T Minus

We are getting pretty close now, into the final countdown for the Women's race at the 70.3 World Championships tomorrow, a touch under 16 hours by my count, making it about 40 hours to the start of the men's race.

As I mentioned yesterday I have a few athletes racing this weekend and it sounds like they are all having a good time enjoying the excitement that is the World Championships. Nerves are building for sure, but on the whole they are having positive experiences. There has been a bit of a question about the weather, with predictions of rain and big winds for the weekend. However, the feedback I am hearing from the athletes is that it doesn't look that bad for Saturday. There is a bit of wind etc forecast for Sunday, but they were hopeful that it would clear beforehand.

Both the men's and women's races are looking darn exciting in terms of competitors. Anytime you get Brownlee, Frodeno and Gomez in a race is going to be exciting not to mention Braden Currie, Ben Kanute and Sam Appleton (to name a few). Should be a pretty hot race up at the pointy end.

The Women's race is no less intense with Ryf, Haug, Vodickova, and Pallant all turning up plus plenty of other speedy talent. Once again the list of talented athletes is a long one and really it is pretty hard to know which way it is going to go. One thing is for sure they will be pushing very hard.

The 70.3 World Championship is probably the main game in town from my perspective, but it is hardly the only one. Besides the 70.3 World Championships there are two other multisport World Championships going on this weekend, both of which will also offer compelling viewing. 

The first is the Powerman ITU Long Course Duathlon World Championship at Zofingen.. FrontRunner's Thomas Bruins is over there competing in the elite level. Thomas is a world class long course duathlete, but has always struggled at Zofingen,. Thomas has been in the top 10 before, but really his goal is to aim higher, so it will be interesting to see if this is the year he cracks it. Regardless of Thomas' outcome Zofingen is another grueling and rather impressive endurance event that is amazing to watch and will be on my race tracking agenda.

And that brings me to the last World Championship event, which also happens to be another impressive endurance event that is amazing to watch and that is the Swim/Run World Championship at Otillo. This year Paul Newsome from SwimSmooth is over there competing and so we will be tracking very closely to see how he fares. Besides being a serious endurance event Otillo can also throw up some pretty intense weather, as demonstrated last year, so everyone will be waiting to see if that is a factor this year. Paul has had a great lead into this event, getting in a serious amount of training so it is another one I will be watching very closely from home. Regardless of how Paul does, it is an event worth watching purely to see the amazing locations they are racing through. I will be keeping half an eye on that one for sure. 

So all up, a pretty big weekend of endurance multisport. I will be watching the 70.3 events with the greatest interest, but I will also be keeping a watch on the other races. All up it should be a serious weekend of spectating.