Ripon Racecourse attracts a sold out field to the 2017 Triathlon England National Standard Distance Championships
The weekend will begin early for many of Great Britain’s competitive Age-Group athletes on Saturday at the 2017 Black Sheep NYP Ripon Triathlon Weekend Festival.
The sold out Olympic Distance event, organised by Freebird Events in conjunction with NYP Tri, will host both the Triathlon England National Standard Distance Championships, while also providing the second opportunity to qualify for the ITU Standard Distance World Championships in Rotterdam. Not surprisingly a very competitive day of racing is expected.
The event will mark the third of six Triathlon England National Championship events in the 2017 season, following the Sprint Distance (Thorpe Park) and Aquathlon (Leeds). Future events are the Middle Distance Triathlon (Owler Tri, 23 July), Club Relays (Nottingham, 26 August) and the Duathlon (Oulton Park, 8 October). Visit HERE for more on those races.
Hosted at Ripon Racecourse, the opening 1.5km swim will be a single loop, clockwise, out-and-back lake course. The 40km bike section is also a one lap out-and-back, heading out from Ripon Racecourse and on to the A6055. The closing 10km run incorporates a mixture or roads and paths before returning and finishing in the racecourse grounds.
Winner of the 2016 Triathlon England Championship in St. Neots, Daniel Jenkin, is set to race again as he seeks to defend that title and he will face amongst others, Edward Castro, recently the winner of the British Championships in Leeds. Edward finished second to Daniel last year in Cambridgeshire. However, with places for the Rotterdam event in great demand this year, we expect very close racing at the front of the field on Saturday.
Among the women racing, Michelle Willcocks has just returned from Dusseldorf, Germany, with a Gold medal from the ETU Sprint Triathlon European Championships. The fastest British female overall on the day, she will be hoping to carry that form over double the distance this weekend.
Good luck to everyone racing. We’ll be reporting back on the event early next week.
Race website: Visit here
Start list: Visit here
