The sixth round of the ITU World Triathlon Series heads for Hamburg this weekend with two exciting city-centre sprint races and the Mixed Relay world title being contested in front of one of the biggest crowds the sport ever sees. Athletes including the Brownlee brothers, Jodie Stimpson and Helen Jenkins will use this as their final preparation race before the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Last year’s race featured a dramatic head-to-head sprint finish between Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee. In the final dive for the finishing line it was Jonathan that claimed the victory in front of 300,000 fans in Hamburg.
Jonathan Brownlee said: “Last year’s race in Hamburg was pretty memorable with my sprint finish with Alistair, and it will be fast again this year as everyone is here. The big crowds also get behind us so it’s always a good race to come to.”
Having recently won his third European title and coming into form at the right time, Alistair added: “The European Championships were another step forward for me and I’ve had a good training block since then in St Moritz so I’m looking forward to seeing how I go in Hamburg. There are a couple of weeks to go until the Commonwealth Games now so this is an important race in my preparations for that.”
With Hamburg providing the final opportunity to tune up before the Commonwealth Games, Helen Jenkins hopes to win her fourth Series medal of the year.
She said: I’d love to get on the podium again. I’ve had three out of four podiums in the World Series this year, which is better than I was expecting, but I’ve been training hard for Commonwealths since Chicago and it’s a Sprint race, so we’ll just have to see how it goes.”
Jodie Stimpson returns to action having missed the last round in Chicago in order to focus on training. At the previous round in London she was hampered by the foot injury sustained in Yokohama, but she will hope to regain the form that shot her to victory in Auckland and Cape Town.
The large British contingent in Hamburg also includes Adam Bowden, who was seventh in the last round, and England Commonwealth Games representative, Aaron Harris, who has achieved sixth and seventh place finishes in this year’s Series.
Vicky Holland and Lucy Hall also race this weekend with the Commonwealth Games in mind. The individual events at the Games are just two weeks away, and both will want to perform well in Hamburg this weekend.
Great Britain has twice won the Mixed Relay world title and will be amongst the favourites again this year. An unfortunate crash last year ended Britain’s hopes and the hosts, Germany, capitalized by winning the title.
The home crowd will no doubt be hoping that Sunday is a lucky day for Germany, both in triathlon as well as football. Teams of two men and two women to contest the Mixed Relays will be announced on Sunday.
The women’s race starts at 4:18pm local time on Saturday (3:18pm in the UK) followed by the men’s race at 6:18pm (5:18pm UK). Both events will be televised live on the BBC Red Button, the BBC Sport website and via triathlonlive.tv.
Sunday’s relay will start at 4:36pm (3:36pm in the UK) and be shown live via the Red Button and online. A highlights package will be shown on Monday 14 July on BBC2 at 1pm.
British athletes racing in Hamburg:
Men
Adam Bowden
Alistair Brownlee
Jonathan Brownlee
Mark Buckingham
Aaron Harris
Matt Sharp
Women
Lucy Hall
Vicky Holland
Helen Jenkins
Lois Rosindale
Jodie Stimpson
