THE Orange Cycle and Triathlon Club has won its first ever Central West Inter-Club Triathlon Series.

The final round at the Mudgee Olympic Pool has often been the Achilles’ heel of the Orange club.

However, Orange took an insurmountable lead of 479 points into Sunday’s meet, ensuring victory well before the starter’s gun, despite Mudgee winning the final round.

Since the inception of the CWICT series in 1998, Mudgee has dominated, winning 11 titles.

OCTC president Steve Martin believes the club’s win is an important one.

“We have been close to clinching our first title for a while now. Over the years Mudgee have been able to run us down in the final round up there in Mudgee, but not this year,” Martin said.

The win, which is expected to be by about 300 points once official scores are released, will provide the inter-club series with a giant shot in the arm, generating plenty of competition between the Mudgee and Orange clubs for years to come.

The Mudgee club has based its dominance on the sheer weight of numbers they generate in the final round on home soil, storming home to claim victory on more than one occasion.

The Mudgee club has based its dominance on the weight of numbers they generate in the final round on home soil, storming home to claim victory on more than one occasion.

“Mudgee are happy for someone else to win so the series can have more competition,” Martin said.

Martin is hopeful the win has a flow-on effect to next year’s series and beyond.

“We started off with around six or seven members and now have about 60, so hopefully it will grow after the the weekend’s win,” he said.

“Mudgee seem to think that a lot of their numbers have come because they keep on winning the titles, I think we could be the same.”

In a sign of the Orange club’s dominance during this year’s series, eight of the 11 age categories were taken out by members of the OCTC.

Laura Wolfson (women’s 14-19 years), Jess Richards (women’s 20-29 years), Erika Barton (women’s 30-39 years), Christine Wolfson (women’s 40-49 years), Chris Cotten (men’s 14-19 years), Dave Selwood (men’s 20-29 years), Scott Wolfson (men’s 50-59 years) and Bruce Smith (men’s 60-69 years) all took out their respective age categories.