This weekend sees the first ever European Games take place in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Triathlon features as one of 20 sports and Britain is sending four triathletes to compete alongside international competitors including the Olympic gold and silver medal winners, Nicola Spirig (SUI) and Lisa Norden (SWE). In-form Spaniard, Fernando Alarza, who was second to Alistair Brownlee at the Vitality World Triathlon London on 31 May is likely to be one of the favourites in the men’s race, whilst Aileen Reid (IRL) is the top ranked female athlete and showed some great finishing speed to come fourth in London.

Team GB Triathletes:

Heather Sellars
Gordon Benson
Tom Bishop
Phil Graves

Read their Team GB profiles here.

Full start lists can be found here.

Schedule:

Women’s Race – Saturday 13 June, 12:30pm local time (BST+4)
Men’s Race – Sunday 14 June, 12:30pm local time (BST+4)

How to follow / watch:

Follow the action from @ETUtriathlon and @BritTri for live updates as the races take place.

All activity from the Great Britain team across the championships can also be followed via @TeamGB.

BBC Sport will provide reports and selected video highlights via bbc.co.uk/sport and BT Sport subscribers can watch daily coverage from tomorow (12 June).

Olympic qualification:

The winner of the men’s and the winner of the women’s race will qualify a quota place for their National Olympic Committee (NOC) at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Winning this quota place does not automatically qualify the individual athlete for the Olympic Games Triathlon event; this is subject to selections made by their NOC. The winner will be crowned European Games champion.

About the European Games:

The Baku European Games are the first of their kind and follow the Olympic and Paralympic format of being held every four years. 

The competition consists of 253 events and is expected to witness up to 6000 athletes from all 50 European National Olympic Committee’s compete at 18 competition venues, across the city and further afield, from 12-28 June.

Triathlon will take place on Bilgah Beach, east of the city centre, and will be the first time the sport has been contested within Azerbaijan.

London 2012 Olympic Gold Medallist boxer, Nicola Adams, has been selected to bear the Great Britain flag in the Games’ Opening Ceremony which takes place tomorrow night (Friday 12 June).

About Baku:

Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan and is the largest city on the Caspian Sea. There are approximately 4 million inhabitants of the city.

Renowned for its harsh winds and with temperatures expected to reach 33 degrees this weekend, it won’t be an easy ride for competitors come Saturday and Sunday.

The local currency of Azerbajan is the Manat (AZM), with one GBP roughly equating to 1.6 AZM.