ARTICLE - "Wanted: World-class triathletes"

TORONTO - They are looking beyond the horizon and under their own feet.
Triathlon Canada officials refuse to wait for the next Paula Findlay and Simon Whitfield to emerge from the faceless mass of athletic talent in this country. They could end up waiting a lifetime or more to unearth another pair of gems like that.
The national umbrella body for the increasingly popular, if gruelling, triple-segment sport has embarked on a two-pronged search for potential world-class triathletes.
So they’re fertilizing around the roots ... and watering partway up the tree, too.
“Part B is the kids because the next generation of triathletes takes 12 years to cultivate, and 100 things can go wrong in that time,” says Barrie Shepley, Triathlon Canada coach and former coach at Mac.
“The other part is to find the Gwen Jorgensens.”
Jorgensen has her own, instant, corner in triathlon lore. A college swimmer in Wisconsin who wouldn’t make the U.S. Olympic team, she turned to triathlon in 2010 and the very next year was the silver medallist at the world championships.
“Think of Jesse Lumsden and bobsled,” Shepley says. “A great athlete in another sport and he made the transition. You can do that in triathlon, too. We’re looking for that athlete who has just missed the Olympic team in his or her sport.”
Preferably, that sport would be swimming, biking or distance running — the three pillars of triathlon and “Iron Man” — so the athlete instantly moves closer to the front of the triathlete pack in that segment of triathlon.
Whitfield, who won the first Olympic triathlon 12 years ago, joins Shepley and four-time paratriathlon medallist Grant Darby of Hamilton as the Johnny Appleseeds of triathlon. They want to identify and recruit, from the kids and from the already developed athletes.
“I’d like the other sports to recognize more that we are a complementary sport to theirs,” Whitfield told The Spec as he, Darby and Shepley addressed a group of students at Rene Gordon Elementary Health and Wellness Academy in North York on Tuesday.
“For instance, the dropout rate at the age of 13 in swimming is incredible. Swimming clubs should look at forming a triathlon club and it would keep a lot more of those kids swimming longer.
“I started in triathlon at the age of 11, and that’s definitely an advantage. But there are lots of athletes who can make the quick transition, too. You don’t have to swim well enough to beat Ryan Cochrane to swim in the triathlon.”
Whitfield concedes that Triathlon Canada’s “Tri This” campaign was drawn from the successful American program and ones currently employed by Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
“And we’ve given it our own spin.”
Whitfield won the debut triathlon Olympic gold in one of the most memorable finishes of the Sydney Games, took a dramatic silver eight years later and is one of the few men who’ve competed in all four Olympic triathlons. After he broke his collarbone during the transition from swim to bike — “I have a lot of speed-bump jokes now” — early in the Olympic race in London, he said his Olympic career was over and he would move into the longer, harder Iron Man and Endurance Games events.
He’ll compete at the Endurance Games in Barrie in late June (and has a hand in organizing the series) and will test the Iron Man later in the year, but he’s slightly hedging his bets on the Olympics. He told a group of his potential successors at Mac over the weekend that if “they leave the door open” for him he’ll “come through it. But I don’t expect they’ll leave that door open.”
While the quickest way for Canada to develop world-class triathletes may be to second them from other sports — and Shepley says that will only be funded if they demonstrate the physiology necessary to reach elite status — it’s just as important or more so to feed the development system at the grassroots level.
So, “Tri This” aims to make triathlon attractive to youngsters, emphasizing the fun, variety and fitness components. Whitfield, who’s been travelling with his two young daughters this week, captivated his young audience with a variety of public-speaking tricks Tuesday. He’s a natural teacher … and recruiter.
The site of Tuesday’s talk was no accident. Rene Gordon Elementary is a Fit For Life school and has a full-time physical-education teacher, with every child receiving four in-gym, and one in-class phys. ed. classes per week. Whitfield is an advocate of youth fitness and his mother, Linda, is well-known in national educational circles for her work in trying to make daily phys. ed. compulsory across the country.
He and Shepley know that, with the emergence of Britain’s Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny (winners of the Olympic gold and bronze medals), triathlon has entered a new era and Canada cannot just hope that someone of that ability and commitment happens to take up the sport here.
“Simon is committed,” Shepley says, “to finding his replacement.”