Gold and silver to Green and Gold in exciting AYOF Triathlon Teams event

By

January 19, 2013

Australia’s exciting new band of triathletes continued its domination of the Australian Youth Olympic Festival (AYOF) at the Sydney International Regatta Centre on Saturday, taking away gold and silver in the Mixed Relay Triathlon.

Jacob Birtwhistle and Jaz Hedgeland backed up their gold medals in the individual events from last Friday with a second gold medal when they led Australia Green to victory over Australia Gold in the exciting relay format which requires each competitor to complete a 250m swim; 5km bike and 1.5km run.

Hedgeland, from WA, led off for Australia Green against Anna Coldham (Gold); before Birtwhistle clocked the fastest split of the day up against Friday’s silver medallist from Queensland Luke Willian (Gold).

It was then over to another Holly Grice (Green) who stole an advantage on the bike over her training partner Jodie Duff (Gold) before New South Welshman Matt Baker (Green) staged a thrilling sprint finish to edge out Queensland’s Christian Wilson (Gold) to give Australia Green the gold, Australia Gold the silver and Great Britain the bronze.

Hedgeland, the reigning Australian Junior champion who missed last year’s ITU World Championships because of Year 12 exams was ecstatic with the result.

“It feels pretty awesome, I can’t believe it!” Hedgeland said. “I was so excited coming into today and then to come home with another gold is pretty cool, I’m really happy.”

The flying Tasmanian, Birtwhistle who had the best course time of the day with an individual time of 16 minutes 52 seconds, was happy to share the podium with his seven team mates.

“It’s pretty exciting really that Australia can go 1-2” said Birtwhistle. “It shows that we pretty much have the eight best people here, it’s very exciting for triathlon in Australia.”

Australia’s team leader and National Manager for Athlete Development Craig Redman was equally pleased about the result having picked the teams strategically to give Australia the best chance of winning gold and silver.

“We could have gone with our stronger team and a weaker team,” said Redman, “but we’ve got eight really strong and consistent athletes so we thought if we look at the strengths and weaknesses of the athletes and get the teams right we could get this result and it turned out exactly how we planned which is fantastic.

“The AYOF is a fantastic event and full credit to the Australian Olympic Committee for staging it. There is no doubt it has given these athletes a taste of the Olympics.

“You just have to take a look at the smiles on their faces and it has also given triathlon a great opportunity to showcase our future stars.”

The course was kinder on Saturday than last Friday with the heat wave passed, and the Australian athletes took full advantage - starting strong and remaining at the front of the pack for the entire race.

Great Britain who took bronze at the finish put in a strong fight maintaining a fierce rivalry for the lead until Australia broke away in the third leg led by Queenslander Holly Grice.

“I liked the cycle,” Grice said about her break away leg of the race. “Just being able to get up there on my own - it felt good,” she said.

Coldham came back from a rough race on Friday where she collapsed over the finish line from the heat and said she found Saturday’s race a lot more fun, embracing the team atmosphere.

“We’ve all bonded and become really good friends so it’s nice to have a final fling together before we all go home,” Coldham said.

Australia Green finished in a time of 1:11:37 followed three seconds later by Australia Gold both of which were convincingly in front of Great Britain coming in a minute later with a time of 1:12:41.

END

Hayley Williams (olympics.com.au) with Ian Hanson (Triathlon Australia).