THERE’S only one thing harder than finishing Ironman UK – and that’s not finishing it.

Just ask Bromley Cross tiler Scott Ward, who trained for a whole year to compete in the ultimate triathlon, only for injury to rob him of the chance to cross the finish line.

The 43-year-old’s calf seized up half way round the bike course and while he battled on to complete the full 112 miles, he was unable to walk, let alone run the remaining marathon.

“I’m absolutely gutted I didn’t finish,” said Scott, speaking from the physio’s treatment table yesterday. “I went to the transition site to pick my bike up today and everyone had their Ironman T-shirts on and was wondering why I didn’t. I can’t wait until the entries open for next year now so I can give it another go.”

Scott was well on course to smash the 13-hour mark he set in his first ever Ironman last year after finishing the opening 2.4-mile swim in 1hr 9mins 55secs, just 20 minutes behind the leader.

He was making good time on the bike as well before disaster struck, but still managed to reach the second transition in 480th place out of more than 1,500 competitors in a time of 8:09:44.

“I was definitely on target to beat my previous best and could maybe have even broken 12 hours,” said Scott. “I knew I was doing well when I came out of the swim and there were still a lot of bikes in the transition. They were good bikes as well, which is always a sign.”

He added: “The bike course is tough, but it’s one I’ve done many times before. I do two loops of it in training twice a month and three loops every three months, so I can’t explain what happened. “I may have gone out too fast as I wasn’t hanging around, but I didn’t feel bad. The only thing I can think is that it was to do with the heat – maybe I was dehydrated and cramped up. My calf just froze up half way through the second loop of the three-loop course. There wasn’t a pop, it just seemed to freeze during a downhill section and wouldn’t work properly when I started to pedal again.

“I slowed down right away to see if the pain would ease and managed to make it to the end of the course. I didn’t think it was that bad until I got off my bike and that was it, the game was over, I literally couldn’t walk.”

While Scott was unlucky to be hit by injury, many of our local competitors were able to finish. Here is a selection of the competitors the Bolton News featured in the run-up to the event and on the day.

Selection of local finishers Paul Hawkins 9:10:50, Tony Cullen 10:11:05, Marc Murphy 11:31:44, Rowan Ardill 11:39:15, Mike Reason 11:42:10, Terry Hughes 13:04:04, Dan Reason 13:20:53, Neil Hodgson 13:21:11, Anthony Hart 14:04:20, Sean Crompton 14:08:43, Scott Thomas 14:44:28.