BEA Coach Bill Warburton has returned from Norway after helping the USA Winter Triathlon Team capture 2 gold medals at the Winter Triathlon World Championships. BEA provided all the wax and waxing equipment for this trip!
The USA sent 3 women, 2 men, a coach and Bill as Wax Tech with hopes that we could break into the medals for individuals and in the overall world cup team rankings. Emma Garrard won the US Championship in Soldier Hollow which was also a World Cup, so she was ranked #1 in the world when we arrived. After skiing, biking and running in training our althetes were feeling well rested and excited for Saturday’s main event.
In wax testing, most teams decided to go with Swix LF6 or Toko HF Blue but Warburton found Holmenkol Green to be running faster in both the very cold shade and open fields. Since skiing is the last leg, it’s very important that the skis be running well for the tired athletes.
Saturday’s race was dominated by Emma and Rebecca Dussault, a former Olympic Skier, until Emma suffered a flat tire on the last lap of the bike. She recovered to finish in 7th place while Rebecca grew her lead over the entire race and won by almost 2 minutes. This is the USA’s first World Championship Title for Winter Triathlon and judging by how well our women did on Saturday and again in the relay on Sunday, it won’t be the last. The women were ahead by 2:15 in the relay where each racer had to complete a lap on each of the courses, then relaxed a bit to win by over 1:15.
Our men had good races and were pleased to do well in such a competitive field. Brian Smith finished 12th while Jay Henry was 17th.
After Saturday’s race, Heather Best, who finished in 13th said, “Those were the fastest skis I’ve ever been on,” while Jay said, “I was reeling in people on the downhills — it was awesome!”
Warburton was happy to have provided some fast skis. “I was really happy with our wax selection so for Rebecca, who came with an arsenal of very fast skis, so we just had to choose the best pair for her based on flex and grind. Our initial thoughts were to use the cold skis, with soft flex and little structure based on what we saw on Wednesday and Thursday, but in the tests on Friday, the warm stiff skis with a bigger grind were the best, then got even better with added hand structure.” Warburton continued, “It was fun for me to test such a variety of skis for a variety of athletes. I know we had better skis than a lot of teams based on their wax choices and our athletes appreciated the help since this sport is so gear-intensive, having someone take some of pressure off for you is really nice.”
Check out video from the race here.
