TV sport correspondent and budding Triathlete Craig Doyle was kind enough to take a break from both his busy TV schedule and his dedicated tri training on his Focus Cayo road bike to write us his thoughts on the Olympic Triathlon next week.

Isn’t it funny the things people notice?

I was belting around the Wicklow hills on Sunday trying to put in a few decent miles after months out injured, when out of no where this chap (who was far too big for is lycra cycling gear) came along side me. Now I was 50 km into my ride and facing yet another climb, so was in no mood for a chat.

“Wiggle” he said.

I was thinking who is this sick b*****d who wants me to wiggle?

“What”, I replied

“I see you got your bike from Wiggle”, he said.

The guy was right, although I don’t think he was referring to the tiny Wiggle sticker that takes up the smallest part of my bike, but he was obviously aware that my full carbon Focus Cayo is only available here from the good people at wiggle.co.uk. This was the main focus of my new friends’ conversation. He was thinking of buying a bike off the net and wanted to know what I thought.

“Buy it” I replied, and pushed away from ‘porno bike guy’.

I was a panting mess of chamois cream and sweat when a guy on a mountain bike came along side me – “nice bike” he said in a thick Spanish accent “I like Focus, but what is this Wiggle” - he obviously had eagled eyes and had spotted the sticker. He loved the idea of buying off the net and I think they might be getting an order from a Jose from Bilbao very soon.

Anyway Jose and I got chatting and before long I was boring the nuts off him about triathlon. He was adamant that Javier Gomez would win the men’s race. There is no doubt the Spaniard is some performer, I’ve watched him up close a few times covering the race for the BBC, and in full flow he is very impressive. With 7 wins from 8 races this season, bookies rightly have the current World Champion as favourite; I’ll certainly be backing him….

The race to fill the rest of podium is pretty open; Brad Kahlefeldt is only ranked 7th in the world but has raced just 3 times this season with a second place each time. I like the Australian (although his coach was a right rude shit to me at the worlds in 07’) and fancy him getting some silverware.

The Kiwi Bevan Docherty has been on the tail of Gomez this season; he could well add silver to the won he bagged in Athens.

It’s been an up and down season for the 2006 World Champion Tim Don, he was pipped in the run by his junior Will Clarke at the nationals, but he says he held back a little – it could be quite a battle between the two Brits in Beijing, I expect Clarke to be there or there-abouts.

And just for all the fathers out there trying to train and do night-feeds, Simon Whitfield knows our pain. With 1 win from his 3 races this season the Sydney Olympic champion could well be in the mix.

As for the Women’s race it’s hard to look past another Vanessa Fernandez/Emma Snowsill battle - but this is triathlon and as this years World Championships proved anything can happen out there. In saying that, with 3 wins from 3 World cup races and a rip roaring run, I think its Snowsills gold. Hopefully the GB team are putting ice cubes in the Ming Tomb reservoir for Helen Tucker.

The new World Champion relished the icy Canadian waters in June, when the favourite Fernandez fell away. Helen is one of the nicest athletes you will ever meet. Her man Mark provided one of the defining moments of the Athens race when he carried his bike into transition after puncturing, perhaps Helen can give us another memorable moment, but up on the podium.

Sadly Ireland’s Gavin Noble didn’t make it but Emma Davies is Beijing bound, in fact she is the first Irish triathlete to qualify for the Olympics. It a special moment for her, as she has gone through a bit of tug and pull between the British and Irish unions of late. The bookies have her at 2500 – 1 for gold or 300 – 1 for a medal of any colour.

The Team GB athletes are now on the Korean island of Jeju for their preparation camp ahead of the Games. The Olympic triathlon will be held at the Ming Tomb Reservoir, to the north of Beijing, on 18 and 19 August.

Like most of the triathletes, I don’t know a huge amount about the course. It looks like a straightforward lap of the reservoir (no jumping out and diving in again for the cameras), followed by 6 laps of the bike course. It looks a bit technical at the start followed by some long fast stretches. It finishes up with four laps of the run course. One of the major issues is the smog. Shockingly American Triathlete Jarred Shoemaker said when he raced there he could barely speak after the race due to it. He said it was almost burning the backs of their throats - just another factor to add to the possible punctures, crashes and elbows in the head during the course of the Olympics toughest event.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under News & Press, Athlete Diaries, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.