Teamwork: The American Way

This blog is from American High Performance Director Scott Schnitzpan:

Teamwork: The American Way

Triathlon is an individual sport. However, now that the Olympic Qualification process with the ITU is over and Team USA has qualified three men’s and three women’s start slots for the Beijing Olympic Games, I want to take a minute to recognize the great teamwork that made it happen.

First let’s go back to Des Moines, Iowa for the ITU World Cup event in June of 2007. There, all of the American women, led out of the water and through the bike by Sara McLarty, put two and a half minutes on the field and Laura Bennett emerged from the small bike group onto the run where she was fresh enough to survive the brutal heat and tough competitors and win the race and the biggest prize in our sport at the time while qualifying for the Pan Am Games. Following that race, Laura returned the favor to Sara by giving up her Pan Am Games spot so that Sara could strengthen the American team in Rio at the Games. Sara competed in Rio with a horrible cold, but again led her teammates Julie Swail Ertel and Sarah Haskins Kortuem out of the water and onto the bike where the trio again worked flawlessly together and established an insurmountable lead onto the run where Julie seized the Gold medal and Sarah took the silver, essentially sealing the 3 women’s start positions for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Read the rest at The Triathlon Life Blog