Established in 2014 by a small group of like-minded athletes, Chippenham Triathlon Club has been steadily growing over the last 8 years. We are now 115 members strong, with a range of athletes from 8 year old Tristars just testing the water in the sport to Team GB and Ironman World Championship Qualified athletes.

Over the years, our club has morphed and changed, grown and declined, but it has always remained a resilient local club with a strong heart.

We reached our peak membership in the year before the dreaded Lockdown happened. Trying to keep swimming, cycling and running going during a pandemic was a fierce challenge with many paddling pool tether swims, static bike races via Zoom and “one exercise per day outside” runs, we managed to all stay together. But inevitably there was one casualty  - our memberships. The size of our club took a big hit and it’s taken us a while to get back to where we need to be.

In summer 2021, having climbed back up to a very respectable number of members,  we suddenly found that we needed to also have a strong Coach consignment to support the ever growing club. Sadly some of the previous coaches we had have moved on, as naturally will happen over time, and we found ourselves on the hunt for new blood to take our club forward.

Thankfully, we had 4 willing club members come forward to step into those roles and in the spring of 2022, Emily, Mark, Rob and Nikki successfully completed their Level 1 British Triathlon Coaching Qualifications. This meant that we were able to increase our provision of group coaching for adults and children effectively, whilst also taking the pressure off our now overstretched existing coaching team.

Alongside this, we have 3 new Activator Coaches and 2 new Level 2 Coaches in training at the moment, so in no time at all our Coaching Team will be a force to be reckoned with once more!

With the low membership of Lockdown years however, there was no way we could have funded this purely from our membership subs. We have always tried to keep the costs to members low and to remain a Not for Profit community group. So we approached an incredible local Charity, Chippenham Borough Lands Charity (www.cblc.org.uk), who support local groups, education facilities and events amongst other things. After making our application for a grant to help fund the coaching courses, we were absolutely overjoyed to learn, on the morning of our AGM, that the Charity had awarded our club a mind blowing £2,770 in grant funds to cover the cost of all those coaching courses.

We cannot explain how essential this grant has been. Not only for our beloved club to survive, but also for it to thrive and develop further in our local community. Thank You Chippenham Borough Lands Charity!

Keep your eyes peeled for more Team GB and World Championship Athletes to come!

If you are interested in becoming a member of the club or simply want to find out more of what we are about, please visit our website at www.chippenhamtri.org.uk  or email us at info@chippenhamtri.org.uk.