Bridgetown, Barbados – BFIT opens the 2018 season hosting the CAMTRI Sprint Triathlon American Cup and Central American and Caribbean Championships on February 18th at Brandon’s Beach, Spring Garden Highway.
Spring Garden Highway will be closed from 6:00am to 11:30am, to facilitate the event, with the age group mixed relay starting at 6:00 am, the elite females at 8:30 am and the elite males 10:00 am.
For the first time ever, the mixed relay format will be 4-person teams, with each person completing a mini triathlon of 150m swim, 5km bike, 1.25km run. The relay event has been named “The 2018 Ray Bayley Mixed Relay” to commemorate the recent passing of Ray “DJ XRay” Bayley, who was an instrumental figure in developing triathlon in Barbados. The elite races will be standard sprint triathlons; 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run.
The elite races will be ones to watch, featuring top athletes from Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, Canada, USA, Brazil, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Peru, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Cuba. Many of these athletes will be using this event as preparation for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia on April 4th.
Barbadian Olympic triathlete Jason Wilson will be competing in the event along with 2017 4th place finisher, John Rasmussen of Canada, who is currently ranked 2nd in the Americas region. Matthew Wright, another elite Barbadian triathlete was forced to withdraw, due to a recent cycling incident.
In the ladies’ elite event, ones to watch for are Canada’s Dominika Jamnicky, who is ranked #1 in the Americas region and USA’s 4th place finisher from 2017; Sarah Alexander.
BFIT is the governing federation for triathlon and triathletes in Barbados. BFIT sanctions and organizes multi-sport events, which include Triathlon, Duathlon and Aquathlon. For more information on future events and the sport of triathlon contact triathlonbarbados@gmail.com.