Townsville, Queensland: the Strand, the Course, the Sun!

By Athlete Ray Moran

Townsville is a coastal city with a population of approximately 180,000, in northeastern Queensland, Australia. It’s famous for The Strand Esplanade, with beach-side piers, parks, restaurants, and pubs, and 300 days of sunshine annually. It’s located along the Great Barrier Reef, with several nearby islands popular for snorkeling, wreck diving, fishing, and beaches. Southeast of the city, the Billabong Sanctuary wildlife park is home to endless numbers of koalas, wombats, and crocodiles. Offshore, Magnetic Island has coral reefs and a national park full of wildlife.

This is the first time the World Triathlon Multisport Championships have been held in Australia, and the result of a multi-year coordinated marketing effort by AUS Triathlon, IRONMAN Oceania, the Townsville City Council, and the Queensland State Government. They’ve been rolling out the red carpet for us, the town is warmly embracing and welcoming us, and the good vibes are fueled by the recent Olympic games. Australia is having the best Olympics yet in terms of medal count, and the return of Australian athletes to Australia at the same time the Worlds athletes are arriving is thrilling!

I spent yesterday getting sorted on meeting teammates, doing recons on the run and bike courses, seeing the Worlds Expo, finding transition, and checking out The Strand. Our team hotel is about 2 miles from the Expo, start/finish, and transition areas, although an easy walk. Everything happens at The Strand, a beautiful beach-side commercial area with the ocean, beaches and running paths on one side of the roadway, and endless restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, and artisan gelato stores on the other. This is a fun area, with countless small activity areas, parks, volleyball courts, and an endless stream of walkers/runners/cyclists and scooters going back and forth, or enjoying al fresco dining. I didn’t see people swimming, possibly warned of the stingers, as these waters are highly infested in jellyfish and the locals have learned to avoid those times when they’re active. This pic shows The Strand, beaches and Palm trees lining the road.

As we gathered for the dawn run, everyone was talkative, welcoming, and eager to see the course. There’s a tremendous feeling of “team”, with experienced USA Worlds racers offering tips and comments on the process, and introducing newbies to old hands. Maria Simone is well-known to USAT and many World racers, and I received instant street cred mentioning her as my coach. Then we set off at an easy pace to head over the hill to The Strand, and see the course. The run flows through The Strand, and then wanders uphill to the Jezzine Barracks area, which are old WW II forts, bunkers, and memorials, then back along the beach, up an incline along the hills, and then back to transition.

The bike course consists of two loops of a 20 Km course, the first half is in Townsville along the two-lane commercial road through The Strand. It’s more technical than expected, with roundabouts every couple of blocks where we flow at speed through them, requiring either extreme bravery and bike handling skills doing this at speed, or braking while keeping an eye out for mayhem from those caught unaware of approaching roundabouts! This first ride through this area had heavy vehicle traffic, so we were single-file riding on the left. Yes, cars and bikes ride on the left, which means in the race we’ll be passing on the right. That’s a challenge for me, used to riding on the right side and passing left! Fortunately, we passed through this busy area without incident, then headed out on more isolated ocean-side roads towards Cape Pallarenda Park. This is a curved road following the bay ocean-side, greeting us with a headwind, but rewarding us at the turnaround with a tailwind back towards The Strand. This part of this course will be very fast, full aero and high speeds. I think I’ll race with my Garmin Varia radar, besides detecting closing cars from the rear in practice it also picks up closing cyclists, and I’m sure the Elite categories will be flying past in the race. Then onto The Strand, past the restaurants and pubs, which we’re told will be packed with cheering spectators on race-day as we cycle past. I imagine this will be good business for the pubs, helping fuel the decibel levels for the racers!

Once finished with the bike recon, it was time to move on to dinner, hydration, and meet arriving teammates. Australians love good coffee and are very fussy about quality and local preferences. Starbucks has operated in Australia for 24 years and just turned their first profit last year, a strong indicator of Aussie’s preferring local coffeehouses catering to their tastes, especially flat whites. I’ve been to Sydney and Melbourne before and quickly fell in love with this brew. And Australians love good beer, and a day isn’t complete without discussing the day with your mates and winding down with one. I love their attitude and have found several good N.A. beers to enjoy. Every type of seafood imaginable is on the menu, as is beef. Every second restaurant seems to offer their take on good steaks, although it’s not hard to find ethnic restaurants including Chinese, Indian, and Southeast Asian offerings, as Australia has a welcoming attitude towards immigration and great food.

Over lunch and dinner, we heard stories of just-arriving athletes sharing tales of woe. Many have been caught up with problems transporting their bikes on the final domestic flights to Townsville, their Apple Air tags were showing no movement from Brisbane onto their planes, no indication of when they would be shipped, and worse yet priority was given on the most-popular flight to a rugby team and their luggage coming to Townsville to play the North Queensland Cowboys, the local professional rugby team playing in Australia’s premier rugby league, the National Rugby League. There’s a game in Townsville Saturday night, we hear tickets might be available, and if it doesn’t take us too far beyond race-eve rest and sleep, tempting to see the game! Their stadium shown below is less than a mile from our team hotel, and a tempting option.

A very busy day, Thursday looks even busier with final course recons, Duathlon Q&A, and the athlete’s parade Thursday afternoon. I’m very excited about the parade, with 2,000+ athletes from 40 countries complete with flag bearers, this looks to be a spectacle.