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Sports Reporter
THE 2023-2024 triathlon season bursts into life tomorrow with a full programme lined up for the day at Mount Pleasant Pool.
The opening event of the season will also see participants gaining Series Points in all age groups.
Participants will compete in various races with the highlights of the day being the supersprint, sprint and standard races.
Triathlon Zimbabwe president Ross O’Donoghue said they are ready for their first event and is hopeful of an interesting season.
“We are very excited about the season. We have got a lot of new initiatives which we are going to introduced this season.
“We had almost a warm up event for triathlon being the duathlon event which was a few weeks ago. So, we had a fantastic team, that event went so well. We had a really good turnout, much better than we thought. So we are very excited about the start of this season.
“The temperatures are warm, the pool is beautifully clean and our team is excited about getting this season underway. And as the season progresses introducing new and exciting events that we hope are really going to take off.
“There is a lot of really exciting things which are going to be announced over the next couple of weeks.” The season runs until April, 2024. Some of the competitions they are looking forward to include the 2023 Africa Triathlon Championships due to take place from October 13 to 15 in Egypt.
Zimbabwe will be represented by Callum Smith and Rohnan Nicholson.
There are high expectations for the local competitions in which athletes compete for points throughout the season to earn qualification for competitions such as the South African Championships and the 2024 Africa Championships.
“Our juniors have got some exciting events which they need to qualify for throughout the season. First the South African Championships, which is in February next year, which is very exciting for a lot of our juniors to go on tour to South Africa and show the South Africans what we are made of.
“And then our season sort of culminate at Troutbeck which is a weekend before Easter, which is our big event of the year. We have internationals coming…And we are very excited that we are going to have, hopefully, our top seeded female athlete Andie Kuipers (based in the USA) flying out for that event.
“And we have got a couple of juniors that are already hoping to show the world what Zimbabwean athletes have got to offer,” said O’Donoghue.
The Bonaqua Africa Triathlon Cup Troutbeck remains the major event on the local calendar with elite athletes from different countries across the globe competing at the Troutbeck Resort in Nyanga.
Tomorrow’s programme of the day also includes duathlon, aquathlon and aquabike events.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter