A piece of the Olympic dream lives on in this Sunday’s Sooke Subaru International Triathlon.
The team of Fire Chief Steve Sorensen, firefighter Chris McCrae and district representative Laura Byrne were hard at work last Thursday building a bridge at John Phillips Memorial Park using some unique building materials -- leftover wood from the Sooke display at the Richmond O Zone during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
“It’s the ultimate recycling project,” said Sorensen.
The bridge provides access over a drainage ditch that is right next to Mulligan’s Bar & Grill, which triathletes will make use of during the race. The park is the location of the second transition point from biking to running, and the finish line.
This year the triathlon route has been changed to accommodate a number of factors including television crews and a safety, as well as impact on businesses, said Byrne.
“Mulligan’s had to close last year,” she said, because that section of Otter Point Road was shut down due to the previous route design. This year, the road will remain open with “limited access” since there will still be competitors in the area, but nowhere near the volume last year where cyclists had to go up and down the street.
Byrne said she’d like to see the bridge as a permanent addition to the park.
“It ties nicely to the the existing trails.”