BROWNLEE DESTROYS FIELD IN SPAIN

www.triathlon.org
Great Britain’s 21 year old youngster, Alistair Brownlee, started his 2009 Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Series campaign in style as he ran away from Spain’s 2008 World Champion, Javier Gomez, to cross the line in 1:51:27 to win in Madrid, Spain.

Dmitry Polyansky from Russia overtook New Zealand’s Bevan Docherty to move into first on the Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Series Rankings with 1186pts.

Brownlee looked sprightly from the start, placing highly in the 1500m swim before repeatedly attacking during the hilly 40km cycle as he helped to establish a small lead group of just eleven athletes that included home favourite Gomez and the experienced Courtney Atkinson from Australia.

However it was on the run where the Brit impressed as he obliterated the opposition. After just 2.5km he had a 30 second lead and continued to pull away to register his first ITU world series victory by 48 seconds. Despite not winning a series race before, Brownlee has had notable success before, winning the world junior championships in 2006 and world under 23 championships in 2008.

Full article.



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Brownlee claimed gold (2006; age 18)) and silver (2007; age 19) at the World Junior Championships, before winning U23 Worlds in 2008 (age 20). He reached the podium twice in his first five World Cup Starts, and finished 12th at the Beijing Olympics, after leading early sections of the run. He's a front pack swimmer, a strong rider, and he ran 29:48 and 29:35 for 10k this spring (age 21).

Now for the interesting part. There are several juniors in the country, and in Ontario, who are the same speed or faster (in swim and run), than Brownlee at the same age. That's not a guarantee of future success, Brownlee is clearly a very special athlete who has progressed at a remarkable rate. But those swim and run performances do put several of our young athletes in the right ballpark. In my two years working with OAT, I've been very impressed by the willingness of the juniors to set high goals, meet (and exceed) standards, and look for new opportunities to challenge themselves. As we continue to build a high performance culture, we'll need to continually set our expectations higher, and work harder. There is no reason why a Canadian athlete (or athletes) can't 'destroy' a world class field in the future. And there's no reason why that athlete (or athletes) can't come from Ontario. Canadians have done it before, and we'll do it again.

So who's looking to raise the bar a little higher, and work a little harder?

WOODFINE RUNS 8:27 AT EAST REGIONALS

results

THE OKLAHOMA RIVER

(EDIT: An UPDATE. The Oklahoma State Department of Health has asked all competitors (ill or not) to complete the following online survey to help them determine what happened: Survey here.)



First off, we really do appreciate the efforts of the race committee, the race director, and USAT in hosting the PATCO event. The race was well organized, and speaking as someone who found it hard to organize a simple running race (years ago), I have an immense amount of respect for triathlon race directors and committees - it's a tough and largely thankless job, and we wouldn't have a sport without them.

Earlier I wrote that any media exposure for triathlon was good. Maybe I'll have to reconsider that. Some interesting news reports following the PATCO race, and some very different takes on what's considered 'normal' in the sport of triathlon. See below. For the record, in my experience, it's not normal for people to be sick after the race, despite what some people claim in the reports below. We had 11 athletes out of 35 who reported illness following PATCO, or almost one third of the team. We all arrived from different parts of the country, on different planes, through different airports, and there wasn't one meal where we all ate at the same restaurant.

Aside from the developing story, it's interesting to see the different ways in which this is being reported. It's possibly an example of bias in the media, or maybe just an example of varying degrees of the quality of reporting.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FOX NEWS

KSBI-TV

SLOWTWITCH

USA TODAY

THE OKLAHOMAN
(NOTE: I'm not sure they're living up to their name as "The State's Most Trusted News")

Happy reading, and please do whatever you can to keep our waterways clean and accessible for everyone.

TRIVOLUTION

IN THE NEWS

Ian Donald's decision pays big dividends

MARTIN CLEARY
Ottawa Citizen
05-22-2009

Ian Donald made a tough decision last fall, but in the end it turned out to be the right one.

The Nepean High School senior decided he wouldn’t train for the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association track and field season six months down the road. He wanted to focus all of his training time on triathlon, which involves swimming, cycling and running.

Full article.

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Lincoln-Way Central's Lukas Verzbicas chases Olympic Dream
Triathlete Verzbicas multitasking in bid for Olympic berth

By Colleen Kane
Chicago Tribune
May 10, 2009

The memory of Lukas Verzbicas' first 5-kilometer road race had his mother, Rasa Bertulis, chuckling last week. After all, it was a rather unremarkable start for an athlete that has caused a stir in the running world after setting a national high school record in an indoor 5,000-meter race in March.


Full article.

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Always great to see triathletes in the media.

TRIPLE T ADVENTURE

I'm sure many athletes will make the most of the great weather this weekend, and put in some big training. James Loaring is in Ohio this weekend, taking a crack at the American Triple T Triathlon. It's a three day event, with a super-sprint triathlon today (Friday), two Olympics tomorrow (one in the morning, one in the afternoon) and a half-iron distance on Sunday. Personally, I think you have to be a little crazy to sign up for this event - James thought it sounded like 'fun'.

There aren't any results up yet, but James sends this update from the prologue earlier today:

"Finished 4th overall (3rd solo), :50" back of John Kenney (who smashed the swim and bike). I likely went a bit too hard but also wanted to get the :30" bonus (which goes top 5 overall regardless of division) the hills are nothing I have ever raced on before--but I like hills. It is truly awesome stuff. Excited for tomorrow. I know for sure I need to throttle way back tomorrow morning. Gonna be a monster couple days of training."

Good times. Race smart JL.

SUPERHYDRATION SYSTEM

From jonnyo. Priceless.