retain his National Duathlon Championship title at Clearwater Beach yesterday.

As expected, the two 16-year-olds were far too good for the rest of the field and it was Butterfield who took top honours with a three-minute margin of victory in the run-cycle-run event.

The women's category was a much more even contest, with Melanie Claude holding off pre-race favourite Julia Hawley by 47 seconds.

And the winner of the hard-fought 40-49 age group, Granville Gibbons, also came third overall.

The event saw the return to competitive running of Jay Donawa, who has been sidelined for more than two months after fracturing his collar bone in a fall just a minute into the International Race Weekend 10K race.

Donawa paired up with cyclist Whayman Butterfield to win the team event.

In the first event of the Island's triathlon season, involving a 5K run, 30K bike ride and another 5K run, Butterfield's running power won him the title.

Butterfield ran the opening 5K in 17:05, leaving Herring nearly two minutes behind and always looked in control of the race. Although Herring made up 23 seconds in the cycling phase, it was not enough to put Butterfield out of his relaxed stride.

Butterfield was clocked at one hour, 26 minutes and 33 seconds, with Herring 3:09 behind.

"I went out really hard and tried to stick with Jay Donawa -- but I couldn't stay with him for long,'' said Butterfield.

"I could tell Jonathan (Herring) was catching me in the cycling and he's running really well too now, so it was very competitive.'' Herring, a national squad swimmer, is likely to provide a sterner challenge for his rival in future triathlons, which will include a swimming phase, Butterfield's weakest discipline.

Butterfield is aiming to qualify for the under-19 world triathlon championships later this year where he will face mostly older opponents.

In the women's event, Claude's superiority on wheels enabled her to retain the title she won last year when she held off Lynn Patchett by three seconds.

Hawley finished the first 5K run 2:10 ahead of the eventual winner. But Claude completed the 30K ride in 52:36 to turn the deficit into a two-minute lead.

Hawley gradually whittled Claude's lead away during the last 5K run, but the cycling phase had left her with just too much to make up and Claude won in 1:37:51.

Claude said: "Because of the loops on the course, I could see how close she was getting to me. But with one kilometre to go, I picked up the pace and pulled through.'' Hawley said: "It was a great race. I thought if I started the last run two minutes behind, I would have been in with a chance, but she ran well.'' Third-placed Gibbons is now looking forward to the World Duathlon Championships in North Carolina in October, after he won the 40-plus category in 1:32:41. Andrew Doble was just 32 seconds behind Gibbons and Jim Butterfield just eight seconds further back.

Gibbons admitted the warm conditions had favoured him: "I'm one of these guys who goes out training in August -- I like the heat and the humidity. On the first loop of the run I could see how far Jim was behind and I could tell he was not gaining on me. That's the nice thing about a course that goes back on itself -- you can see how far ahead you are.'' Donawa, one of the Island's top road runners, was delighted to be back and admitted training was no substitute for competition.

"This was a fun event for me, but it's nice to be back in the competitive arena and to have a few butterflies in my stomach again,'' said Donawa.

"All that tension and that uneasy feeling, at the time you don't like it, but I have missed it.'' Photos by Ras Mykkal Winners on wheels: Melanie Claude (above) and Tyler Butterfield show the strength which helped both to retain their titles in the National Duathlon Championships at Clearwater Beach yesterday.