Australia’s Gold Coast has already witnessed plenty of triathlon history. It hosted just the third ITU World Championships in 1991, before becoming the first Grand Final host when the World Triathlon Series made its debut in 2009.
Now the host of the 2018 Commonwealth Games is back on the Series circuit this weekend, and all of the top ranked athletes including Bermuda’s Flora Duffy are out to play.
It has almost been a full calendar year since Gwen Jorgensen was beaten in a World Triathlon Series race. Since Cape Town in 2014, where she finished third, the reigning World Champion has collected seven consecutive race titles. That has taken her career tally to 10 total World Triathlon Series wins.
From the start of the 2015 season it would seem that Jorgensen’s biggest rivals will come from within her own national team. After a string of bad luck in World Triathlon Series races in 2014, Katie Zaferes has captured silver behind Jorgensen in the past two races. In Gold Coast, the U.S. will field a nine-strong team, including Jorgensen, Zaferes, WTS winner Sarah True and top-10 ranked Lindsey Jerdonek.
Others who have been in form so far in 2015 include Bermuda’s Duffy, who picked up her first World Triathlon Series podium place in Abu Dhabi, Mooloolaba World Cup winner Tamara Gomez Garrido, New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt, Australia’s Emma Moffatt and Ashleigh Gentle and the Canadian team of Kirsten Sweetland,Paula Findlay, Sarah-Anne Brault and Amelie Kretz.
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