Canada with the Australian Paratriathlon Team
Edmonton WPS
It has continued to be a busy year supporting different Australian athletes both locally and abroad.
In July, I headed across to Canada with the Australian Paratriathlon team for a few of their races.
The first race was a world cup race in Magog, just a couple of hours away from Montreal. The second event was a World Paratriathlon Series (WPS) race in Edmonton, the top tier race for the Para Triathletes that runs alongside the able-bodied athlete’s World Triathlon Series (WTS) event.
I arrived at Magog a couple of days after the rest of the team as I had been in camp at the AIS in Canberra before leaving with Swimming Australia. So we had around half the team with us for this half of the trip, and the remainder would be joining us when we got into Edmonton.
On Friday after arriving I went to the race briefing as I would be working as a handler on race day so needed to make sure I knew the specifics for the day to make sure things went as smoothly as possible for Emily Tapp, the athlete I was going to be assisting. After a couple of short pre-event sports massage treatments, the team was set for the racing the following day.
On race day, the athletes were ready to go and took off in their various wave starts. Overall the team performed great with a few podium performances and some great learning opportunities for some newer members in their first international competition. The plan leading into this race was to give the athletes a chance to race and adapt after the travel from Australia in time for the more critical Edmonton WPS race coming up.
Over the next week, it was a matter of focussing on training and recovery to get ready for the travel to Edmonton and race ahead. I worked together with the athletes to provide treatment for various niggles and provided some of the newer members some guidance regarding some specific flexibility work. The training in Magog was excellent, having Lake Memphremagog a short walk from the hotel for Swimming, plenty of safe riding options and some good trails nice and close.
After another week, the team mechanic and I left early to meet the rest of the team and get everything sorted in Edmonton. The training around Edmonton was not quite as good as Magog as many the roads were under maintenance works whilst the snow was not present. However, the athletes could still hit some good sessions at the local university pool, trails close by and trainer sessions on the bike out of the hotel.
It was a busy couple of days of treatment, trying to see all the athletes before their race on the weekend. There was a great vibe around the race site and hotel, and it was clear that this was a big step up from the previous small town race in Magog.
Race day rolled around quickly once the whole team had arrived, and the athletes were looking forward to getting stuck into racing on a challenging course. The biggest challenge was the bike course which featured four laps with a sharp pinch of a hill. This created a real challenge for everyone on the team and allowed anyone who had good legs on the bike to put in some big time gaps.
The team had some quality results across the board on race day with one of our athletes Jonathan Goerlach getting his first WPS victory with guide Sam Douglas. It was awesome watching these two guys on the side of the bike course tearing through the field.
Once all the athletes were done on course, we had to get all the gear back to the hotel. A quick post-race check up with all the athletes and a post-event sports massage and our day was almost done.
We packed up Saturday night / Sunday morning and started taking different athletes to the airport before heading home myself.
The next stop for this group is to head home and prepare for the World Championships later in the year that we are hosting on the Gold Coast where we will be trying to claim some titles on home soil.
Until then,
Toby