2009 Canada Games PEI - Individual Race

A little late, but we just got back last night from Canada Games in Summerside, PEI.

We flew into Summerside Friday night where the team was welcomed by many volunteers into the athletes’ village where there was an orientation slideshow and H1N1 screening. The athletes’ village was located in an old air force base in Slemon Park just north of Summerside. The accommodations were quite cozy with 8 athletes to small sized hotel room. The boys room didn’t have air conditioning for the first couple of nights which made for warm, uncomfortable sleeping with the very hot weather. Fortunately they worked that out and gave us air conditioners making sleeping more bearable. The food was pretty good with 3 meals a day and food available all the time.

Saturday was the opening ceremonies but before we went to them we went for a swim in the morning at a beach nearby the racecourse. We rode down to the beach, then swam around for a while but had trouble finding water deep enough to swim in. Then we went back to the village where we got ready and met up with the rest of Team Manitoba to take the bus to the opening ceremonies. The opening ceremonies took place at Credit Union Place, which was a big venue for the games with beach volleyball, soccer, and basketball taking place there. We were the 4th province to enter the arena and since Sarah was our flag bearer we got to go right at the front of Team Manitoba. The Governor General, Prime Minister, Premier and many other honorary guests were in attendance and took time to address the athletes. Following this there were many performances by PEI performers. Then we went back to the village and went for a short run.

Tuesday was the day of the individual race, and it would turn out to be a very hot day. It was pretty windy so the water was quite rough for the girls race at 10 but it calmed down a bit for the guys race at noon. The water temperature was 23 degrees so no wetsuits allowed. Both races had pretty small fields with under 30 competitors each.

In the girls race Sarah swam on Stevie’s feet to get into the lead pack on the bike, but Rachael didn’t quite make lead pack and got caught by the chase pack at the start of the bike. In this situation we decided to use team tactics to ensure the best possible results for Team Manitoba. Rachael helped the team immensely by sacrificing her own race to help out her teammates. Sarah and Stevie were in the lead pack and came off the bike 2.5 mins ahead of the chase pack. Sarah then ran strongly ended up 2nd to Alison Hooper of team B.C. Stevie finished 7th and Rachael 10th.

So after all of the excitement of Sarah’s silver medal it was the guys turn to race. Josh just missed the lead pack and ended up biking with Mark and one other guy, well Riley was in the next pack behind them. The strong lead group of 7 or 8 rode strong and worked well together to put time on both of the chasing groups by the end of the bike. Josh and Mark both ran fairly well ending up in 7th and 8th. Riley had an ok run ending up in 16th place.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday:

Team Manitoba Flag Bearer - Sarah-Anne Brault

Triathlete thrilled about Canada Games Carrying flag for Manitoba

By: On The Home Front / Ashley Prest

Sarah-Anne Brault's athletic resume includes two junior triathlon championships. She competes in cross-country and 5,000-metre races at West Virginia University.

Sarah-Anne Brault loves blazing a trail and the 19-year-old triathlon athlete from Winnipeg will do just that for Team Manitoba at the 2009 Canada Games.

Brault will be Manitoba's flag-bearer and lead the parade of about 400 athletes, coaches and managers during the opening ceremonies of the multi-sport games for youth athletes, which will unfold in Summerside, P.E.I., from Aug. 15-29.

"It's such an honour to be chosen and I'm really excited to go," said Brault, who competed in athletics at the 2005 Canada Summer Games in Regina and won a silver medal in the 5,000-metre race.

"When I went in 2005, I remember it as one of the best experiences of my life. That race was amazing. I wasn't expecting anything out of it and it just shows that anything can happen.

"I've never been anywhere with the same spirit and the same atmosphere. I don't know really what it is, but it's really something special to experience."

Brault, a bilingual graduate of College Louis Riel, is a student athlete at West Virginia University, where she is a varsity athlete in cross country and the 5,000 metres.

Though she competed in athletics four years ago, this time she will compete in triathlon, where she has already had considerable international success.

Brault has been a member of Canada's national junior triathlon team for the past three years, she was the 2007 national junior champion and won the 2008 Pan American Continental Junior Triathlon Championship in Mexico.

Triathlon is a new sport at the 2009 Canada Games.

