MSOE women will blaze triathlon trail
There are just 23 women’s collegiate triathlon teams across the entire NCAA and one of them is right in downtown Milwaukee at a small college with a student body of 2,800.
The Milwaukee School of Engineering is in the process of settling on a race schedule and filling out its eight-woman roster after hiring 27-year-old Allie Nicosia to coach cross country, track and now, the triathlon team.
If you’ve never heard of triathlon as a collegiate sport, it’s probably because it just started in 2014, with Black Hills State University in Spearfish, S.D., (Division II) as the first to sign up in this emerging NCAA sport for women.
Triathlon has been an Olympic competition only since 2000 and Waukesha
native Gwen Jorgensen won the first gold medal for the U.S. at the Rio Games in 2016.
The hope is that the sport expands with the support of USA Triathlon.
“That’s kind of the idea of bringing this along at the NCAA level. We want a stronger Olympic team so we need a bigger pool,” said Nicosia. “How do we make a bigger pool? Have people start earlier. If we have it at the collegiate level, people will start younger.”
That means Division III schools like MSOE can blaze a trail for the sport, even in the fickle weather of Wisconsin.
Nicosia expects MSOE will race in five triathlons (the NCAA allows seven maximum) in the first season, which will begin Labor Day weekend probably at North Central College (Ill.) and end the first week of November with the national championships in Tempe, Ariz.
It’ll be a frenzied race schedule, especially when you consider Nicosia won’t even start coaching her athletes until mid-August.
There probably won’t be a home race the first year, but if one is created in the future, Nicosia likes the course that was used when Milwaukee hosted the USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships in 2013, 2014, and 2015, with the swim in the Lake Michigan harbor by the Milwaukee Art Museum.
The traditional triathlon is a 750-meter (half-mile) open water swim, 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) bike race, and 5-kilometer (3.1 miles) run.
Nicosia, a native South Carolinian, competed four years as a pole vaulter at the University of South Carolina. While getting her master’s degree in sports psychology at Tennessee, she started running more.
She got hooked on triathlons soon after and took her first coaching job at Division II West Alabama to start their triathlon program in 2015.
At first Nicosia was hesitant to apply for the MSOE job. She was not expecting to find so many triathlons, and triathletes, in the cold weather climate of the Upper Midwest.
“You wouldn’t think so,” she said. “I’m actually surprised. All of the kids have already done at least one triathlon. In the Midwest, it's more prevalent up here.”
Concordia University in Mequon also has a triathlon team, and there are others in Illinois, but the team to beat nationally is two-time defending champion Arizona State.
The goal is to establish teams at 40 or more schools by the 2023 season.
USA Triathlon has awarded $140,000 to Division I schools and $70,000 to Division II and III schools to help cover the costs of equipment, travel and studentathlete scholarships. It sounds like a lot, but triathlon gear gets expensive quickly and Nicosia is trying to find any deal she can.
She’s currently working with local vendor Wheel & Sprocket for bikes and with Nicolet High School for pool time.
Alex Muench, 22, a software engineering student from Franklin, is looking forward to giving triathlon a try in the fall.
The MSOE cross country and track athlete has been dealing with bone spurs, joint and foot injuries and surgeries after 11 years of running, so she liked the idea of adding non-impact swim and bike to her training. After two sprint triathlons last summer, the Pewaukee Triathlon and the Adrenaline Triathlon, she knew she was ready.
“I’m looking forward to being part of the first team MSOE and establishing a program for years to come,” said Muench. “And being with the team. It will be fun to be all in the same boat and learning together.”