Bryan McCrystal has made a seamless off-season transition to triathlon and smashed the national IronMan record in the Barcelona IronMan.
Not content with ripping it up all year in the domestic peloton, Bryan McCrystal has made a seamless off-season transition back to triathlon and set a national record on Sunday.
The Dundalk man set a new Ironman marker in Barcelona with a time of 8hrs 41mins 29secs.
He finished in a very impressive 22nd place in the international field despite coming straight off the back of the road cycling season when his swimming and running training would have been minimal.
McCrystal put in a time of 1hr 2mins 47 secs for the 3.8km swim in Barcelona this afternoon.
He followed that up with a time of 4hrs 17mins 11secs for the 180km bike leg; rounding out his effort with a time of 3hrs 18mins 30seconds for the 42.2km concluding run leg.
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His bike leg was raced at an average of 41.99kph and was faster than any of the competitors who finish ahead of him.
Indeed, only former international bike rider Démétrio Fernandez from France was quicker than McCrystal on the bike.
The new Ironman national record holder, subject to ratification, competes in the colours of Team ASEA in the Irish peloton and won the new National Road Series this year.
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His time in Barcelona was almost four minutes faster than the national record set by fellow Louth man Liam Dolan in Copenhagen two years ago.
Dolan, who has also since turned to cycling, set a time of 08:45:26.
McCrystal is a former pro football who played for Leeds United until injury cut short his career in England after four years.
He then played League of Ireland with Dundalk FC before being hit by further injury.
Having then gone on to triathlon he quickly became an international before moving to cycling.
McCrystal has plenty of time to celebrate his second win of the season in Claremorris back in March (Photo: www.jimmymcelroy.com – follow Jimmy on Facebook and Twitter)
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