"To be competing in triathlon, it's special because it's the first time," said Brault, now in her first year in triathlon's under-23 age category. "Representing Manitoba, it might be a bit more pressure, but at the same time, it's really cool to have a team like this. Triathlon is really individual, usually. You race against your teammates that you train with, but this time there will be points (in the overall team category), so we'll all be part of Team Manitoba."

The Canada Games, held every two years and alternating summer and winter, are designed to assist the development of amateur athletes across the country. About 4,400 athletes from the 10 provinces, Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut will compete in these games in18 sports during the two-week event.

Team Manitoba's honorary captains are two athletes who competed for Team Manitoba at previous Canada Games and went on to represent Canada at the Olympics. Michelle Sawatzky-Koop competed in the 1989 Canada Games in volleyball and went on to compete for Canada in the 1996 Olympics. Jay Lyon competed in the 2003 Canada Games in archery and just last year placed 10th at the 2008 Olympics, Canada's best-ever Olympic result in archery.

Man-Sask Youth Regional Championships

The 2009 Manitoba / Saskatchewan Region Youth Championship was held in Duck Mountain Provincial Park at Madge Lake in Saskatchewan on Sunday July 26th. Two MNTC team members, Shayna and Roseria, took part in this event. Congratulations to Shayna who was 1st place in the 12-13 year old girls race, and to Roseria who was 2nd place in the 14-15 girls race. Also congraulations to all of Team Manitoba for winning the Man-Sask Challange!

Victoria Training Camp!

It has been a long time since our last post, but we have been very busy training hard, so now that we are bringing it down we will tell you what we’ve been up to. After

Nationals we started our last hard block of training heading into Canada Summer Games, which consisted of two solid weeks of training at home including a weekend training camp at Riley's cottage, then off to Victoria for a training camp with the NTC.

We got there on Saturday July 25th and got straight to work with a hilly bike ride that afternoon with some 10 minute intervals.
Sunday we did an open water swim race for MS at Thetis Lake. We all did the 1.5 km distance, and did well considering the travel day before. Results can be found here. After the swim we did a track workout in the afternoon with a mix of

200s and 800s. Monday we did a swim workout at the Commonwealth Pool followed by good-bye breakfast for Kirsten Sweetland, as she was heading back to Australia.
Tuesday, we had a hard swim in the morning with fast 100s on 1:30, base run, and then a hard bike with 4 x the Waddling Dog loop, which is about 9 km. The last one we did as an individual time trial.
On Wednesday we did an open water swim at Thetis Lake in the morning where Gary tipped over the kayak in the lake and lost his Oakleys, and then in the afternoon we did a very very hot track workout with 6x 1km on 5 minutes and then a 90 minute bike ride with 3x up Mt. Tolmie.
Thursday was a recovery day with just a technical swim and easy bike or run.
Friday we went to Elk Lake and did 3 mini tris, with the third one was a relay. Also on Friday we had a 90 min base ride on our own.Saturday was the day before the race so we just had race prep at Elk Lake.
Sunday was the Self Transcendence Triathlon at Elk Lake; it was the first year that they hosted a sprint distance race for the youth athletes. This race was non-drafting and the bike was very hilly so it made for a tough race. We all raced well to finish off our hard block of training. You can find the results here. Sunday night, Alison Hooper had a BBQ at her house for the Manitoba and the B.C athletes. We would like to thank her family for hosting it. We had lots of fun!
Monday was a recovery day with just swimming in the morning. Gary went salmon fishing and caught a big fish. Tuesday was a travel day as we returned to Winnipeg.

Thank you to all of the parents and athletes in Victoria that provided us a place to stay and took such good care of us. We all had a great time and really appreciate your kindness.

Now only 7 more days till we leave for Canada Games in PEI. Everyone is looking forward to the games and is ready for some fast racing!

Junior Nationals Race Report

Last weekend we headed over to Gatineau, Quebec for the 2009 Junior National Championships. The weather was not ideal, the temp. was around 20 degrees with some thunder showers and hard rain. This made for some slippery conditions on the bike and a change in the run course. Early in the day the age group race had about 15 crashes so we knew we had to take the corners carefully. Despite the weather difficulties the races still ran smoothly with only minor delays to the start times.

