Laura Bennett was the first American to capture a spot on the Olympic triathlon team with her 3rd place at the 2007 ITU World Cup in Beijing. We got to see her golden smile a few times more often as she had indeed a great racing year. Meet Laura Bennett.
by Herbert Krabel, June 3, 2008
At the 2008 Ironman 70.3 Florida Lindsey Jerdonek seemingly came out of nowhere to finish as the top age grouper and in 8th place overall. The 23 year old actually just recently stumbled upon triathlon and it appears that we will see her name in the results more often.
Alistair Brownlee is part of a new generation of triathletes coming through and he is truly someone to keep an eye on. The 20 year old is in his rookie ITU Elite season and just took another podium spot at the World Cup race in Madrid. He talked to Slowtwitch.
22 year old Vanessa Fernandes from Portugal is the current ITU World Champion and has already won more ITU World Cup events than any other person in history. She is a clear favorite for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing and she was kind enough to share a few of her thoughts.
Danish ITU athlete Rasmus Henning had a great season in 2007 and earned a nice $200,000 paycheck when he won the Hy-Vee race in Des Moines, IA. Rasmus already earned his ticket to Beijing and has his eyes now set completely on the Olympic prize.
Spencer Smith won the ITU World Championships in 1993 and 1994 and also has a couple of Ironman titles to his name. He has finished as high as 5th in Kona but more recently it has been fairly quiet around this charismatic athlete. A 3rd place at 70.3 Florida last weekend though showed that he is far from gone.
As part of our “industry athlete” series we wanted to know more about the background of Seton Claggett of trisports.com. Seton and his wife Debbie opened trisports.com in Tucson, AZ in 2000, but he did his first triathlon in 1989.
Like many of us, Mike Pigg was inspired to race triathlons when he watched Dave Scott win the 1983 Ironman on TV. Unlike most of us though, the man who would soon be known as Pigg Power managed to finish 7th overall at that event 2 years later.
Janda Ricci-Munn had a tough setback in 2007 but closed out his season as the fastest age grouper at 70.3 Worlds in Clearwater and a top 20 finish overall. He has announced that he has turned professional for 2008 and confirmed that he’ll actually quit one of his other day jobs.
Davis Tarwater is the 2005 and 2007 US Champion in the 200m Butterfly and he also won that event at the 2007 Duel in the Pool. He is currently preparing for the US Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska and shared a few of his thoughts with Slowtwitch.
We are starting a new interview series featuring industry people who are doing what they are preaching. Our first subject of “industry athlete” is Kevin O’Connor, the owner of Gear West Bike & Tri. He has been as fast as 9:13 in Kona and just recently finished in 9:35.
Sarah Haskins narrowly missed taking the automatic qualification spot at the 2008 US Olympic Trials in Tuscaloosa, AL, but put herself in a good position to be considered for the final slot. She talked to Slowtwitch about racing and training.
Kirsten Sweetland won the 2006 Triathlon Junior World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland and continued to impress during her 2007 rookie pro ITU season. We wanted to know more about this 19 year old from Nanaimo, British Columbia.