Canadians Net Three Top 10s in ITU Mixed Team Relays

While the team hasn’t been able to duplicate the impressive fifth place finish they enjoyed at last year’s Triathlon Mixed Team Relay World Championship in Hamburg, Team Canada has been able to net three top-10 finishes in the series in 2018. Things got started in Nottingham, U.K., where Joanna Brown, Tyler Mislawchuk, Amelie Kretz and Matt Sharpe finished seventh.

Kretz lead off the Canadians and quickly ran into rough traffic on the swim.

“I was right up there and got pulled back, then the girls swam on top of me and I was stuck underwater for a few seconds,” she said. Kretz was part of a small group that tried to bridge the main group on the bike, but couldn’t quite close the gap. “I had a good [second transition], and ran as hard as I could, but I was pretty far back from that main group. It was a really disappointing leg for me.”

Mislawchuk came in with a strong overall performance, notching the third-fastest overall time and fourth-fastest run before handing off to Brown. Sharpe then capped the race by laying down the day’s fastest swim before a slip and fall on the transition deck left him injured – but he soldiered on, and the Canadians finished 1:07 off the winning pace.

Next up in the series was the Mixed Team Relay World Championships in Hamburg, where Desirae Ridenour replaced Kretz to start the team off. Once again the team found itself in chase mode and was never able to contend for the top spots, eventually finishing 10th.

In Edmonton Brown took the opening leg of the race, pulling herself from 16th out of the water to third as she tagged off to Mislawchuk, who found himself dueling with the lead group of seven throughout his leg. Next up was Ridenour, who was dropped from the lead group as the American and Great Britain teams piled on the pressure leading into the final leg. She kept the team in seventh as she tagged off to Sharpe, who held his own despite doing the entire leg solo to keep the team in seventh.