The junior girls race started at 1:15. BC’s Hillary Wille was first out of the water, followed 18 seconds later by a group of six including Stevie. Then a group of four ten seconds later and a group of 7 including Racheal. Early on in the bike Stevie broke away with Christine from BC and opened up a 40 sec gap between them and the chase pack. Racheals was in the forth pack but worked on the bike to move her and her pack to the chase pack. The run consisted of two 2.5km loops. Racheal caught Stevie shortly after the 1.25km turn around but Stevie stayed with her until the final sprint where Racheal just beat Stevie to the line making them 10^th and 11^th place.

The junior guys race started around 2:00, and just like most races this year a lead group of 4 formed in the water and lead the way on to the bike. Josh and Mark were in 9^th and 10^th place out of the water, and were into a small chase pack behind the leaders. Riley was 2 packs behind that and then Trevor and Charles came out with the pack behind him. Unfortunately early into the first lap Mark got a flat and his day was done, and just a little later going around the turn around by transistion Riley took the corner too fast and crashed, ending his day. The group Josh was in got caught by the large pack behind him and after Cole Stewart crashed in the lead group and got back into the chase pack they closed the gap on the leaders down to 10 seconds on the last lap. So Josh came off the bike just a few seconds behind the leaders and Trevor about 1:30 back with Charles just a little bit further back. After the run Josh ended up in 16^th place overall Trevor 29^th and Charles 35^th.

Congratulations to all the athletes from other provinces who put on strong performances especially Allison Hooper 1^st, Gabrielle Edwards 2^nd and Marianne Hogan 3^rd in the Junior Girls, and Connor Hammond 1^st, Matt Vierula 2^nd and Marc-Antoine Christin 3^rd in the Junior Guys.

The team is now looking forward to there Canada Games training camp in Victoria to train with the BC team starting July 25^th which will lead them into their final race’s of the year which is Canada Games which takes place between August 15^th – 22^nd.

You can see some great pictures of the race here taken by Mark Bates from the BC team.

Quick Junior National Update

Here's a quick update from today's Junior race. We woke up to dark skys and by 11 o'clock the rain was pouring on and off with some thunder rumbling in the distance. In the Junior girls race Racheal placed 10th and Stevie placed 11th. In the Junior Guy's race Josh placed 16th, Trevor placed 29th and Charles placed 34th in his first ever junior draft legal race. Mark flatted less than a kilometer in to the bike. Riley crashed going into his second lap on the bike. Results are here: guys and girls.

Here is a video of Riley crashing

Past couple of weeks and Canada Games Team announced

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks since we got back from Montreal. When we returned we got right back into training to get ready for Nationals which is coming up next weekend in Gatineau, Quebec. We returned from Montreal on Monday and some of the highlights of the next week included 6 x 1km around 5km pace, tempo/threshold run workout and swim/bike brick at Bird's Hill, and later on in the week mini tris back at Bird's Hill.

On June 28th Sarah-anne competed at the Hy-Vee ITU Elite Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. She also competed in the Hy-Vee ITU Triathlon Team World Championships, which took place the following day. Both races were very exciting to watch with a incredible sprint finish by Simon Whitfield to take the win, Andrew McCartney from B.C winning the swim prime, Lauren Groves running up from the chase pack to 3rd and the relay team of Lauren Groves, Brent McMahon, Kathy Tremblay, and Simon Whitfield winning the bronze medal. The next week we kept up the training with bike testing including a 16.5 km time trial, 6 x 1km, and mini tris at Bird’s Hill.

So heading into Nationals, Mark is ranked 3rd in the Junior Series, Riley tied for 18th , Trevor and Josh just outside of the top 20. On the girls side Rachael is ranked 6th and Stevie 7th.

Just today Stevie ran a new personal best in the 5km at the Athletics Manitoba Provincial Championships / CSG trials.

The Canada Games selection has finally been made. The games will be held in Summerside Prince Edward Island, with the Individual Sprint Triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) being held on August 18th and the Team Triathlon (300m swim, 7km bike, 2km Run) being held on August 21st. The Manitoba triathlon Roster for the 2009 Canada Games is:
Female
Sarah-anne Brault
Rachael Edwards
Stevie Moore

Male
Joshua Drad
Riley MacCharles
Mark Okany
Alternate - Trevor Penner

Team Manitoba Girls

Sarah-anne Brault

Rachael Edwards

Stevie Moore

Team Manitoba Guys

Joshua Drad

Riley MacCharles

Mark Okany

Alternate - Trevor Penner