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Victoria's Simon Whitfield celebrates as he hits the line first to take the Canadian Olympic-distance championship at the 27th annual Pushor Mitchell Apple Triathlon Sunday. (Photo Chris Stanford)

By Chris Stanford

Simon Whitfield has one of the most-feared weapons in triathlon-a finishing kick that has earned him Olympic gold and silver medals-but in the end he didn’t really need to bring it out.

The Victoria native showed why he’s considered one of the best in the world and instead kept up a consistent but devastating pace to run away from the elite field of 25 racers and winning the Canadian National Championship title at the 27th annual Pushor Mitchell Apple Triathlon.

“It was important to me to have a strong race all around,” said Whitfield. “I was racing against kids that weren’t born in 1992 when I first raced here, so I felt a little old today,” he quipped.

With six of seven national team members here for the Apple, the competition was tougher than it’s ever been, with Whitfield and the others using it as preparation for the World Championships in Australia in September.

“I wanted to establish myself on the run right away,”said Whitfield. “I wanted to make it difficult because we are preparing for the world’s.”

Whitfield finished the race in time of 1:53:31, some 18 seconds ahead of national team members Kyle Jones and Paul Tichelaar, Jones nipping Tichelaar at the line for second in a ferocious sprint duel.

After coming out of the water in second behind Under 23 winner Andrew McCartney, Whitfield and a group of five others that included Jones and Tichelaar rode in a pack for most of the 40 km. bike.

Arriving together in transition, Whitfield was one of the first out on the run, and after the first of four laps, had already built a 10-second lead, one which he only added to with each tour and by the time he had covered half of the 10 km. he looked to be very much in control, and he was, putting it into autopilot and putting the race away.

Last year’s winner Brent McMahon, another national team athlete, finished in fourth.

In the women’s elite race, it came down to the run, as expected, and national team member Lauren Groves battled it out with Kathy Tremblay for most of it, finally getting away from her team mate with 500 metres to go for the win.

“I had a feeling that Kathy and I were going to be battling it out, said Groves afterwards. “We’ve been very close in all the world cups this year so it was no surprise that it came down between the two of us.” Groves is a former U-23 National Champion.

Groves completed the 1.5 km. swim, 40 km. bike and 10 km. run course in 2:04:59, eight seconds ahead of Tremblay, while last years winner Paula Findlay came in third at 2:06:25.

In the Under-23 men’s elite standings, McCartney took first, with Jordan Bryden coming in second and Andrew Yorke finishing third. In the women’s U-23 category Findlay’s third overall ensured her of first place, while Mirrielle Rodrigue took second and alexandra Coates was third.

In the men’s race, contested earlier in the day, Penticton’s Tom Evans, a previous Ironman winner, led the field with his 1:56:57, while Nathan Killam of Surrey was second and Simon Schaerz of Lethbridge was third.

Malindi Elmore of Kelowna, a world-class distance runner in her own right, finished third in the women’s event in a time of 2:13:19, behind winner Susanne Russell and second-place finisher Stephanie Kieffer, both of Vancouver.

For complete results go to appletriathlon.com

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Tags: Apple triathlon, Lauren Groves, simon whitfield

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Kelowna Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.