I thought that the 1/2IM in Ottawa last weekend was a qualifier for Canberra. As for qualifiers in the west, probably Stony, Victoria or Oliver.

Didn't they announce Stony as the Cdn Champs in 2004 after it was sold out?

yes, the Canadian Half Iron race in Ottawa on Sep 3rd was a Canberra LC World's qual race. Don't know about others.

Most likely! GWN Registration opens Sept. 15... and no word from trican. GWN will fill quickly.

I would like to go to Canberra, might just have to ask to be on the team at this rate.

I'm signed up for Oliver at least...

Probably do Sylvan Lake or Morden too.

At least the NB half in Victoria only opens thier registration a month ahead. That rules!!

Morden?

Morden, Manitoba. 100km SW of Winnipeg.

Morden International Triathlon.
A little known half-iron in the middle of the prairies. Usually around 200 entrants? Takes place 3rd weekend of July every year. Not usually that competetive (based on times I have seen), so if your fast.. picking up an IMC slot (they have 10) would probably be easy.

Always wanted to make the trek from Calgary, now that my buddy has moved to Winnipeg (pity his soul), I may do the 14 hour drive. Although.. I grew up in Regina.. so I stop half-way.

That would have been nice to know!

I haven't been back to Ottawa since I lived there 8 years ago.. would have been nice to head out for a race there!
Although, I'm just getting back in shape after my ironman at the start of August... so probably would have suffered!

Thanks. Been to Manitoba once, no need to return. I hate driving and I'm too cheap to fly anywhere.

IIRC, other than the Ottawa (Central qualifier) race last weekend, Victoria Half was the West qualifier for both left-over spots for 2005 (Denmark) and 2006 (Canberra). The East qualifier was St. George (end of July) as I recall.

No word yet from TriCan about 2006 races that may be used as qualifiers and won't be until sometime in the Spring judging from what happened this year. Likely the same races will be used to offer any remaining slots for 2006 and to qualify folks for 2007.

Just send TriCan an email with your race results from this year. The long course team is never full (unlike the short course team, although I heard a rumour that they couldn't give away all of the spots at Caledon this year for various reasons I won't speculate on yet, can anyone confirm this?) so there's a good chance they'll be willing to offer you a spot based on your season's results. I did that last year and got a spot for Denmark this year, and will be doing the same for Canberra.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew. Lynds and I are definitely in for Canberra... however we get our spots.

Sounds like the whole LC world's qualifying process is somewhat of a joke to TriCan.

Maybe time to change the qualifying process to something like:
- time standard based on age
- top 5 in AG at any half-im.

Talking to my buddy on the UK team.. anyone who wanted to race for them could... I'm not sure I agree with that either...

I've also heard that you can 'qualify' for the LC worlds very easily - just do a long course race sometime this season (or next!) and do reasonably well and you're there. Slots are never completely taken.

On a related note, is there a race website for the Canberra race?

ccy

http://www.canberrahalf.com/
This is for the Canberra Half. They might get a new domain name for the Worlds sometime in 2006.

Indeed, ITU LC worlds clearly isn't a priority for TriCan. What is a priority is the World Cup circuit and Olympic worlds.

Not sure that qualifying is quite a joke, but its definitely in their interests to send as many capable people as they can. On the little TriCan flier I received this year, it says something along the lines of "All long course races serve as qualifiers" so just send them some race results, and you're probably good to go. For the qualifying races, the minimum standard is top X in your age group, where X is the number of spots available at that race, but they do have a roll-down process, similar to the one for Kona at Ironman races, except slots can't go across age groups and genders for ITU races.

Along the lines of what you heard for Team GB, I understand that in 2004 in Sater, Barry Sheply and C3 took a crew of athletes over, supplementing the existing team, including a few people who had never done a triathlon before. While I wasn't there, I understand this had a few people's knickers in a knot, as this is supposed to be a World Championship event, and they were apparently keeping a bit separate from the rest of the team. But, this is another topic for another time, preferably not in an online forum.

Andrew