Island triathletes turn up the heat as Commonwealth Games near
The rebuilding Victoria-based Canadian triathlon team is hoping to make a statement next month at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
It warmed up Sunday with some notable results as emerging 18-year-old sensation Desirae Ridenour of Cowichan Bay won the Junior Oceania Championship in New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Matt Sharpe of Victoria and Tyler Mislawchuk recorded top-five finishes in the senior men’s World Cup race, also staged in New Plymouth.
“This is a great sign of things to come in two weeks’ time on the Gold Coast,” said 2016 Rio Olympian Mislawchuk, who trains with Sharpe and Ridenour, at the Triathlon Canada training centre in Victoria.
It was a blanket finish for the third spot with Matthew McElroy (58:24) just outstepping Mislawchuk (58:25) and Sharpe (58:26) at the wire. Declan Wilson of Australia won in 58:20 with Sam Ward of New Zealand second in 58:22.
“A few hundred metres from the line, I was sitting in fifth and tried to push for the podium, but I just couldn’t make up the gap,” said Sharpe, in a statement.
“It was a proper race today with nobody giving an inch,” added the 26-year-old native of Campbell River, who graduated from Claremont Secondary.
“Coming off the bike, I tried to be aggressive in transition. We quickly formed a large pack in the first kilometre onto the run and then I just tried to hang on for dear life.”
Canadian Amelie Kretz was eighth in the senior women’s World Cup race, won by American Kirsten Kasper.
Ridenour, meanwhile, again showed why she may be the coming big thing in women’s triathlon as the Cowichan High graduate added the Oceania championship to her Pan American and European open junior titles she won last year, along with her three gold medals in the 2017 Canada Summer Games.
The Canadian 2018 Commonwealth Games triathlon team will consist of Sharpe, Mislawchuk, Ridenour, Joanna Brown, Dominika Jamnicky and Alexis Lepage. Four of those six triathletes train in Victoria at the national performance centre.