VANCOUVER (CBC)

Canada’s Simon Whitfield captured the silver medal in the men’s triathlon Tuesday at the Beijing Olympics.
Whitfield, who lives in Victoria, mounted a furious rally to briefly take the lead late in the closing sprint before being overtaken over the final stretch by Germany’s Jan Frodeno.

"I kind of fought my way on there, and I thought there’s no time like the present," Whitfield said. "I tried to make it a battle of pure willpower. I gave it everything I had."

Whitfield finished five seconds back of the surprise winner, who completed the course in one hour, 48 minutes, 53 seconds.

New Zealand’s Bevan Docherty took the bronze, 12 seconds back of Frodeno.

Pre-race favourite Javier Gomez of Spain faded late to finish fourth.

Edmonton’s Paul Tichelaar finished 28th, while Colin Jenkins of Hamilton, Ont., was 50th.

Whitfield, who won gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics before stumbling to 11th in 2004 in Athens, looked to be falling out of medal contention late in Tuesday’s race, which comprised a 1.5-kilometre swim followed by a 40-km cycling stage and a 10-km run.

But after Gomez, Frodeno and Docherty dropped him from the four-man lead pack heading into the bell lap of the final leg, Whitfield found another gear and moved into the lead on the closing straightaway.

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Victoria athlete packs pill that’s said to ease stress and boost endurance

Paul Luke, The Province

Olympic athletes groaning under the weight of overstuffed suitcases may envy Victoria’s Lauren Groves when she arrives in Beijing this week for the triathlon.

Groves will be lighter on her feet than rival triathletes who have crammed dozens of bottles of vitamins and minerals in their bags to see them through their gruelling event.

Groves, 26, avoided supplement angst by finding pretty much everything she wants in a new product called 7systems.

Aspire Sports Supplements, the company behind 7systems, has promoted the endurance sports supplement as a way to blunt the impact of Beijing smog by goosing athletes’ immune systems.

But 7systems’ long-term mainstream appeal may lie less in any smog-easing properties and more in its stress-busting simplicity.

"When we started, we targeted the endurance sports market but it’s really for anybody whose life involves excess amounts of stress," says Aspire co-founder Jasper Blake, also of Victoria.

"It’s a potent multi-vitamin, multi-mineral, multi-nutrient product designed to cover all your bases."

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Cleve Dheensaw, Canwest News Service

He sprinted to gold in the first Olympic men’s triathlon.

Refocused and rejuvenated, he heads to Beijing ready to swim, bike and run for the podium

Simon Whitfield
Born: May 16, 1975, Kingston, Ont.
Home town: Kingston, Ont.
Residence: Victoria
Height: Five foot nine
Weight: 154 pounds
On team since: 1994

Career Highlights:
- 2000 Olympic champion, becoming the first male triathlete to win a gold medal in triathlon at the Olympic Games.
- 2002 Commonwealth Games champion and 1999 Pan Am Games silver medallist.
- Finished in 11th place at the 2004 Summer Games.

In 2000, Simon Whitfield sprinted to the finish line in the shadow of the Sydney Opera House. It seems he has been trying to run out of it ever since.

The moment that has come to define him is both boon and curse. Ever since winning the inaugural gold medal in the men’s triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics, Simon Whitfield has had to live up to being Simon Whitfield.

It hasn’t always been easy.

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The Canadian Press, June 9th 2008

Colin Jenkins is on the Olympic men’s triathlon team because he’s willing to sacrifice his dreams of a medal to get teammate Simon Whitfield on the podium in Beijing.

Whitfield, the Olympic gold medallist in 2000, Edmonton’s Paul Tichelaar and Jenkins, from Hamilton, Ont., were named to the men’s team Monday by Triathlon Canada.

Jenkins was appointed to the team ahead of Victoria’s Brent McMahon, who is ranked higher than Jenkins internationally, because Triathlon Canada says Whitfield’s chances of winning a medal improve with a teammate whose sole purpose is to draft for Whitfield on the 40-kilometre bike leg of the race.

