Salford Triathlon

Last updated February 20, 2019

The Salford Triathlon was an international-level triathlon event held annually from 2000 to 2007 in the city of Salford in north west England. It was the only United Kingdom leg of the International Triathlon Union's Triathlon World Cup during this time.

A triathlon is a multisport race with three continuous and sequential endurance races. The word is of Greek origin, from τρεῖς or treis (three) and ἆθλος or athlos (competition).

City of Salford Metropolitan borough and city in England

Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England, extending west to include the towns of Eccles, Worsley, Swinton, Walkden, Little Hulton, and Irlam. The city has a population of 245,600, and is administered from the Salford Civic Centre in Swinton.

North West England, one of nine official regions of England, consists of the five counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,052,000 in 2011. It is the third-most populated region in the United Kingdom after the South East and Greater London. The largest settlements are Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Preston, and Blackpool.

History

With the sport of triathlon becoming increasingly popular, in 2000 Greater Manchester’s councils created a role for a Triathlon Development Officer who would encourage the sport at a grass roots level in schools and the community. The interest was incredible and it was from here that the Millennium Waterfronts Triathlon was born.

A grassroots movement is one which uses the people in a given district, region, or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national, or international level. Grassroots movements are associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision making, and are sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. Grassroots movements, using self-organization, encourage community members to contribute by taking responsibility and action for their community. Grassroots movements utilize a variety of strategies from fundraising and registering voters, to simply encouraging political conversation. Goals of specific movements vary, but the movements are consistent in their focus on increasing mass participation in politics. These political movements may begin as small and at the local level, but grassroots politics as Cornel West contends are necessary in shaping progressive politics as they bring public attention to regional political concerns.

The MWT combined the north west regional championships and national championships for under 21s - with 500 people competing for the titles, including Richard Allen, Richard Stannard, and Jodie Swallow.

Richard Stannard is a triathlete from Great Britain and four time Biathle world champion. He is nicknamed "The Fish" due to the strength of his swimming, and is the current British Masters record holder in the 200m free, 400m free, 800m free and 1500m free categories.

Jodie Swallow is a British triathlete from Brentwood, Essex. She is the 2010 Ironman 70.3 champion as well as the winner of the 2009 and 2016 ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships.

The success of that first event was proved when Salford won the right to hold the National Triathlon Championships in 2001 - attracting 1000 competitors from all over the world, including a host of big names for the elite races, like Simon Whitfield and Leanda Cave.

Simon St. Quentin Whitfield is a retired Olympic triathlon champion from Canada. Whitfield won 10 consecutive Canadian Triathlon Championships titles and carried the Canadian national flag during the 2000 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in Sydney, where he had won his gold medal, and the opening ceremony at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, making him one of few Canadian athletes to be honoured twice as Olympic flag bearer.

Leanda Cave is a British triathlete. World Triathlon Champion in 2002, she was also the 2012 Ironman Triathlon and Ironman 70.3 World Champion, the first woman in the history of the sport to win both titles in the same year. Cave competes internationally for Wales and Great Britain.

It was the first time the nationals had come to the North of the country - John Lunt, Race Director, said at the time^{[ citation needed ]}:

"This has been the best course in the country for competitors. Having a closed city centre course is very rare and lets athletes go right into the heart of Manchester - creating a fantastic atmosphere between them and the spectators."

Those national championships also proved to be an important rehearsal for the Triathlon events at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester - which ran over the now tried and tested course. Over 100,000 spectators lined the route to view one of the few free Games events and the atmosphere they created was amazing as Simon Whitfield and Carol Montgomery raced to gold!

These page shows the results of the triathlon competition at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, United Kingdom, when the sport was for the first time on the program. The men's and the women's races were both held on 4 August 2002.

