enduro, now on hold after their final event last year due to dwindling numbers of the large endurance event. It's no surprise to me that all reports that I received of the event were positive, True Grit continues to stride out of Covid in style, innovating and refreshing their brand along the way. OMR Coach Monique gave me a run down of the day and mentioned things like new obstacles on course, fantastic and plentiful volunteers, awesome prizes and finisher rewards for athletes and the whole event running on military precision timing including wave times and elite presentations. With a large number of athletes in attendance, I'm excited to see what TG continue to do in the sport, while crossing my fingers that I will one day soon be swimming through the Dam at 2am wondering why I was crazy enough to again sign up for another enduro.
THE ELITE REPORT
While I was devastated to miss this event, the True Grit team were kind enough to send me a copy of their own race report to share with you all. After seeing the order of the finishers, I know I missed a banger of a race between Josh Perizzolo and Dylan Pardy.
Dylan managed to hold out JP in all three races at Spartan Baw Baw the week earlier, so either Dylan was still fairly fatigued or JP brought his A game on the day or both.
In any case it would have been a great race to watch and after seeing the finish line vid and seeing how close they were in some of the muddy mile photos, it would have been a savage sprint to the line.
Here's what TG had to say
The field of Elite runners at True Grit’s NSW 2023 event at Dargle Farm on March 4th was competitive as always, with a host of entrants traveling from all across New South Wales to take on our challenging 10km course comprising of 35 obstacles.
As our Elites approached the Horizontal Maze (obstacle 33), a light shower began to fall, which made for a highly dramatic finish. Joshua Perizzolo crossed the finish line in first place, looking back to see Dylan Pardy climbing the final obstacle at speed. We could see the relief on Josh’s face as he sat down in the grass (we all remember Dylan’s fierce first-place finish of last year). Clayton O’Brien took out third place, roughly 3 minutes behind Dylan and Josh.
Our Elite Women’s winner was none other than Lucy Holman, letting out a huge celebratory battle-cry as she crossed the finish line. Lucy was followed by Jennifer Hynes and Samantha Palmer. Notably, it was Samantha’s first ever True Grit event and her strategy was to keep the legendary Jen Hynes in her line of sight as motivation. Jennifer is a seasoned Gritter, so it was no surprise to see her snap up second place on the podium. Epic to see first-time Gritters smashing the course and rising to the challenge, as well as the return of familiar faces! We can’t wait to see what they bring to NSW next year.
To hear more from our Elites, check out our post-race interview on our Instagram!
The top 3 Female and top 10 Male times are listed below. A huge congratulations to our podium winners, they scored some amazing prizes from our sponsors including:
Suunto 9 Peak Watch for the Winners
Cash courtesy of Nippy’s
True Grit NSW 2024 Entry
Huge True Protein Prize Pack
Our biggest True Grit Merch pack yet
TOP THREE FEMALE RESULTS
Lucy Holman | 119.39.73
Jennifer Hynes | 124.40.43
Samantha Palmer | 128.01.44
TOP TEN MALE RESULTS
Josh Perizzolo | 104.23.67
Dylan Pardy | 104.37.01
Clayton O’Brien | 107.23.67
Thomas Bleasdale | 108.06.00
Mckenzie O’Brien | 110.02.36
Jackson Harding | 110.18.37
Brodie Merchant | 114.35.20
Christopher Vallely | 117.18.24
Federico Chiappetta | 119.13.25
Tom Latchford | 119.39.73
As usual, I was told that the atmosphere was fantastic on the day and my OMR tribe had such positive things to say about the community. Thank you for everyone who continues to acknowledge and encourage the pink OMR army on courses around the country and the world! If you want to take your obstacle course racing up a notch, flick me a message and we will talk about how we can help.
TG has a full event roster this year, with events happening in SA, QLD and WA! There's a price rise tonight so get in to get your event tickets HERE and use code OMR23 for a discount on signup