"We’re putting a team together that’s about medal contention and at the end of the day, that pressure falls on me," Whitfield said Monday from Vancouver in a conference call.

"We set this team up and I have to go perform."

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By The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Simon Whitfield of Kingston, Ont., Paul Tichelaar of Edmonton and Colin Jenkins of Hamilton, Ont., have been named to the Canadian men’s triathlon team for the Olympic Games.

Triathlon Canada made the announcement this morning following the 2008 world championship in Vancouver on Sunday.

Whitfield, an Olympic gold medallist in 2000, will compete in his third Olympics, while Tichelaar and Jenkins will make their Games debut in Beijing.

Whitfield, 33, qualified by finishing in the top eight at both a World Cup and a world championship. Tichelaar and Jenkins were nominated to the team by Triathlon Canada’s high performance committee.

The women’s triathlon team will be named within the next two weeks.

The Olympic triathlons will be held Aug. 18 and 19.

Globeandmail.com introduces Olympic triathlon champion Simon Whitfield as a regular Right to Play blogger leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. In addition to being one of the top triathletes in the world, the Victoria native is also an Athlete Ambassador for the international humanitarian organization Right To Play. Headquartered in Toronto, Right To Play uses sport and play programs to improve health, build life skills and foster peace for children and communities in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. In their roles as Right To Play Athlete Ambassadors, Simon and dozens of other top Canadian athletes inspire children, are role models for healthy lifestyle choices and help raise awareness and funding for Right To Play projects

Here’s his first entry:

A blog for globeandmail.com by a guy who runs around in his swimsuit for a living . . .

Gina Kolata , a fitness and lifestyle writer for the New York Times , has just posted her latest article under her Personal Best column. Its called "For Peak Performance, 3 Is Not Better Than 1".

When Jenny Higgins started doing triathlons, she discovered something peculiar. She had been on her high school cross country and swim teams and her college swim team. But in 2003 she started running, swimming and cycling, and tried to excel in all three at once.

“I noticed that in the pool, my legs felt very heavy,” she said. “I was dragging my legs more than I used to and it hurt my swimming.”

Other times, she would swim fluidly but feel lifeless when she ran or cycled. After five years as a multisport athlete, Ms. Higgins, now a 32-year-old postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University, said the push-me-pull-you feeling has not gone away. It made Ms. Higgins wonder something that may be on the minds of the nation’s more than 100,000 triathletes, too: Is it even possible to peak in more than one sport at once?

Click here to continue reading this article .

National Triathlon Team member Colin Jenkins has just posted the second installment of his Road to Beijing series on the Slowtwitch website. Click here to read it.

Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, April 11, 2008

TRIATHLON — The longest-running World Cup in International Triathlon Union history will be staged Sunday in Ishigaki, Japan.

A tough course in hot humid conditions will offer athletes a similar setting to the Olympic venue in Beijing. Olympic gold medallist Simon Whitfield of Victoria kicks off his 2008 season at the event.

© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008 

Colin Jenkins, a Canadian Triathlete who trains with the National Team in Victoria has recently written an article for Slowtwitch. In it he talks about his training and preparations in the months leading to the Beijing Olympic Games this August. Colin also has his own training blog – colinjenkins.blogspot.com. Click here to read his article.

From the Bermuda Sun Online Edition, published February 27, 2008

Red Bull. That stuff really gives you wings, man. It’s not the nugget of nutritional advice you might have expected from an Ironman World Champion. But Chris McCormack insists it’s what finally pushed him over the finish line to win the Hawaii event – the most gruelling athletic test in the world of sport. McCormack was on the island this week along with Xterra off-road triathlon ace Melanie McQuaid to give a series of clinics and talks to local athletes and youngsters.

Aussie McCormack finally achieved his dream of winning the 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike and marathon at Kona last year, after six years of trying, completing the course in eight hours, 15 minutes and 34 seconds. If it’s possible to imagine anything more extreme than that. Then Xterra triathlon is it. It’s not as far. A breezy Olympic distance (1.5k/40k/10k) triathlon. The catch is it’s all off-road – ocean swimming, mountain biking and trail running.

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