The Great Britain Team has arrived in Edmonton for the TransCanada Corp. World Triathlon Grand Final incorporating the ITU Triathlon World Championships.
Today (Wednesday 27 August) marks the first day of competition with the ITU Aquathlon World Championships taking place in the scenic Hawrelak Park.
Great Britain will have elite athletes and paratriathletes racing as well as a large Great Britain Age-Group Team with almost 70 athletes on the start line.
The first race will be the para-aqauthlon and will see reigning world champion, Melissa Reid PT5 aiming to defend her title won in Hyde Park in 2013. Melissa hasn’t finished outside the top-two this season, however her Spanish rival, Susana Rodriguez, who has beaten Melissa twice in paratriathlon races this year will also race, making an intriguing precursor to the paratriathlon races later in the week. The para-aquathlon races start from 7.00pm (BST time).
The elite athlete races which start at 9.30pm (BST time), will have two Brits Neil Eddy and Hannah Kitchen racing. Neil finished ninth in last year’s World Championships in Hyde Park and Hannah Kitchen won silver at this year’s European Championships in Cologne.
In the age-group event, Great Britain is well represented with a team of 69 athletes. As ever there will be a number of athletes who are competing not only in the aquathlon event later today, but also the sprint or standard distance events on Friday and Monday.
Great Britain also has five athletes who will be competing in all three distances: Beverley Childs (50-59), Penny Grayson (40-44), Jonathan Greenwood (60-64), Jane Leslie (65-69) and Michael Smallwood (65-69), who won bronze in both the aquathlon and sprint distance events in 2013.
The only other returning medallist is Peggy Crome (70-74) who is defending champion.
The age-group races start at 7.50pm (BST time).
All the action can be watched via the event’s finish line camera.
