So far, elite triathletes from 8 countries are on the Start List for the 2012 Bridgetown ITU Sprint Triathlon Pan American Cup scheduled to take place on the morning of Sunday 12th February 2012 on Spring Garden Highway.
USA triathletes lead the way with 5 men and 3 women, and there are triathletes coming from Canada, Germany, Panama, Russia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, and UK, to battle it out with top elite triathlete from Barbados, Jason Wilson. Among the entries is the 2008 world champion, Daniel Unger from Germany, perennial World Cup rated Igor Polyanskiy from Russia and Dmitriv Gaag from Kazakhstan.
Jason was a top ten finisher in the first Pan American Cup triathlon for 2012 which was held in Argentina on Sunday. The men’s race was won by Tyler Butterfield (Bermuda) with Canadian Brent McMahon, who was last year’s Pan Am Games bronze medallist, taking silver and Kyke Jones, the bronze.
In the women’s race, Sarah-Anne Brault, the reigning Canadian National champion, blitzed the women’s field for her first elite Pan American title, having previously won the junior crown in 2008. Sarah had been training in Barbados for the past two weeks in preparation for the race.
Jillian Petersen (USA) came from behind to take silver, adding to her bronze from the 2010 Pan American Championships in Mexico. She edged out teammate Margaret Shapiro by four seconds as the U.S. claimed two of the three podium spots.
As this is the Olympic year, world triathletes are scrambling to accumulate qualifying points for London 2012. At the last Olympics in 2008, Unger was 6th and fellow German Ricarda Lish, who was 15th, is also entered for the Barbados race. Dmitriv Gaag from Kazakhstan is also an Olympian and winner of many World Cup races as well as a past World Champion while in the female race, Kathy Tremblay of Canada was 5th at the Pan American Games last year and already has a World Cup gold medal.
Preparations for the Barbados race is progressing well and the course will guarantee a close, fast race. Main sponsors for the event are Powerade, the BOA, FCIB, BTA, BHTA, and Fortress Fund Managers. The first Elite triathlon race will begin at 7:00am with the Men competing over the 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run event. The Elite women will start, after the men, at 9:00am.
The morning program will however, begin with a 5km run race, open to the public, which will begin at 6:00am. Interested persons should contact Eric Clarke or Ralf Luther from the Ufukuzo Road Racing Club at 253-2030 (eric@ufukuzo.com) (ralf@ufukuzo.com) or go to the website www.ufukuzo.com.
For more information on the triathlon, visit http://www.triathlon.org and http://users.sunbeach.net/users/bfit
