The 2010 GE Edinburgh ITU Duathlon World Championships are set to take place this weekend. World titles will be contested at Edinburgh’s iconic, and very hilly, Holyrood Park – one of the most challenging courses ever used for an ITU Duathlon World Championships, as confirmed by those athletes already at the race site.
The Edinburgh crowd will be hopeful of a home win from former World and European Champion, Catriona Morrison, who lives and trains in Broxburn, a few miles away from Holyrood Park. She has scored victories on the Ironman circuit this season, including Ironman Lanzarote – where she won despite stopping to help a fellow athlete who had dangerously crashed and then waiting forty minutes by the roadside after her chain snapped.
Morrison will have to overcome the European Champion, Ruth Van der Meijden (NED) and runner-up Katie Ingram (GBR) from the ETU Duathlon European Championships in Nancy, France (1 May, 2010). Van der Meijden was also 4th at the ITU Duathlon World Championships in Concorde, USA, last year.
The 2009 defending champion, Vendula Frintova (CZE), is not racing this year, but runner up, Sandra Levenez (FRA) will be. The women’s line up also includes Gwen Jorgensen (USA), an exceptionally fast runner and one to watch. She was second earlier this year at the World University Games Triathlon.
In the elite men’s event Sergey Yakovlev (RUS) starts as number one based on his current world number one ranking. Manuel Del Corral Morales (ESP) is number two and was second at the ETU Duathlon European Championships this year in Nancy (FRA).
Damien Derobert (FRA) won silver behind the USA’s Jarrod Shoemaker last year in Concord. Shoemaker is not racing as he will contest the ITU World Championships Grand Final in Budapest.
Bryan Keane will carry Ireland’s hopes, the former professional cyclist turned triathlete was seventh at the recent ITU World Sprint Championships in Lausanne.
Joerie Vansteelant features in a strong Belgian team. Although the distance might not suit him, the former World Long Distance Duathlon champion will be one of the best known international names at the event. His late older brother, Benny, was one of the best duathletes the world has ever known.
The GE Great Britain men’s team features Adam Bowden, who has successfully converted from athletics to triathlon through British Triathlon’s trigold programme and recorded a second place finish at the 2010 Geneva ITU Triathlon European Cup (15 August).
Local Scottish athlete, Ritchie Nicholls will race for the GE Great Britain team in the Under 23 event. He is a former European Under 23 triathlon champion, having beaten Alexander Brukhankov (RUS) in 2007.
The elite races will be preceded on Friday by the elite Paraduathletes race and on Saturday by amateur athletes racing for world duathlon titles in their age group. Scotland and Great Britain will be well represented alongside athletes from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
