ITU World Triathlon Championships - Vancouver, 5th-8th June 2008

Report by Andy Chalmers

Vancouver was experiencing the worst weather for 54 years not the best conditions for the World Triathlon championship. My first hurdle was to get a bike as mine had been run over by baggage handlers ,did this from a very friendly and helpful canadian ex pro racer John Athanas who now has pacific multi sports in Vancouver.

This sorted, the day after set off in very chilly waters around 10.8 degrees the swim course now 1100+ metres not original 750m, coming out of the water in 17th place.

Then out onto a raining cold bike course. Dropped into bottom chainring for first time on first hill only to get to the other side and found I could not get back into large ring.

I then span hard which was probably a good thing as my legs were now blue to match my shorts. Did the 3 laps watching the road as it was wet, hilly and a bit bumpy, to make 21km and into transition. Now I was up to 13th place with no feeling in my feet, other people were running out of transition with their helmets on as their hands were too cold to undo straps.

After the first km my feet were getting feeling back in, did a respectable run but dropped the 4 places I had gained. Ran across line with my GB flag in 17th place out of 47 starters (only 42 finished). The cold and wet didn't matter any more, great feeling running across line for GB team, had some soup to warm up and celebrated with a few beers that night.

Sam Glover finished in 12th place in the 16-19 AG - which would have given him 3rd place in my 45-49 category but these kids are fast!

The day after for the olympic the water was as cold but very choppy. The athletes with disabilities and women swam in very tricky conditions the rescue boats working overtime to pull people out.

At this stage on safety grounds the swim was cancelled so after an hour or two the mens race became a duathlon, a 3km run replacing the swim followed by the 40km bike and 10km run.

Some good finishing results from Tim Johns 44/94 (40-44 AG), Glen Mullins 36/93 (35-39 AG) and Paul Savage 15/86 (30-34 AG).

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