Whitfield and Groves Canadian Champs

Lauren Groves and Simon Whitfield are the 2009 Kelowna ITU Triathlon Pan American Premium Cup winners and Canadian National Champions.  The two ITU stars used superior race tactics to win the national titles in a strong field boasting all of the nation’s top talent. 

In the women’s race, Kathy Tremblay came in second behind Groves with young Paula Findlay in third position. Groves was first out of the water in the non-wetsuit swim followed closely by all of the major contenders including Tremblay and Findlay.  Groves and Tremblay stuck close together for most of the run until with only 400 metres to go, Groves pulled away to cross the line in first place.

In the men’s race, Whitfield was followed by Kyle Jones and Paul Tichelaar in second and third place, respectively.While young up and comer Andrew McCartney had a very strong swim being out of the water nearly 40 seconds ahead of Whitfield and the pack, he was caught quickly on the bike and was then part of a strong lead pack of six, who continued to put time on the chasers. The group stayed together until the run when Whitfield showed his strength and pulled into a comfortable lead for the win.

The rest of the race was really between Jones, Tichelaar with a sprint finish between Tichelaar and Jones resulting in Jones finishing only one tenth of a second before Tichelaar.

The 2009 National Canadian Triathlon championships and ITU Pan American Premium Cup was hosted as part of the Pusher Mitchell Apple Triathlon this weekend, with athletes complimenting the challenging and well organized course and great support by volunteers and spectators from Kelowna.

2009 Kelowna ITU Triathlon Pan American Premium Cup
1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run
Elite Men - Official Results
Gold - Simon Whitfield 1:53:31
Silver - Kyle Jones 1:53:49
Bronze - Paul Tichelaar 1:53:49

2009 Kelowna ITU Triathlon Pan American Premium Cup
1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run
Elite Women - Official Results
Gold - Lauren Groves 2:04:59
Silver - Kathy Tremblay 2:05:07
Bronze - Paula Findlay (U23) 2:06:25

Click here for full results