Race Coverage

Cooley & Guenther Claim Winter Nationals Titles...

Tuesday, 31 January 2017 23:10

ED. As promised, here is USAT's coverage of last Sunday's Winter Triathlon (Duathlon) National Championship in St. Paul:

By USA Triathlon (January 30, 2017)

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The 2017 USA Triathlon National Championships season opened Sunday with Minnesotans Sean Cooley and Jan Guenther capturing overall amateur titles at the USA Triathlon Winter Triathlon National Championships, held as part of the King Boreas Winter Triathlon at Lake Phalen....

Originally scheduled to be contested as a 5-kilometer run, 19.5-kilometer bike, 6-kilometer cross country ski event, the course was changed to a 5k run, 19.5k bike, 3k run in the days before the event due to a lack of snow.

Cooley (St. Paul, Minn.) posted a time of 1 hour, 17 minutes, 28 seconds to beat out last year’s champion Joel LaFrance (Plymouth, Minn.) by more than 1 minute. In addition to the overall title, Cooley, who finished second overall last year, successfully defended his 30-34 age group title, while LaFrance won the 35-39 age group title with a final time of 1:18:39. Chris Ganter (Boise, Idaho) finished third overall and second in the 35-39 age group in 1:19:34.

“It was only 29 degrees, but with the wind it felt quite a bit lower. I think with the wind chill it was probably into the single digits, and you definitely felt that on the bike in the feet, and at the start of the run, too,” said Cooley, who races in triathlon events year-round as part of Team Every Man Jack. “I wish we could have skied. It was great to do a duathlon but I knew there were some really strong skiers behind me that would have made things a little more interesting.”  READ MORE