Last week I talked about the festivities that were to come this weekend at the ITU Hy-Vee Triathlon in Des Moines, Iowa (the elite race on Saturday and the Team Triathlon World Championships on Sunday). But even I was stunned to see how well our intrepid Canadian triathletes would do...
...it started out with the women's elite race, where for the second week in a row, the two Emma's finished 1-2. And once again, Emma Moffatt beat Emma Snowsill. What made this more noteworthy was the $150,000 extra that she won for finishing first. Moffatt got away from Snowsill on the bike, and hammered the run to win the race by over 90 seconds. Third place, and winner of a cool $25,000 (!!) goes to Canada's own Lauren Groves, who had the third-fastest run in the field. This is Groves highest-ever finish in an ITU race, and is probably her second best ever race result (she did finish 4th at the 2006 Worlds in Lausanne). This comes after two straight tenth -place finishes at the last two World Championship Series races, so she is having the best year of any Canadian female in 2009...congrats Lauren!
However, the biggest story of the day came in the men's race, where an elite group of 6 men broke away on the run, including Simon Whitfield, Javier (i keep calling him Sergio...oops) Gomez, Brad Kahlefeldt, Olympic champ Jan Frodeno, Kris Gemmell from New Zealand and new American hope Jarrad Shoemaker. I'd encourage you to click here and watch the video of the race to do the finish justice...
For the umpteenth time this year, in a finish reminiscent of Beijiing, it came down to a sprint finish, with Simon Whitfield triumphantly hitting the tape first. This race was even closer than Beijing, as the Top 5 all finished within 3 second of each other. It was a bit of sweet revenge for Whitfield to beat Frodeno after Beijing, while Whitfield also more than makes up for his DNF last week in Washington, DC. So Simon gets the $200,000 prize for the first time in his career (he has been .... at this race the last two years). Canada's Brent McMahon was the next finisher after the top group of 6, finishing in 7th place and winning $10,000. Nice job by the Canucks on Saturday.
After the big money day on Saturday by Groves, Whitfield, and McMahon, it was time to compete for country bragging rights on Sunday with the team triathlon competition. With a 4 x (250 m swim, 8k bike, 1.8k run) it is an all-out battle with 16 from 10 countries teams trying to win the world title for 2009. Interestingly enough, it has been suggested that this type of event could be eventually part of the Olympics in 2012, as the country/team concept and short duration may warrant future interest. Anyhow, Sunday's race was won by Team Switzerland, which pulled away from race favorite Team Australia when one of the Swiss females (Daniela Ryf) hammered her bike leg (30 seconds faster than any other female) and the last Swiss athlete held off the Australian (Kahlefeldt, who now finished second two days in a row!). Canada's team of Lauren Groves, Brent McMahon, Kathy Tremblay, and Simon Whitfield held off the US team to finish 3rd. So yet another podium for Canada on the weekend. I should also mention that Canada's second team in this event finished 5th overall (ahead of New Zealand, Russia, Japan, and some other countries first team). So congrats to them too!
Special thanks to Delly Carr (the world's greatest triathlon photographer) for all the wonderful pictures from the races this weekend!!
Oh yeah...one more thing...Canadian Michael Barry did not make Team Columbia High Road's Tour de France team this year. Too bad Michael, you always represent Canada so well...
More to come this week, including recaps of the Canadian Track & Field championships and the Canadian Road Cycling Championships...check back soon....
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