By Athlete Ray Moran
“Congratulations! Your standing in the 2023 USAT National Rankings has qualified you for a spot on AG Team USA in the Long Course Duathlon.” This email from USA Triathlon (USAT) arrived on April 11, 2024, inviting me to compete in the 2024 World Triathlon Duathlon World Championships, in Zofingen, Switzerland, then followed by a second mail inviting me to race the Standard (Olympic) distance duathlon in Townsville, Australia. At the time, I was preparing to leave for London, England, to race in the London Marathon, focused on the Abbott World Marathon Majors, and was confused about what this offer was. I hadn’t heard of this, didn’t apply for them, and had to ask my coach Maria Simone if this was a legitimate offer.
I always equated Olympians racing for Team USA, and had no idea these championships were focused on age-group athletes, similar to the local races I compete in throughout New Jersey. Maria is highly involved with USA Triathlon, and immediately sent an article describing World Triathlon, and the World Championships, and described Zofingen as one of the toughest long-course duathlons due to its location in the Swiss Alps, and Townsville as a flat, fast course along the ocean and Great Barrier Reef, which would attract many fast New Zealanders and Australians. I’m more of a short-course racer than a long-course, and Townsville sounded like the better option for me.
Maria and I had many long discussions about how we could do this, I was intrigued about racing for Team USA in an age-group competition, I never thought I’d have a chance to wear that uniform, and started looking into it. I quickly learned World Triathlon is the governing body for Triathlon, USA Triathlon is one of 170 federations that send athletes to the Olympics, and also to these World Championships, which are focused on amateur athletes. World Triathlon recently merged with the Professional Triathletes Organization (PTO), becoming a second option for multisport racers to the World Triathlon Corporation, a private firm that has the Ironman branded races. The World Championships are organized into six separate events by age-groups, with different distance options for each:
○ Triathlon (Sprint, Standard/Olympic Distance, Long Course, Super Sprint Time Trial)
○ Duathlon (Sprint, Olympic, Long Course)
○ Aquathlon (Olympic)
○ Aquabike (Olympic, Long Course)
○ Cross (Triathlon and Duathlon; distances vary by location)
○ Winter (Run, bike ski; distances vary by location)
I learned you can qualify for Worlds by placing in the top 3 of your age-group at World Championships; placing in the top 18 at the National Championships (many of us have received invitations from USAT to compete at the National Championships, recently in Milwaukee and this year Atlantic City); or rankings, which consider those athletes who finished in the top 20 of their age-group. Rankings are how I received my invitation, through roll-downs similar to those for Ironman races. I learned Townsville is in Queensland, Australia, north of Brisbane on the coast. While Australia is a Southern Hemisphere country, and it’s now winter, it’s in the northeastern portion of the country, and temperatures are still warm, in the 70s during the day. Better yet, the course is along the ocean, following the Great Barrier Reef, and I was hooked.
I registered and set off to sort out the logistics of a World Championship. Team USA is highly organized to support their athletes, with volunteers heading key roles in coordinating with World Triathlon, the host country triathlon organizations, and major vendors including hotels, bike transportation, Visas, supplemental health insurance (you must have health coverage abroad to be accepted), sightseeing options, athletes parade, team uniforms (both race and parade, you MUST wear or show your official country race kit when registering on-site for race-bibs), practice workouts and social events.
USAT maintains private Facebook sites for the athletes and uses the Teamwork app to disseminate information on the races, communicate and coordinate with athletes and vendors, and have monthly Team USA Town Halls on Zoom, discussing all of the above while hosting vendors, allowing athletes to ask questions and make decisions. As a newbie and late registrant, I opted for the team Hotel, wanting to meet fellow team members, be near team activities, and most importantly be close to others when something goes wrong!
Bike options are daunting for these races, with a choice of shipping your bike or renting from a local provider. Many of us spend countless hours with bike fitters, tuning our bikes to our bodies and learning how they react, and I wanted that comfort level on my bike as compared to renting a road bike and taking a chance on getting a good fitting. Airlines will check bikes on their flights, but that requires a good bike case you trust (we’ve all heard the stories of broken or damaged bikes while shipped to races), taking the bike apart, wrapping it in protective foam and padding, and reassembling on-site. There are many horror stories of airlines having strict bike case allowance measurements, and the final issue that ruled out my trying this approach is local airlines: while Quantas would take my bike on the first two international flight connections, the second transfer was on a domestic flight to Townsville, and we were advised to get guarantees in writing our bikes would be on that same flight, as often delayed due to smaller planes.
I’ve had too many lost bags flying, let alone with two connections, and gratefully took the option of using Bikeflights, a bike shipping company that picked my bike up, got it to Townsville, and reassembled it (as an option I took). As an island nation, Australia also has a potential two-week quarantine on goods shipped into the country, for concerns about agricultural contamination, and not something I wanted to chance. One less issue to stress over!
I’m writing this on the 17-hour flight from JFK airport to Auckland, NZ, which is going well. The one item I wasn’t aware of is the need for a transit Visa in New Zealand. Fortunately, the Quantas team was very helpful, and showed me how to get that Visa online in a matter of minutes. I found three other Team USA athletes while waiting to board, all in our USA gear and happy to meet fellow team members. I’m one of 300 in Team USA, and while there are larger team events during the seven days I’ll be here, they organize the athletes into smaller groups by race and age, and experienced team members volunteer to lead these smaller groups, organizing swims, bikes, runs, social activities, etc. This sounds great, as getting 300 people to do anything on time and in a coordinated manner is like herding chickens, even with experienced racers.
In my next blog, I’m planning to discuss Townsville, things to do, cultural and food choices, and explore the city. The athlete’s parade is Thursday, with 2,000 athletes from 40 countries marching in parade kits and flags, this should be quite an experience. I booked an excursion to a national park, where we’ll meet koala bears, and my race on Sunday plus the other events. So far so good. I have my first shakeout run on the course at sunrise Wednesday, and an afternoon bike on the course, learning both. Looking forward to sharing stories of Townsville and the course to follow.