I am also competing in the World Champ's in Sweden. From what I understand, It will be fairly level and on good roads. (don't quote me on that however). ITU rules WILL be in effect so I believe that means bar-end shifters are going to be illegal. Let me know if you find out any more of the details.

The website for the race is http://www.sater-triathlon.com if you want to check some of the details.

--Chris Parks
--crpark0@uky.edu

I a sold a guy from Sweden some bike parts on ebay. Exchanged emails a few times and he invited the wife and I over to Sweden to participate in the AG race. Unfortunately we can't make it this summer. He emailed me some info about the course. I believe it's fairly flat for both the run and bike. Water is definately wetsuit.

It's probably deleted but I'll have a look later and see if I can find the info.

When I did ITU Long Course Du Worlds' in Austria I rode a KM40 with bar end shifters, no one said they were illegal then. Unless the rules have changed since then?

I was planning on riding the new Airfoil in Sweden, with bar end shifters. You may want to email Tim Yount for a rules clarification.

From the info I have gathered it will be fast and flat with good roads. Unfortunately, the bike is shorter than usual for this type of distance. There will be some fast run times from the shorter/flatter bike leg.

The rule about bar end shifters used to be that you had to have a bridge of some sort across the end of the bars which meant that bar end shifters were illegal or you had to rig up some contraption (I had an old bottle cage cut and bent across the bars out past the end of the shifters and then taped into place) so give the appearance of the link. I had this all set up when I was in Roth in 2001 and then they told us that bar end shifters were no problem and that the rule had either been changed or was going to be ignored for the race. Our European Slowtwitchers should be able to help with this one.

On a different note .... does anyone know where and when the ITU long course worlds are for 2005? We have a qualifier for the Canadian team in Peterborough this summer but the info wasn't on the ITU website the last time I checked and I think it would be useful to know prior to accepting or declining a spot if I qualify :)

It was my understanding that the rules were ITU, not ETU, even though it was in Europe. I don't know if that matters or not. A large number of us did use bar-end shifters though. By Roth do you mean the IM distance race? That would have been ETU? It's all confusing.



I think 05 LC Tri Worlds is Fredericia, Denmark. It's where LC Du Worlds' are this year.

Allan...assuming you get a spot for 2005 LC World's at Peterborough, do you not have several days/weeks to accept/decline. I would imagine that some time after this year's SC World Champs in Madeira, ITU will announce the 2005 WC's at various distances including 2005 LC World's. I am hoping that they will be back in Nice, which is why I am going to Peterborough :-)

http://www.sater-triathlon.com/indexengl.aspx

I'd expect the ETU Champs to be run under ETU rules, but I'd find it difficult to believe that the ITU World Champs would be run under ETU rules. In any case the ETU and ITU rulebooks are one and the same:

http://www.triathlon.org/...ompetition-rules.doc

It says that bar end shifters are illegal for ITU elite short course races only.

Bar end shifters are legal for draft free events (long course)

---

=====================================
S�rgio Marques
When it hurts is when it feels good ;-)
Sergio-Marques.com

Listed below is the information that I received from the Team USA e-mail.

Swimming
4000 meters, 1 lap. Start from water.
Maximum time 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Expected water temperature is 64 – 68 F.
Air temperature 68 - 86 F.
Separate warm up area is available 30 minutes before start.
Service station at transition from swimming to biking.

Biking
Bike check in Friday evening 2 July 6 – 7:30 pm.
120 km, 3 laps of 40 km.
Lapping and transitions at the Skönvik Event Centre.
Aid stations at 14, 20, 26 and 40 km on each lap, team service in connection to the ordinary stations. Biking takes place on good asphalt roads, with a difference in level is about 60 meters. The 10 meters rules must be observed.

Running
30 kilometers within and around the town centre, 4 laps of 7.5 km.
Lapping and finish at the Skönvik Event Centre.
Aid stations every 2nd km, team service in connection to the ordinary stations. Running takes place on good asphalt roads, with a difference in level of about 30 meters

Thanks to everybody with the abundance of information...I've forwarded the relevant facts to my roommate (who is trying to get a Kestrel Airfoil built up) who's actually racing...me, I'm sticking with my sprint distances triathlons.

Dave "more than 50% fast-twitch"

Hey Devashish

When I qualified for the Olympic distance team a few years back they made you decide and pay right then. Same was true for the long course team for 2003 (worlds in Spain in early May 2003 and qualifier at the Wild Tri in 2002) so I would assume they'd put the same criteria in place again. I heard another rumour at the bike show last month that they were going to be in Denmark as someone else indicated but it would be nice to know an exact location and date prior to racing in July to try and decide if it would be a priority race or another building block for Kona.

Allan, just use it as build race for your KONA prep and if you decide to take your spot to go to World's then great. I would imagine that a guy look you can treat Peterborough as a "B" race (train like normal up to Thu, just do the standard Fri off, Sat 10 min swim, 10 min bike 10 min run) and still go 4:20 or so and nab your qual spot if you want it.