USA Triathlon announced the 2008 Age Group National Championship and Elite National Championship will be held at Henry Hagg Lake on Saturday, Sept. 20. Last year's event was also held at Hagg Lake, but it was for age-groupers only. This year, USAT officials decided to add in professional competitors. And some of these competitors will be competing in this year's Beijing Olympic Games. So, watch the coverage of the triathlon, and then come down to Hagg Lake in September to watch them in person.
USAT is eating up the coverage, having added an Art & Science of Triathlon International Coaching Symposium (sponsored by Training Peaks) in Portland from September 21-23.
This "Olympic distance" race consists of a 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and 10k run, and will work as a qualifier for the 2009 International Triathlon Union Age Group World Championship in Australia. The top 16 in each age group of the World Championship earns a spot on Team USA. Also, Age Group National Championship athletes will be representing their states during competition. Using cross-country scoring system, points will be awarded according to the top three overall male and female triathletes, the fastest master, and the fastest grand master. The winning state will earn bragging rights as the nation's best.
Where the marathon and half marathon surged in popularity, so goes the triathlon. The combined sport of running, cycling and swimming is almost more popular than the individual sports, themselves. Running is still king among actvities of the active, and then hiking and walking, but cycling and triathlon are not far behind. Swimming, as a competitive sport, is popular to warch during the Olympics, but as an activity it's not quite as popular as swimming, biking and running.
Soon, mountain / ultra / trail running will catch the triathlon...sometime after it reaches its peak. As far as races go, there's less available new non-trail urban areas to make a course, merely because of population growth and increased traffic. Which is one reason why the trail is such a popular choice. But for now, there are plenty of large-scale events happening around town, such as the City of Portland Triathlon.
3 comments:
The article has little relation to tris and the olympics. I did not see, read of hear anything about tris in the media over the past two weeks. i guess THERE IS NO TRIATHLON IN THE OLYMPICS! a shame!
So true, Tri Jim. I'm actually writing up a post-Olympic response on the prime-time media coverage. It's a bit long, so I may have to publish in multiple parts.
But, yeah, not only was the triathlon coverage overshadowed by swimming, gymnastics, track and field (mostly the sprints), and even basketball and beach volleyball, but there was hardly and attention given to the marathon.
Sure enough, the triathlon was in Beijing: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/TR.shtml
The results for the marathon were hard to find. I saw the women's on TV (or, the parts of it they showed), so I knew it was there somewhere. If you missed it, it is listed under Athletics: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/AT.shtml
The triathlon was streamed on NBC and televised on CBC (Canadian broadcasting).. Unless you're subscribed to the ITU or USAT newsletters it was difficult to get a handle on when to tune to catch it on internet if you were watching it streamed in the states.
Of course, if you aren't in Seattle where we get CBC, it's not on your t.v.
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