Zero Hour Approaches

As the Olympic triathlons approach just a day away, athletes seem to have been graced with mild temperatures and relatively low levels of pollution, which will make fitness on the challenging Beijing course the deciding factor in the upcoming races. Athletes have said they do not think the heat and air will be determining factors as has been feared leading up to the games.

Matt Reed seems to have nabbed the best start position of American men, positioned to the far left of the pontoon near Javier Gomez, the world number one, who selected first and chose to start as far to the left as he could. Jarrod Shoemaker is farther to the right, but positioned near Ivan Rana and Jan Fordeno. Hunter Kemper finds himself in the middle of the field and should look for the feet of Collin Jenkins (of Canada) who starts not too far away.

Interestingly, the women seemed to prefer the right side of the pontoon, with World Number One Vanessa Fernandez choosing the seventh position on the pontoon. Laura Bennett should feel confident in her positioning just to the left of Fernandez. Sarah Haskins finds herself not too far away on the fourth right-most position on the pontoon. Jule Ertel starts from the middle of the pontoon.

From personal experience, start position can be critical in a race. But USA Triathlon's sport performance director would argue otherwise. More often than not, I guess he is right, but it can make a difference on occasion.

The US contingent arrived in Beijing from Chechu South Korea yesterday after a successful camp that included an informal sprint triathlon. But this wasn't your typical small town sprint tri. It drew a field of 30 olympians, with athletes from many other federations who were training in the area ahead of the games. Word on the street is Shoemaker finished third among this field, and still had something left in the tank. Could his singular focus on the Olympics since his last race in Beijing be paying off?

The ITU has a race preview posted here just one day before the women's race gets underway.