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Clarke And Blatchford Ready To Kick Off 2012 Season

  • By Paul Moore
  • Published February 9, 2012

Will Clarke and Liz Blatchford begin their 2012 season this weekend as they take to the start line at the 2012 Geelong ITU Sprint Triathlon Premium Oceania Cup in Australia.

Olympic hopefuls, Clarke and Blatchford, are part of the UK Sport Lottery funded British Triathlon World Class Programme’s 2012 squad and are acutely focussed on gaining selection for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The two athletes are currently training in Australia until the ITU World Triathlon Series event in Sydney in April. They will use the sprint triathlon event as an early season test as they build towards the opening race of the Series, and the first significant opportunity to achieve British Triathlon’s Olympic selection criteria.

Clarke finished the 2011 season ranked ninth in the world with his two highlight performances including a second place finish in the Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Series Hamburg and top-five finish in the 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Series Kitzbühel.

Clarke commented: “I’m really excited to get out there amongst it for the first race of my 2012 season. I’ve been training really hard out in Australia and want to blow away the cobwebs with a good hard race. I’m in decent shape but you never know with the first race of the season, the Australians are always strong at this time of year, so it’s just a see how it goes race.”

Blatchford is one of the most consistent British performers, delivering three top-ten performances throughout the 2011 season and finishing eighth at the 2011 Dextro Energy Triathlon – ITU World Championship Grand Final in Beijing.

Blatchford echoed Clarke’s comments, adding: “Training in Australia has been good and I’m looking forward to testing my form this weekend in the Geelong sprint event. I will use it to help me to find some speed and get race ready for the bigger races of the season. I’ll be racing the Mooloolaba World Cup followed by Sydney, San Diego and Madrid WTS in my effort to gain Olympic Selection.”

Blatchford and Clarke aren’t the only British athletes racing this weekend. The 2012 Bridgetown ITU Sprint Triathlon Pan American Cup will also welcome Kerry Lang andVanessa Raw in the women’s race and Ritchie Nicholls and Harry Wiltshire in the men’s event.

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Paul Moore

Paul Moore

Paul Moore is the Online Editor for Triathlete Europe. When not glued to a computer he can be found writing books - most recently Ultimate Triathlon: A complete training guide for long-distance triathletes which you can buy on Amazon