Next weekend the Bayside Triathlon Club celebrates its 25^th Birthday! Established on the 17^th June 1990, the Bayside Triathlon Club was formed to fill the gap between Melbourne and Mornington and by August of the first year the club’s membership had increased to 90. With a catch cry of “eat ‘em up”, “The Sharks” couldn’t have been missed on course in the first three years with their first uniform of blue, fluoro orange and fluoro green! This was then toned down in ’93 to the current club colours - navy and fluoro yellow.

Graeme Mills was the foundation member of Bayside Triathlon Club and ran the swim coaching at King Club, whilst Wayne Clark coached the running at Dendy Park. The first President of the Bayside Triathlon Club was Mark Slykhuis holding the Presidency for 10 years and 25 years on still contributing to triathlon through St Leonard’s College. Joining him as some of Bayside’s longest serving members are Scott McVilly, Kim Wilson, Mark and Darren Trew.

The BTC membership number went well over 100 and great performances continued, with 3 members qualifying for Hawaii. Monthly getaways to Victorian country side took place to escape the weekly Beach Road grind and BTC ran a successful Aquathlon series.

In 2012, The Bayside Triathlon Club amalgamated with the Taylormade Triathlon Club. Taylormade Triathlon Club was formed in the summer of 1992 and was involved in developing and delivering a kid’s triathlon as part of a Triathlon Victoria initiative, Go-Tri-It and the TriWIT (Women in Triathlon) program. Taylormade was born out of founding member Jeremy Taylor’s desire to create a vehicle for novice triathletes to become involved in triathlon in a non-threatening, fun and supportive environment. Triathlon Victoria Life member and past CEO Sally Ham was coach and secretary of the Taylormade Triathlon Club for 8 years.

Christian Steguweit, Bayaide’s current Duathlon Race Director, was a key driver in the joint venture with Taylormade. An important moment in both club’s histories was the amalgamation and it allowed the clubs to align their values and benefit in spreading the workload of the committee.

The committees believed that the Taylormade philosophy of being a vehicle for novice triathletes to be introduced to the sport in a friendly way would be a good balance to the 'Ironman club' reputation Bayside had. Merging the clubs would allow the continued focus on novices and the opportunity to progress within the single cluband significantly the history and contribution of Taylormade would be forever a part of Bayside’s history.

Fast forward to 2016 and Bayside Triathlon Club has over 300 members and has a modest clubroom facility in Sandringham. They are Victoria’s biggest club and a great supporter of races from novice to ironman.

• Click here to read the Bayside Triathlon Club History
• Click here to read the Taylormade Triathlon Club History

High performance athletes

• Kim Wilson (King) - Winner Shepparton Long Course
• Julie Longshaw (Tedde) - Member of Australian Elite Teams; Gold Medal - World Triathlon Championships, Gold Coast (1991); Silver Medal - Age Group World Championships, Wellington, 3rd Japan “Strongman”.
• Hayley White - 3^rd at Auckland Sprint Worlds
• Carmine Soriano - Podium Finish at Ironman Age Group World Championships, Hawaii.
• Jenny Lucas, - Winner, Age Group, World Masters Games, Geelong (2002)
• Scot McVilly - Regularly competed in Elite competitions, rather than regularly winning Age Group events.
• Clint Van Beveran -  Winner of Age Group, Sprint, World Championships, China
• Jack Clarke - Age Group, Bronze Medal, World Championships, Lausanne.

For details about the Bayside 25 year celebrations please visit their website