The Three Lean Machines Clark Jamieson, Liam O’Rourke and Ollie McKenzie, all 17, finished the 1.9km swim, 90km cycle and 21km run in 4hr 38min 49sec, about 10 minutes behind the first placegetters, and have qualified for the world championships at Challenge Slovakia in May.
Clark said whether the group could find a sponsor would determine if they could compete in Slovakia.
He was very pleased with the 25 minutes it took him to swim the course.
"That’s pretty quick."
He was about 10m behind the front three swimmers and so could not take advantage of their wake.
"I was going hard out that whole race, like there was no [going] easy for me."
When he left the water the team was in fourth place .
Riding a time trial bike, Liam paced himself and caught a couple of the riders in the next stage of the race.
"I put us into second. I had to bring it home in the last 30km."
When Liam came to the transition area, he had to rack his bike, take off his helmet, before Ollie could put on the tracking device and start the run. The run was two laps of the Glendhu Bay mountainbike track.
He was a little disappointed with his 1hr 39min time.
"I was hoping to run faster."
He fell over after someone who was passing him kicked up a rock which he could not avoid.
It was a very hot day and one of the teams who were ahead of them were disqualified after one of their team members fainted.
It was the first time the trio had competed together, although Clark had entered the event before.
"I was pretty happy with these boys’ effort," he said.
"It was good fun with the boys in the hurt locker," Liam said.
"It was kind of my first real event like that," Ollie said.
Prior to the race Clark was given a wetsuit to wear by sports clothing company Orca and after the race the boys were offered sponsorship by the company for next year’s event.
