Fear, Fun and a bunch of Firsts

As a general rule, Triathletes just aren’t scary.  Few things in triathlon are really… but stepping up into a bigger race, longer distance or a deeper field can certainly be scary.

With last year’s Canada Games in the rearview mirror, our MTC program is squarely focused on developing new talent and last weekend, a group of seven MTC athletes went down to Wisconsin to conquer some fears!

Of those seven, Blake Harris joined Ben Szwajcer as two with experience at this event and both raced in the Youth Elite Male category.  “Going into the race (last) year, I had no idea what to expect” explains Blake. “I didn’t have any frame of reference of what the race would look like.”  This year he knew he trained harder and would be faster, so was targeting a top-20 result.  “Coming out of the water, I could see that I was in the 30’s…in mid pack” From there, Blake used a strong bike ride to move up and eventually finished 17th.

In the Youth Elite Female event, Madison Firlotte, Naomi Brown, and Maggie Malkoskie were all competing in their first draft legal race.  “The first draft legal race is always a huge step up in quality from racing in Manitoba” says Head Coach Gary Pallett.  “Racing with 5 to 10 athletes in Manitoba is a lot different than 80 in a USA event.  There is a lot of anxiety.”  Getting this race under their belt has given them experience and confidence in going forward to do their next races.

Finally, Megan VanHeyst and Annika Niblock competed in their first Sprint Distance races as juniors.  Making that big jump in distance from last year’s youth races can be very intimidating (30+ minutes of racing to 60+), but these two girls took the challenge head on and cannot wait to tackle another Junior race.

This young group of athletes has a promising future and we’re excited to continue the journey with them as they challenge themselves at big events throughout the season and learnt to go scary fast!

Full results click here

 

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