Wyszynski, Ganesh win Toyota Legacy Sprint titles
The second Toyota Legacy Triathlon sprint distance age group event was held at Alamitos Beach in Long Beach, California. Contending in a 750-meter swim, 22 kilometer bike and 5 kilometer run were some 800 age group athletes, as well as a Pro-Am wave for eight three-person relays including one Olympian and two amateur athletes. The amateur athletes in the relay each made a donation to the USA Triathlon Foundation with proceeds going to the USA Triathlon Foundation’s youth pillar and the LA Sports Council’s Ready, Set Gold! Program.
The overall single winners of the Legacy Triathlon were Brittany Wyszynski of Los Angeles, who won the women’s category in a time of 1 hour 6 minutes and 31 seconds and Prashanth Ganesh of Livermore, California who won the men’s title in 56:59.
Wyszynski ran a women’s-best 20:07 5k to outpace women’s runner-up Katie Hahn of Manhattan Beach, California who finished in 1:06:50. Victoria Woolfolk of Santa Ana, California finished third in 1:08:in 1:08:11, winning the women’s 20-24 age group.
“I had an alarm set for this morning and in the title for the alarm I put “Remember you love this. I woke up and was like, ‘I do! I really, really love this,’” Wyszynski, 34, said. “This was such a fun day and it’s so exciting to be back to racing.”
Ganesh, 23, earned his first-ever major triathlon victory with a race-best 16:12 5k to hold off his Team Every Man Jack teammate Todd Buckingham (Wyoming, Michigan) who finished second overall, 54 seconds behind the winner. Zack Hamner of Chula Vista, California to round out the podium in a time of 58:27 and won the 25-29 age group.
“I wasn’t really sure I was in first until I saw the lead bikes were leading me,” said Ganesh, who raced on the collegiate club triathlon team at the University of California-Berkeley. “Most of my races have been collegiate races, so this is my first really big, USAT event.”
In the Olympian Pro-Am, each athlete completed one leg of the triathlon before tagging off to their next teammate. Eight Olympians from four different Olympic sports participated, including:
Michellie Jones, 2000 Australian Olympic Triathlon silver medalist; Barb Lindquist , 2004 Olympic Triathlete, 2016 Australian Paralympic gold medalist guide; Joe Maloy, 2016 U.S. Triathlon Olympian; Andy Potts, 2004 U.S. Olympic Triathlete, 2020 U.S. Paralympian Guide; John Naber,1976 U.S. Olympic swimmer, 4-time gold medalist and one time silver medalist.
Maloy, who won the overall men’s title at the at the first Legacy Triathlon in 2019, led his relay team with amateur athletes Anthony Galloway and Malek Amrani in the Olympian Pro-Am Relay. Maloy anchored the team, finishing with a 16:30 5k, and crossed the line on 1:01:25 with his baby daughter in his arms. Maloy is a coordinator for the USA Triathlon Collegiate Recruitment Program, which identifies and recruits top-level NCAA runners and swimmers to elite triathlon.
The Collegiate Recruitment Program was spearheaded by Lindquist, a 2004 Olympian, and many of USA Triathlon’s most successful triathletes, both past and present, are CRP recruits — including 2016 U.S. Olympic gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen; 2016 U.S. Olympian and 2020 U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team member Katie Zaferes and fellow 2020 U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team members Summer Rappaport and Morgan Pearson.
Lindquist — a former collegiate swimmer at Stanford — swam her leg of the Olympian Pro-Am Relay. Her team, with age groupers Deb Carabet and Laine Maher, placed fourth with a time of 1:14:41.
Tomorrow, for the first time, Long Beach will host an Americas Triathlon Cup race with a total purse of more than $35,000, featuring elite triathletes and Paris 2024 Olympic hopefuls. The multi-loop course is held in the draft-legal format, in which athletes work together in tight packs on the bike. Athletes will cover a 750m swim, 20k bike and 5k run.
Top U.S. men include U.S. National Team athlete and an alternate for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, Matt McElroy, and members of the USA Triathlon Project Podium men’s elite development squad Darr Smith, Chase McQueen Austin Hindman Drew Shellenberger and Keller Norland.
Top U.S. women include Junior and Under-23 World Champion Tamara Gorman, four-time World Triathlon Cup champion Renée Tomlin, three-time U23 World Championships competitor Erika Ackerlund, 2021 Sarasota-Bradenton Elite Cup winner Gina Sereno, and 2019 Junior National Champion Gillian Cridge.
