For those of you who like real pro athletes - you might want to skip this first section...
I'm not sure what to make of all the commotion on the net last weekend surrounding J. Lo doing her first triathlon...ok, let me recap for those of you who don't read People magazine. About three months ago, it was announced that Jennifer Lopez was training for a triathlon. I didn't pay much attention since I was a bit torn about what it would do for the great sport of triathlon. Anyhow, this Sunday she was the star attraction of the Malibu Triathlon, as she completed the half-mile swim, 18-mile bike, and 4-mile run in about 2 hours and 23 minutes. She finished 5th (which was last by the way) in the celebrity female event but considering that she was a triathlon rookie, was competing about 7 months after giving birth to twins, and raised about $125 thousand dollars for the LA Children's Hospital, I think she represented herself rather well. Except for her race outfit...
Now, i wasn't sure how big of a deal this was, until i started poking around online. Check this out: a Google search for "jennifer lopez triathlon" retrieves 410,000 hits. A Google search for "peter reid triathlon" retrieves 48 000 hits and "simon whitfield triathlon" gets about 57 000 hits. Her celebrity could potentially bring much more exposure to the sport of triathlon than almost anyone outside of...say, Lance Armstrong?
Here's a video of J. Lo in action. Other celebrities that participated in this race (either solo or as part of a team) include Anna Kournikova, Felicity Huffman, Matthew McConaughey, and Saved By The Bell costars Mark Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Thiessen.
Ok, onto real sports news. Lost in the shuffle of Lance's announcements from last week, his one-time teammate Floyd Landis is also planning a comeback in 2009. Landis, currently serving a 2 year suspension for failing a drug test during the 2006 Tour de France (which he ended up winning but had the title stripped), appears to be joining the US Health Net-Maxxis team for 2009. Floyd is only 32 years old (5 years younger than Lance), and might be using next year as a preparation for rejoining a ProTour team in 2010.
Speaking of the ProTour, I feel I have been neglecting this year's Vuelta a Espana, which is wrapping up this weekend. As expected, Team Astana is dominating the race, with Alberto Contador winning back-to-back mountain stages to take charge of the Gold Jersey this week. First he dropped fellow contenders Valverde, Leipheimer, and Sastre with 3.5km to go in Stage 13, then he and teammates Leipheimer put further time into the rest of the peloton with a coordinated attack in Stage 14. Going into today's final mountain stage and tomorrow's time trial, Contador leads Leipheimer by 77 seconds, and is ahead of Sastre by over 3 minutes. With a solid weekend of riding, Contador will add to his win at the Giro D'Italia and solidify his reputation as the best rider in the peloton. Only 25, it will be interesting to see what he does when Lance might be a teammate of his next year...
Couple of quick triathlon updates. My predictions for the inaugural Muskoka 70.3 race did not come true, with Lisa Bentley struggling to a 5th place finish. Joanna Zeiger was the fastest women's swimmer, and held on throughout the bike and run to win the race. Craig Alexander did win the men's race with ease, with Simon Lessing falling back into 4th place. The race was also the first 70.3 race for Canadian Olympian (2004) Brent McMahon, who finished in 6th place. Maybe he can convince Mr Whitfield to race a half someday...
Moving on, I discovered a pretty cool innovation last weekend. The Grand Columbian triathlon used a "buoy line" that floated about 6 feet below the surface between the buoys. Crooked swimmers rejoice! Linearly-challenged swimmers could just keep their head down and follow the rope...how cool is that?
Last two things...your kids could potentially use triathlon to go to university! Yep, UCLA has become the first university to award a triathlon scholarship! These lucky kids get pro level coaching, a ton of gear (including BMC bikes, Powertap powermeters, and Xterra Wetsuits) plus a "generous race budget". That's amazing...if only i was 18 again. And fast.
One last thing that I'm sure will be lost next week when BikeyFriday will be overrun by all things Interbike (i can't wait!!)...next weekend (the 28th) , the Toronto Waterfront marathon will be run. This is exciting since Canada's Dylan Wykes, who is only 25, will aim to improve on this 2:15:13 marathon debut. He is unquestionably part of the bright future of Canada's marathon team, along with Reid Coolsaet, Eric Gillis, and Simon Bairu (who are all 10,000m runners currently but will move up to the marathon soon). Athletics Canada is solidly behind trying to build a stable of top marathon distance runners, so Canada will hopefully be well-represented at future world championships and Olympics. This is great news, and the first successes will hopefully be seen this weekend!
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