An honourable mention to Ireland's Aileen Morrison who recently came 5th in the European Triathlon championships which were held in Athlone last month. She followed it up with a third place - a remarkable result - in the Hamburg leg of the ITU World Series, only one second behind world class athletes Emma Moffat of Australia & Lisa Norden of Sweden. It's being re-run on Eurosport this week.
This was a few weeks ago. She didn't figure in the London leg as far as I know - I was on a ferry back from Ireland so couldn't watch it.
FYI, I think there are 8 separate races held around the world and your 4 best results count - but to win the overall World Championship you must do at least one race on each continent.
In the last two legs (Hamburg & London), Spaniard Javier Gomez ran the 10k run in low 29 minutes (29:17 and 29:31 I think). To put this in perspective, Mo Farah won the European 10k in 28:30 last week WITHOUT having swum a mile and ridden 40k at high speed on a bike beforehand, and did so on a proper athletics track, not city centre concrete.
Gomez & GB's Alastair Brownlee are really raising the bar in this sport. Brownlee looked unbeatable until recently, just as Gomez was the season before last, but in London Gomez ran him into the ground and Brownlee collapsed after completing the run like a drunk Bambi. I was lucky to have been there to see a new fastest time ever of 1 hour 42 mins. Quite staggering.
There's an Irish guy people are talking about - Bryan Keane - who used to ride professionally (I think for An Post) and has a sub 30 minute 10k run who is relatively new to the sport but might be one for 2012. Aileen Morrison certainly got her 3rd place against an Olympic standard field, maybe only a couple of top class athletes missing.
For context, GB's Alastair Brownlee is close to unbeatable. His brother, Jonny, has just come through from being a top junior to being a serious medal contender in London 2012. Javier Gomez of Spain is current World Champion (A. Brownlee had injury problems last year) and ran A. Brownlee into the ground at London Hyde Park Tri last year. After a 1.5k swim and 40k bile, Gomez ran a 29:30 10k - a split that would have placed him in the top 15 of the European track 10k final.
Needless to say A. Brownlee and Gomez are arch rivals. GB's Harry Wilshere is a mid-ranking journmeyman. Check out Gomerz' blog above and the video clip. Effing disgraceful.
While Gomez was very diplomatic about the British team, it would certainly seem it was a dirty tactic of theirs to slow him down. What will happen to Wilshire, will he get a suspension? Whats the British reaction?
Controversy arose during the men’s swim at the ITU European Championships in Pontevedra, Spain this past weekend. Hometown favorite Javier Gomez finished in a disappointing 40th place after dealing with contact from Great Britain’s Harry Wiltshire (see video below). After the race, the ITU disqualified Wiltshire under point 3.3.a.(i), Appendix L: 5,6,7 of the ITU competition rules, relating to blocking of another athlete during the swim and the swim exit. The Executive Board of the ITU will also review the incident and will decide if further action beyond the disqualification is warranted. Despite the ruling, the controversy has not settled and a bigger question remains: was Harry Wiltshire working to hurt Gomez’s race in order to benefit his British teammates, Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee?
The BTF (British Tri Federation) has been told not to comment until it's all been investigated further. Stuart hayes, another elite GB triathlete, criticised Wiltshire's actions on Twitter.
Last edited by Stuttgart88; 07/07/2011 at 5:42 PM.
Well done Aileen coming second at the ITU World Series Grand Final yesterday. Super race.
Yours truly wore the national colours for a second time and I came 75th out of 113 in my age category, the world championships race. The elites determine their world champion over the course of a season but us oldies determine our winners in a one off race. My goal was to come above the bottom quarter so I did that. There were 9 Irish in my age category and I was half hoping to be leading Irishman but I came second. I rode a cautious bike leg as conditions were very wet and the course had some tight turns, but my swim was worse than I'm capable of. I nailed the run though.
Spain's gentleman Gomez won a thriller of a race today to shut the UK press up about the Brownlees!
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