The 2002 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XVII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Manchester 2002 were held in Manchester, England, from 25 July to 4 August 2002. The 2002 Games were to be hosted in the United Kingdom to coincide with the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II, head of the Commonwealth, and Manchester was selected for the 2002 Games ahead of London. The XVII Commonwealth Games was, prior to the 2012 Summer Olympics, the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK, eclipsing the London 1948 Summer Olympics in numbers of teams and athletes participating. In terms of sports and events, the 2002 Games were the largest Commonwealth Games in history featuring 281 events across 17 sports.

Carol Montgomery is an Olympic athlete from Canada who competed in triathlon and athletics. She won a bronze medal at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and a bronze and a silver at the 1995 Mar del Plata Pan American Games in the 5,000m and 10,000m respectively. She was the World Duathlon Champion in 1993. Once won, she never competed in another duathlon event. She won the gold medal in the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and often refers to this race as the highlight of her career.

World Cup

A legacy of the Commonwealth Games event was the awarding of a leg of the 2003 World Cup to Salford. Further successful events in the following years allowed promoters Salford City Council and event operator Human Race to bid to host the 2010 ITU Triathlon World Championships. The bid however was unsuccessful.^[1]

The event was not held in 2008 because of its proximity to the Olympic Games, the absence of BBC Sport coverage, and major building work (part of MediaCityUK) close to the area usually used for transition.^[2]

The future

The Salford Triathlon has been set a provisional return date of 26 July 2009.^[2] With the Olympic Games due to be held in London in 2012, it is possible the World Cup may not return to Salford since as part of London's preparation it must hold an international-level test event on the Olympic course at least once in the years prior to the Games. Whilst possible, it is unlikely the ITU would hold more than one World Cup event in the United Kingdom in any one year.^{[ citation needed ]}

Previous World Cup winners

This table lists the previous winners of the World Cup events held in Salford from 2003 to 2007.^[3]

Year	Elite Men	Elite Women
2003	Andrew Johns (GBR)	Pip Taylor (AUS)
2004	Maik Petzold (GER)	Michelle Dillon (GBR)
2005	Frédéric Belaubre (FRA)	Liz Blatchford (GBR)
2006	Brad Kahlefeldt (AUS)	Sam Warriner (NZL)
2007	Javier Gómez (ESP)	Vanessa Fernandes (POR)

Related Research Articles

The International Triathlon Union (ITU) is the international governing body for the multi-sport disciplines of triathlon, duathlon, aquathlon and other nonstandard variations.. The ITU host the top level international race series the ITU World Triathlon Series and the ITU Triathlon World Cup. More recently, the ITU created a long distance race circuit with official world championships. Long Distance Triathlon races are closer in length to Ironman Triathlon races owned and organized by the World Triathlon Corporation.

Chris McCormack (triathlete) Australian triathlete

Chris McCormack, also known as Macca, is an Australian triathlete. McCormack is a two-time winner of the Ironman World Championship, winning the titles in 2007 and 2010. He is also the winner of the 1997 International Triathlon Union (ITU) World Cup Series, the 1997 Triathlon World Championships, and the 2012 Long Distance World Championships.

Emma Laura Snowsill OAM is an Australian professional triathlete and multiple gold medalist in the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. She won the gold medal in triathlon at the 2008 Olympics. Snowsill is married to the 2008 Olympic champion in men's triathlon, Jan Frodeno.

Paul ("Tish") Tichelaar was a member of the 2006 Canadian National Triathlon team for Olympic distance triathlon. He has competed in events such as the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2005 and 2006 World Triathlon Championships and many ITU World Cup races. In 2006 he won the U-23 national Championship race in Kelowna, British Columbia and the Pan American Cup race in Caledon, Ontario. He completed his degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta in 2005.

Kris Gemmell is a New Zealand triathlete, and 2002 World Aquathon Champion in Cancún, Mexico. He has also competed in the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games finishing 6th and 5th respectively.

The Hy-Vee Triathlon was an Olympic-distance triathlon race held in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. From 2011–2014, the race served as the World Triathlon Corporation's 5150 Series U.S. Championships. Previously, it was part of the ITU Triathlon World Cup series from 2008 to 2010. The annual triathlon event attracted many of the top professional triathletes in the world due, in part, to having the largest prize purse awarded for Olympic-distance races in the sport. In addition to professional triathletes, the triathlon event features competition among amateur athletes as well.

