The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Triathlon Association’s second annual National Triathlon Championships is all set for Sunday morning at Jaws Beach.

The event, according to association president Dorian Roach, is all set to begin at 7am and will feature the 8-and-under aquathon, 9-10, 11-12 and 13-15 tri-age group and the 6-plus sprint and Olympic distance triathlons.

Competitors in the tri-age groups will be trying out for the team selection for the Caribbean Championships and CARIFTA Triathlon.

“This event is to see who the best of the best is,” Roach said. “We’re doing the Olympic distance, which is typically the distance that they do in the Olympics and there is also the sprint distance, which is the shorter version of that.”

Coming off the heels of the Sea Waves Triathlon in April, the association will be staging their final trials for the national team that will head to Jamaica in August for the CARIFTA Championships.

“We have a little over 80 competitors who have signed up so far,” Roach said.

“Last year we had around 100, so we’re hoping that we can get to that mark. But we know there is also a big cycling event in Eleuthera, so we will be losing some of our cyclists.

“If we can get close to the numbers we had last year that would be great. Our main thing is to try and get a fundraiser for the CARIFTA team.”

Last year, Jorge Marcos won the sprint triathlon title in one hour, three minutes and 49 seconds, but he has decided to step up to the Olympic triathlon and will be joined by at least 10 male competitors.

“We know that a lot of the elite competitors will be doing the Olympic event, so we expect that to be very competitive,” Roach said.

“And with the top guys moving up, it will leave the door open for someone else to win the sprint event.”

Roach, however, stressed that they are hoping that they will be able to attract a lot more female competitors to participate in both the Olympic and sprint events.

While the Olympic event will cover distances of a 1,500 metre swim, 40 kilometre bike ride and 10k run, the sprint event will be reduced to half, including a 750m swim, 20k bike ride and 5k run.

“We definitely feel like we will have a lot more kids than we had last year,” Roach said. “The Sea Waves had a very good event and they attracted a lot of the younger competitors. With this being the final trials for CARIFTA, we expect for a lot more kids to participate. The first year in 2017, we took four kids. Last year we took 12. This year, we are expecting around 35-30 kids. I think the kids will have the best races, especially in the 11-12 and 13-15 categories.”

Among the sponsors for this year’s events are KPMG, Commonwealth Bank, Cornertrader, JS Johnson, Dasani, Race Prompt, Senior Frogs, Vita Coco Pure Coconut Water, Cycles Unlimited, Bahamas Waste, BASRA, the Bahamas Red Cross and Doctors Hospital.