This weekend eight athletes from the North West Triathlon Club will make the trip to Athlone to compete at the European Triathlon Championships. The event will be the largest triathlon ever held in Ireland and one of the biggest triathlon events on the continent this year with over 4,000 participants expected. The races taking place over the weekend include partriathlon, try-a-tri, relay events, age group sprint and olympic distance triathlons and junior & senior elite men & women's triathlon.
Derry's Paul McConnellogue, Jarlath Fearon, Frankie Dunlop and Joe Doherty together with Aoife Logan from Buncrana will all compete in the age group sprint distance race going off early on Saturday morning. Carndonagh man Patrick McLaughlin and Dublin-based Derry man Mickey McBride will go off on Sunday morning in the age group olympic distance race. These races will put the best age group triathles from across Ireland and the rest of Europe against each other as they battle it out for a podium finish and their chance to break into triathlon's pro circuit.
Aileen Morrison will compete on Saturday afternoon in the elite women's race. Morrison will race athletes such as Helen Jenkins of Great Britain, 2008 world champion and Olympic silver medalist and 2007 World Champion Vanessa Fernades of Portugal. The elite men race on Sunday with the current world champion Ailstair Brownlee of Great Britain expected to dominate. However the threat from the Russians and the Germans together with former world and European champion, Javier Gomez of Spain, it looks set to be close encounter for the men.
TV coverage of the entire event will be shown on RTE on Sunday 4th July at 8.30pm and race results will be available from www.triathlone.com
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