Hayes and Don Interviews

After his performances in 2007 Stuart Hayes was a serious contender for the GB Olympic team, but on the day he needed to perform he was let down by his equipment. Interviewed by Annie Emmerson on the Tri247 website Hayes despite disappointment at missing selection accepts his fate with remarkable maturity.

When asked about the weather conditions at the final trial race in Madrid which on the day turned out to be very different from that expected in Beijing, Hayes responded “Well we all had three selection races to try and qualify, but no one did in the first two - the World Championships in Hamburg and the Beijing World Cup - we were fully aware of what was needed to make the team in those first two races so it came down to Madrid. A race is a race, no matter what the conditions are, if it had been boiling hot people would have been moaning that it was too hot. Beijing could be similar to Madrid, as apparently it will be cyclone season, so it could be pouring with rain.”

Talking of watching the weather, Beijing bound Tim Don keeps his eyes on the clouds, and an annoying bumblebee, as he conducts an interview with Anna Kessel of the Guardian in between repetitions on the Loughborough University athletic track.

Blogs and the Route to Beijing

Hollie Avil wins my award as the top blogger of our five Beijing bound triathletes.  Her website is fairly new but is well designed, very informative and Hollie herself is maintaining a regular and well written blog.

Will Clarke comes in on second place, his blog is not as well written but it is updated on a regular basis.  Tim Don has forgotten to write since Madrid but at least it’s a nice looking website.  Helen Tucker’s website is being re-constructed following her winning the World Championships, so not much to see there at the moment. As for Alistair Brownlee, he does not have a website or blog at all.

Hollie Avil’s recent blog gives good detail of her planned route to Beijing.  She is off to France on Friday to race this weekend in the Beauvais French Grand Prix. This is a sprint distance race and it will be her first time racing for French club Beauvais. The French Grand Prix attracts many of the World’s leading and aspiring elites so we should see other members of the Beijing team competing there.

Hollie then heads of to Spain with the Olympic squad for a second block of training in the heat as they prepare for the conditions in Beijing.  It is then back home for a few days before competing in the Corus Elite Series race in Bryn Bach Park which is also the British Triathlon Championships on the 26^th July.

The team then depart for Jeju in Korea for final preparations, adjusting to the time change and final environmental preparation prior to flying to Beijing.  Hollie and Helen Tucker will arrive in the athlete’s village on the 14^th August and will hit the start line four days later on the 18^th August.

Hopefully, we will be able to follow Hollie and the other team members through their blogs. However, this is not certain as once the athletes come under the control of the BOA, their athlete agreement limits what they can publish prior to and during the Olympic Games.

Alistair Brownlee Podcast

Alistair Brownlee hails from Yorkshire and started his sporting career as a member of Bingley Harriers.  Bingley Harriers have a proud tradition of producing world class fell, cross country and road runners, Alistair must be their first world class triathlete though.

Alistair Brownlee is interviewed by the Yorkshire Post and you can hear what he had to say by tuning into this podcast.

Independent Email from Helen Tucker

The Independent Newspaper has published an interview it has conducted with World Triathlon Champion, Helen Tucker. No face to face inteview instead an interview by email.

Eerily Professional Youngsters Get Goosebumps

Writing on his BBC blog, Tom Fordyce, meets Great Britain’s Olympic triathletes on a day when the weather was far removed from the conditions expected in Beijing resulting in quite a few goosebumps.

Youngsters Hollie Avil and Alistair Brownlee were “eerily professional” according to Kevin Mitchell in today’s Guardian newspaper.

BOA Confirm Beijing Bound Five

The British Olympic Association confirmed today that as expected TIm Don, Will Clarke, Alistair Brownlee, Helen Tucker and Hollie Avil will represent Team GB in the triathlon events at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

At today’s announcement in Hyde Park, venue for the London 2012 Olympic Games Triathlon, British Triathlon’s Performance Programme Director, Heather Williams, said “We have prepared meticulously and will go to Beijing knowing that we have done all we can to bring back Britain’s first triathlon medal.”

You can find out what our triathletes had to say of their selection in the official press release.  All bar one were at the launch, the missing one was Tim Don whose flight from the USA was delayed due to inclement weather.

No official word at the launch on who the reserves for the team are, but we can tell you that Liz Blatchford confirmed on her website today that she is the women’s reserve stating  “I have been named as the reserve for the team.”  Tri247 who attended the announcement this morning also confirmed Blatchford’s reserve spot and that the men’s position has been given to Ollie Freeman.  They state: “Though not technically part of the BOA announcement, Heather (Williams) also confirmed that the nominated reserves were Oliver Freeman and Liz Blatchford.”  Thanks also to John at Tri247 for messaging us to confirm the two reserves.

Another Olympic Watch

Steve Trew was one of Great Britain’s first Olympic triathlon coaches, he was team coach in 2000 at the Sydney games. He is also a well known triathlon commentator covering major events for the BBC. Steve should therefore know a thing or two or two about triathlon and the Olympics.  Writing on the Tri247 website, which appears to have recovered from some technical problems earlier this week, Trew conducts his own Olympic Watch.

It also looks as if he might have some inside knowledge on the reserve conundrum.  Trew writes “much of the reason for Helen being at Worlds at all was to try to raise that ranking and help Liz Blatchford to get to Beijing. And it was so close, truly so close.”

