MacKinnon and Douglas Take Gold at Ontario Summer Games, Bechtel and Quick Win Provincial Titles in Bracebridge

– Stage Set for Triple Crown Challenge Finale in Edmonton –

August 11, 2014 – Triathlon Ontario, the recognized Provincial Governing Body of Multisport in Ontario, congratulates Ian MacKinnon and Jackie Douglas for their gold medal performances at this past weekend’s Ontario Summer Games, held in Windsor, Ontario on August 9th.

MacKinnon established an early lead in the race after the 600m swim, coming out of the choppy water in a time of 6:50 with a 1:13 lead over Kyle Caie and the rest of the pack. He extended his lead on the 3 loop, non-drafting 15km bike course with the fastest bike split of the day (21:57). Only Liam Donnelly had a faster run split than MacKinnon, besting his run by 11 seconds over the 2 loop, 4.5km with a split of 15:11. In the end MacKinnon finished in 44:46 to take gold, Donnelly used his speedy run to comfortably take silver in a time of 47:55, but the closest battle was for bronze, James Cooke had just enough real estate to catch Marc-Antoine Gagnon and hold on to third by just 4 seconds, finishing in 49:53.

The girls race was a much closer affair. Jackie Douglas came out of the water in a time of 7:39 and had just a 6 second lead over Lauren Shearer and the rest of the field. Dual athlete (Triathlon and Cycling) Ariel De Leon overcame early morning race day illness by posting the fastest bike split (25:29) amongst the girls. Douglas finished strong with the fastest run split of the day in 17:57 to take gold by 10 seconds (52:57) over silver medalist Erika Rankin (53:07). Allison Gibb came in 42 seconds later to claim bronze (53:49). Full results can be found on http://www.sportstats.ca.

Relays

44 out of the 48 athletes came back a few hours later to compete in the mixed relays. The relays were a non-medal event so the athletes were competing for pride, fun and some prizes. After re-jigging a couple teams to account for a few injured athletes, 10 teams of girl-boy-girl-boy and one team of boy-boy-girl-boy lined up on the shortened course. Under this format, each competitor completed a 200m swim, 5km bike, 1.5km run before tagging the next teammate who completed their leg. Famous triathletes were used as team names and much like on the ITU circuit, Team Javier Gomez (James Cooke, Jack Bone, Spencer Robinson, Nicole Ritchie) took first (1:24:50), Team Gwen Jorgensen (Allison Gibb, Ryan McCallum, Erika Rankin, Jeremy Cunningham) took second (1:25:09), Team Alistair Brownlee (Ian MacKinnon, Oliver Davies, Samantha Howard, Tarrah Price) took third (1:25:53). The action was fast and furious and very exciting.

Congrats to all that participated and looking forward to 2016 in host city Mississauga!

Olympic Triathlon Provincial Championships

Multisport Canada’s Bracebridge Olympic served as this year’s Provincial Championship. Caledon’s Sean Bechtel lead wire-to-wire after coming out of the 1500m swim in the lead in 19:20 and followed that up with the day’s fastest 40km bike split (59:22) and second fastest 10km run (35:23) for a total time of 1:55:18 over second place Jackson Laundry (1:56:56) from Haydon.

St. George’s Angela Quick used a dominating 1500m swim (19:39) and solid 40km bike (1:09:09) and 10km runs (44:53) to hold on and win the women’s Provincial title in a time of 2:15:09 over Toronto’s Michelle Pearlman (2:17:01).

Congratulations to both Sean and Angela for their achievements, both worthy champions!

Triple Crown Challenge Update

With the Olympic distance provincials complete, two of the three events are complete in the Olympic distance Triple Crown Challenge. The stage is complete for a fantastic finish in Edmonton at the World Championships.

The men’s side is heating up. Richard Gilbert and Jackson Laundry are tied for first place with 30 points (lowest point total wins) after Nationals and Provincials, while Mike Greenberg is breathing down their necks one point behind with 31 points. Andrew Bolton, Brian Laundry and Carm Morra are staying close with 34, 35, and 36 points respectively. Jackson Laundry holds the tie-breaker advantage if needed as his finishing time was closest to the winner at Provincials.

On the women’s side it looks as though Meghan Lamers will take the title as long as she completes the race in Edmonton. Barring an administration error, Meghan survived attrition and is the lone competitor left that has competed in both Provincials and Nationals and is set to compete at Worlds. Despite what may seem like an automatic win, Lamers has posted extremely competitive results and will be a worthy champion and winner of $500, assuming she completes the race in Edmonton. Updated standings can be found here.

About Triathlon Ontario
Triathlon Ontario is a non-profit organization that is the recognized Provincial Governing Body for Multisport in the province of Ontario. Our mission is to provide leadership and governance for the development of a safe and fair environment for Multisport in Ontario. Triathlon Ontario oversees the sanctioning of races and clubs and undertakes a number of duties and responsibilities on behalf of athletes at every level, coaches, clubs, officials and race directors to ensure the growth and development of the sport in a fun and safe way. For more information please visit: www.triathlonontario.com.
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