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Australia will field a star-studded line up of Para-triathletes when the World Triathlon Para Series returns to Montreal on Friday.
Dual Paralympian Nic Beveridge (PTWC) and Paris Paralympic hopeful Justin Godfrey (PTS3) will be fresh from their wins in the opening round of the series in Yokohama.
The Montreal Para Series is the second stop of the series this year, after Yokohama and before Swansea, with Para-triathletes then preparing for the World Championships in Abu Dhabi in November.
The 2022 season brings perfect opportunities for Para-triathletes to test their performances before the Paralympic qualification period starts in July 2023.
For the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, three more medal events have been added to the program, including Godfrey’s PTS3 class.
In Yokohama, Beveridge found something extra within metres of the finish to surge ahead of local hero Jumpei Kimura (1:04.07) to claim a thrilling win, clenching his fists as he crossed the line with Kimura on his wheel – the pair hunched over exhausted after their race chair duel over the final five kilometres.
But Montreal will see wheelchair racing legend, dual Paralympic champion and five-time world champion Jetze Platz from the Netherlands make his 2022 Series debut alongside teammate Geert Schipper.
Godfrey will re-acquaint his rivalry with Spain’s Kini Carrasco, second in Yokohama, with four-time Series winner Nico Van Der Burgt (NED) also joining the fray.
The 47-year-old Godfrey has been back in the saddle in 2022 after four years’ absence following his latest shoulder surgery and is keen to make his mark in the lead up to Paralympic selection.
Beveridge and Godfrey will be joined in Montreal by nine fellow Australians including Tokyo 2020 Paralympians David Bryant (PTS5), Jonathan Goerlach (PTVI) with guide David Mainwaring, Emily Tapp (PTWC) and Tokyo silver medallist Lauren Parker (PTWC). Also competing will be Liam Twomey (PTS4), Jeremy Peacock (PTS4), Sally Pilbeam (PTS4) and Jack Howell (PTS5), who’ll make his World Para Series debut.
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Parker’s first race of the 2022 season will renew her rivalry with USA’s Paralympic gold medallist Kendall Gretsch. The event will also mark the welcome return to racing for Tapp who crashed in the Tokyo race.
Parker is further spreading her wings also, named on the 15-strong AusCycling team to contest the 2022 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships over August 11–14 in Baie-Comeau, Canada.
Pilbeam, a two-time world champion in the PTS4 class, returns after the enforced break caused by the Covid-19 pandemic allowed her to “reassess” her career.
“The forced break in competition and training allowed me to spend more time with my family and I guess reassess where I was at and where I wanted to go,” Pilbeam said.
“I really enjoyed this time and there is a great deal of uncertainty of what lies ahead in racing.”
Pilbeam, who earned her first women’s PT3 world title in Edmonton in 2014 and also triumphed the following year in Chicago, is looking forward to returning to racing.
She has collected a 2015 Duathlon World Championship title, three World Championship silver medals, three World Para-triathlon Series wins, two Para-triathlon World Cup wins and six Oceania Championship titles over her career.
The venue for the Montreal series is the spectacular Parc Jean Drapeau, where competitors take to the Bassin Olympique for the 750m swim before transitioning into five laps of the Gilles-Villeneuve race track, home of the F1 Grand Prix.
The races will conclude with two run laps encompassing the F1 track and lake, giving the athletes an iconic setting for the finish.
By: Triathlon Australia and David Sygall, Paralympics Australia
Posted: 8 July 2022
