Canadian women impress with eight Olympic Distance medals at World Championships

VANCOUVER – Canada picked up another 12 medals at the World Championships on Saturday, this time in the Age Group Olympic Distance, with the Canadian women combining for eight medals and the men collecting another four. Conditions were difficult yet again with the women’s 55+ and all men’s waves racing a duathlon – 3km run, 40km bike and another 10km run – after the swim portion was cancelled due to adverse weather.

Martina Wan captured Canada’ s first medal of the day in the women’s 25-29 age group, winning bronze with a time of 2:04:00. Kristina Schultz captured gold with a time of 2:03:15 in the 35-39 age group. Canada dominated the 40-44 age group, taking home both gold and bronze thanks to Stephanie Kieffer’s top performance of 2:07:57 and Lyndsey Clapperton’s time of 2:10:17 to place her third. Sheri Fraser captured the silver medal in the 50-54 age group with a time of 2:12:07; while the winning ways continue in the Murray family as Laurie – mother of World Cup champion Carolyn – took home the silver medal in the 60-64 age group with a time of 2:13:00. 65-69 was another dominant age group for Canada with Corinna Goodman and Louise McGonigal picking up the silver and bronze medals with times of 2:23:15 and 2:27:13 respectively.

On the men’s side, Michael Hay and Calvin Zaryski combined for two medals in the 40-44 age group with Hay earning the gold in 1:40:36 and Zaryski picking up the silver in 1:40:50. In the 50-54 age group, Bill Wheeler came in second place to earn silver with a time of 1:23:29; while John Pickard and Ronald J. Boucher packed a two-three punch in the 60-64 age group winning silver and bronze respectively. In the 65-69 age group, Ron Empey won silver with a time of 2:06:55; while Raymond Colliver did Canada proud in the 75-79 age group, capturing gold with a time of 2:28:17.

The World Championships culminates on Sunday with the U23 races beginning at 7:00am PST and the Elites starting at 1:00pm PST.

Photo: Kristina Shultz by Laurie Alpern, Triathlon Canada