So is Liz Blatchford to be named as the reserve for the team at tomorrow’s BOA launch? 

Resolving the GB Team Reserve Conundrum

The British Olympic Association will formally announce the five triathletes that will represent Great Britain at this year’s Beijing Olympic Games.  The announcement will take place in Hyde Park, London, the venue for the 2012 London Olympic Triathlon.

The five triathletes who will be paraded in front of the British sports media will be Tim Don, Will Clarke, Alistair Brownlee, Helen Tucker and Hollie Avil.  These five individuals met the British Triathlon Federation’s selection criteria; indeed they were the only GB triathletes to meet the set qualification standards and are therefore bound to be named on team for Beijing.

The question that remains unanswered though is who the selectors have chosen as reserves for the team.  According to the British Triathlon Federation selection policy, the selectors have to select the reserves based on their ability to act as domestiques.  That this policy has been implemented was confirmed by Andrea Whitcombe who has stated that she has not been selected as a reserve as the selectors has preferred an individual better equipped to be a domestique.

The domestique’s role is to support another member of the national team through to a potential winning position.  It is a role well known in cycling and recently used to good effect by several triathlon nations.  In triathlon the individual domestique needs to be a strong swimmer and biker.  Whitcombe has a running background and is not considered a world class swimmer.

Great Britain had two great swimmer/cyclists in Julie Dibens and Richard Stannard.  Both have come from swimming and have demonstrated on a number of occasions that they also possess strong bike skills.  Dibens has however turned her back on the Olympic distance and Stannard has missed selection for recent World Cup races.

So who will have the selectors chosen as reserves?  Well the contenders for the men’s slot have to be Stuart Hayes, Ollie Freeman and Andrew Johns.  In the women’s there is Kerry Lang, Liz Blatchford and Jodie Swallow.

The individuals selected will have to fully commit to training for the Olympic Games just in case they are called on to join the team.  Reserves were called into action in both Sydney and Athens as a consequence of the originally selected individuals sustaining injury.  This however is a big commitment, being a full team member, preparing all the way through to Beijing, and probably not being selected.  Some might prefer to cut their losses and focus on other objectives.

A betting man might be prepared to suggest that Stuart Hayes is the obvious choice.  He undertook the domestique role admirably at the World Championships in 2007 and then went on to finish in the top ten and GB’s second finisher.  He was also unlucky to suffer mechanical problems in the Madrid trial race.

In the women’s race both Kerry Lang and Liz Blatchford are possible selections.  Kerry demonstrated her potential as a domestique in Madrid and the performed this role in Vancouver.  Liz Blatchford showed great form last week in Des Moines, a performance that may well have been too late for the selectors.

Interestingly though last weekend’s race in Des Moines appears to have been a bit of a Team GB outing proceeded with a period of heat acclimatization training.  Jodie Swallow opted to compete in the French Grand Prix instead of Des Moines. Does this mean that she is out of the frame as far as a reserve spot is concerned.  Kerry Lang was another non starter, if she was the reserve should she not have been shadowing Helen Tucker from Vancouver to Austin to Des Moines.

Three GB women were in action in Des Moines Tucker, Avil and Blatchford.  Does this mean Blatchford is the reserve?

Will Clarke also made an interesting comment on his pre-Des Moines blog when he said “my team mates Tim and Ali and Olly”.  No mention of Stuart Hayes or Andrew Johns.  Was Clarke referring to the British Triathlon Team or the Olympic Team?

Whilst the inclusion of Don, Clarke, Brownlee, Tucker and Avil is a bit of a “no brainer”, the selection of the reserves is a bit of a conundrum which will hopefully be resolved on Friday morning.

Tucker Maintains Form in Des Moines

Helen Tucker maintained the form that qualified her for Beijing and won her the World Triathlon Champion title in the Des Moines yesterday.  Tucker again featured on the podium taking the bronze medal slot at the ITU Hyvee BG World Triathlon Cup in Des Moines, USA.

Tucker interviewed by British Triathlon explained that although she was not really up for this race she set herself a goal of top five on the start line.

There was also good performances from Liz Blatchford, her best performance of recent times, placing 5th and an 11th place slot for Hollie Avil, which is also not a bad effort for someone that completed their last A level exam before jumping on the plane to the USA.

In the men’s race World Under 23 Champion, Alistair Brownlee was home for Team GB finishing 7th.  He was followed home by Ollie Freeman in 11th, Stuart Hayes in 14th, Tim Don in 16th and Will Clarke in 18th.

A solid set of performances for a squad that is hopefully focused on training rather than competition as they prepare for Beijing.  The squads appearance in Des Moines was proceeded by an acclimatisation training camp in Texas as the Beijing bound triathletes get ready for the heat and humidity of Beijing.

The squad are now in transit back to the UK where on Friday they will attend the British Olympic Association’s annoucement confirming those triathletes who will be on the team to Beijing.

GB Corus Elite Series in Reading on Video

The British Triathlon Federation are now broadcasting the Channel 4 coverage of the Corus Elite Series held in Reading earlier this year on their website.

The race features Beijing bound Tim Don (GB) and Kris Gemmell (New Zealand) in the men’s race and 2012 hopeful and World Junior Champion, Kirsty McWilliam in the women’s race.