YORK endurance athlete John Booth is already looking ahead to next year's Ironman World Championships after having failed in the United States recently to earn a place in this year's finals in Hawaii.

Booth, a 52-year-old sales director, finished tenth out of 97 in his age group at Lake Placid, New York. His total time for the 2.4 mile swim, 112 miles bike ride and 26.2 miles marathon was 11hr 47min, well above his target of under 11 hours.

"The temperature was 86 degrees and humidity was in the 80s and the bike ride course and the marathon course were very hilly," he said. "I did not acclimatise properly to the local conditions before the competition. My swim time was slow, the bike ride wasn't too bad, but I was disappointed with the 4hr 5min for the marathon."

There were 2,001 competitors in all at Lake Placid trying to qualify for this year's World Championships.

In two weeks' time Booth is to take part in a half Ironman event (1.2 mile swim, 56 miles bike ride, and a half marathon) in the Snowdonia area of Wales, with one qualifying place up for grabs for the 2003 world finals in Hawaii.

Updated: 12:11 Tuesday, August 20, 2002