Oceania Triathlon

After a breathless few days of World Triathlon Championship Finals action in the Galician city of Pontevedra, north west Spain, the Para athletes returned to the blue carpet on Sunday evening for only the sport’s second ever Para Mixed Relay open event.

With a view to the format’s future Paralympic inclusion, the race followed on from a successful debut in Abu Dhabi last November, six nation teams - USA (2), France, Brazil, Australia and Spain - and two world teams that also included athletes from Mexico and Japan all taking to the start line.

Each of the athletes had to complete a 125m swim, 3.5km bike and 780m run (910m for the last leg) before tagging their teammate, the key rules regarding team composition being that the wheelchair athletes had to go out first, and each contain at least one male or female. Watch on-demand coverage of the race on TriathlonLive.tv.

The experienced Italian Giovanni Achenza H1 gave Team World II a strong start with USA’s Kendall Gretsch, Mona Francis (FRA) and Jessica Ferreira (BRA) also flying.

As Owen Cravens B3 powered through his leg to clock the fastest time of the day - the only one to go under 11 minutes - and keep USA II well placed, it was Kyle Coon B1 handing off for USA I to Grace Norman, the new PTS5 World Champion looking to pull clear of compatriot Kelly Elmlinger.

Pierre Antoine-Baele (FRA) and Sam Harding B3 (AUS) put together three good disciplines to keep their teams in the hunt, Japan’s Hideki Uda continuing the good work for Team World I.

The fourth and final legs saw a brilliant comeback from Team Brazil’s Ronan Cordeiro to take the bronze, Alexis Hanquinquant helping Team France to the silver, but it was Team USA newcomer Carson Clough who brought home the gold for Team USA.

Full results are available here.