An athlete’s goal, especially in an individual event, is to not only do as well as you can, but to also hopefully come out on top as champion. But to do that, especially at the national level, takes a lot of time, patience and luck.

New Trier sophomore Andrew Flynn had all of the above when he participated in the USA Triathlon Youth Elite Boys National Championships August 4, 2018 in West Chester, Ohio. The Wilmette native came out on top however, beating his nearest competitor by 18 seconds, with a time of 30 minutes, 21 seconds.

“It was a great feeling. Honestly, I didn’t expect to win it,” Flynn said. “I thought I was going to come in second place. There was one other kid that I thought was going to, for sure, win the race. Then I ended up breaking away from him.

“It was a great feeling. I don’t really know how to explain it. You don’t usually become national champ. That happened to me and I’m still getting over it. It’s a great feeling.”

Flynn slowly progressed into doing triathlons, first starting to swim when he was five or six years old and then adding the running portion a year or two later. Running with his mom helped him get more serious about running and then between the ages of eight and nine, he started entering triathlons.

Despite being a part of the Mach II Triathlon Team, a club team based out of Illinois, Flynn trains by himself because it’d be too far for him to constantly travel to practice with his club teammates. It was his club teammates that helped lead him to participate in the USA Triathlon series, a series of triathlons with participants from all over the country.

This year marked the last year Flynn could participate in the Youth Elite Boys age group, as next year he’ll move up to the Junior Elite Male level because he’ll be 16 years old. Prior to this year’s meet, the highest Flynn had finished at the National Championships was 14th, accomplished last year; He finished 39th the year before.

“I was just determined that I wanted to be at the top of my age group every year,” Flynn said. “My weakest link of the triathlon was the biking and that’s why I really started to take that more seriously. The last year, I’ve really tried to work a lot more on my biking. That’s what helped me this year.

“I also progressed a lot in my swimming. I wasn’t always the best swimmer, but I started to go to a lot more practices. I really progressed in that area, too.”

One thing that’s eluded Flynn thus far is participating in international events, something he hopes to change next year. He’s hoping that with this recent result, USA Triathlon will pick him for the opportunity to accomplish his main goal of racing internationally, but knows that’s something he can’t control.

“I’m going to be aging up to an older category so it’s 16 to 19 years old,” he said. “I hope, maybe next year, my main goal, I really wanna go race international. I hope USA Triathlon will maybe pick me for some of the races, to go out. That’s kinda like what I really wanna do right now, to race international, but we’ll see what happens with me.”