Any fears that Alistair Brownlee might not be fully fit for London 2012 can be well and truly laid to rest as he won the latest round of the ITU WCS in Kitzbuhel Austria. Jonny Brownlee was second with Javier Gomez taking third. The Browlees made a break on the bike along with Denis Vasiliev (RUS) but they were chased down by the pack. Stuart Hayes (GB) came to the front, performing his role as domestique and drove the pace on the bike. Did the team tactics make a difference? Who knows, the Brownlees certainly had a comfortable gap on the rest of the field.
Nicola Spirig (Sui) sprinted away from Lisa Norden (SWE) in the final 400m of the the women’s elite race. Andrea Hewitt (NZ) was third. If the women’s triathlon comes down to sprint finish, at this point if Nicola Spirig is one of those athletes going for gold, she might just be the favourite. No team tactics in the women’s race. Just good hard racing. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Emma Snowsill race in the end and we will have to wait to see what kind of form Paula Findlay (Can) will bring to London 2012.
This weekend, on Saturday, is the Zone3 demo session. We would like everyone to either bring their own wetsuit to the session or use one provided by Zone3. The focus of the session will be on open water skills as well as putting on your wetsuit properly to ensure comfort and efficiency and getting it off quickly to minimise time in transition.
It’s not just the LFTC club members racing well this year. Proof that great athletes can make great coaches, coach Mick Cairns won his age group at the Forestman Triathlon on June 24th. This is a tough ironman distance event in the New Forest. Nice work Mick! Why weren’t you running Tuesday night though?
If you are keen to watch some fast and furious live triathlon check out the GE Canary Wharf Triathlon Thursday night. Races will run from 6.15pm until 9.30pm and will feature Tim Don and Liz Blatchford as well as other international elite athletes.
Have a good week and see you in the weekend sometime. Tim (LFTC Coach)