Alistair Edward Brownlee, MBE is a British triathlete. He is the only athlete to hold two Olympic titles in the triathlon event, winning gold medals in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. He is also a two-time Triathlon World Champion, a two-time World Team Champion, a three-time European Champion, and the 2014 Commonwealth champion.

The United Kingdom has been awarded, or is bidding to hold, a number of major international sporting events during the 2010s leading to an idea of a 'Golden Decade' in British sport. The idea of the golden decade has been discussed in many newspapers and has been mentioned by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Lord Coe.

The ITU World Triathlon Series is the International Triathlon Union's annual series of triathlon events used to crown an annual world champion. There are multiple rounds of competitions culminating in a Grand Final race. Athletes compete head-to-head for points in these races that will determine the overall ITU world champion. The elite championship races are held over two distances the standard and the sprint distance.

Nicky Samuels is a New Zealand professional triathlete who has won the 2013 XTERRA Triathlon World Championship and the 2012 ITU Aquathlon World Championships. She is also the 2012 New Zealand cycling road race national champion. She represented—alongside Andrea Hewitt—New Zealand at the 2016 Summer Olympics in triathlon and came 13th.

The ITU Triathlon Mixed Relay World Championships, is an annual team triathlon competition organized by the International Triathlon Union (ITU). The competition is completed in teams of four, two men and two women, with each member doing a super-sprint distance triathlon.

The men's triathlon was one of the triathlon events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. It took place on 7 August 2012, featuring 55 men from 32 countries. It was the fourth appearance of an Olympic men's triathlon event since the first at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. The race was around Hyde Park, a 1.42 km² park in central London. The race was held over the "international distance" and consisted of 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) swimming, 42.959 kilometres (26.693 mi) road cycling, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) road running.

Colin Jenkins is a triathlete from Canada. He competed at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, along with his teammates Paul Tichelaar and Simon Whitfield. In his sporting career, Jenkins had won a silver medal at the 2006 ITU Pan American Cup in Brampton, Ontario, and achieved his first top eight finish at the 2007 ITU World Cup in Vancouver.

Debbie Tanner is a triathlete from New Zealand, who placed fourth at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Lauren Groves is a triathlete from Canada, who won the bronze medal at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Annabel Luxford is an Australian triathlete. In International Triathlon Union (ITU) competition she is the 2005 ITU Triathlon World Cup series champion and the silver medalist at the 2005 ITU Triathlon World Championships. In 2004, she was the ITU under-23 World Champion and also finished second in the ITU Triathlon World Cup standings. In 2013, after changing to non-drafing long course racing, she finished third at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships.

The Triathlon competitions at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, in Glasgow, were held in Strathclyde Country Park. The men's and women's individual events were held on Thursday 24 July and women's triathlon was the first medal event of the Games. Mixed team relay was held on Saturday 26 July for the first time ever in major multi-sport Games. Marisol Casado, ITU President and IOC member, commented: "We are delighted the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee has embraced the Triathlon Mixed Relay. Triathlon is on currently on a high in the United Kingdom, and the Mixed Relay will offer an extra opportunity for the people of Glasgow to watch another thrilling and unpredictable event live on their city streets."

References

↑ "Salford missed out on World Championships". 2006-09-06. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
1 2 "Comment from Cllr John Merry". Salford City Council. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
↑ "Salford Triathlon Winners". Salford City Council. Retrieved 2008-11-07.

External links

Salford Triathlon Official Website

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[1] "Salford missed out on World Championships". 2006-09-06. Retrieved 2008-11-07.

[Merry-2] 1 2 "Comment from Cllr John Merry". Salford City Council. Retrieved 2008-11-07.

[3] "Salford Triathlon Winners". Salford City Council. Retrieved 2008-11-07.