Findlay, Jones, Yorke bring experience to triathlon team
Six-member Canadian Pan Am squad mixture of experience, youth
A half dozen athletes, loaded with international experience and talent will make up Canada's triathlon team for the Pan Am games, July 10-26 in southern Ontario. Five-time World Triathlon Series winner Paula Finlay heads up the team along with World Cup medallist Kyle Jones and Andrew Yorke, both local competitors.
The Canadian Olympic Committee and Triathlon Canada named three women and three men – combining a mixture of veterans loaded with Olympic and Commonwealth Games experience along with rookies – to Canada's Pan American Games Team. Four of the six athletes have won medals in World Triathlon Series, World Cup, or at World Championship level races.
Olympian and five-time World Triathlon Series winner Findlay of Edmonton is joined by Ellen Pennock of Calgary and Joanna Brown from Carp, Ont. in the women's race, to be held July 11. A World Cup silver medallist, Pennock represented Canada at the Commonwealth Games last year. Brown has won medals at both the Under-23 and Junior World Championships. Amelie Kretz of Blainville, Que. was originally selected to the Pan American Games Team but will not be able to race due to injury. Kretz captured her second World Cup medal earlier this year in Australia, and finished a career-best ninth on the World Triathlon Series earlier this month. She is expected to be back on the start line before the end of the season.
"I'm thrilled to be named to Canada's Pan Am Games team and I'm very excited to race on home soil. It's an honor to be amongst the best athletes in Canada who have been chosen to compete across all different sports, " Findlay said. "Being a part of Team Canada at a major Games brings a huge amount of pride. This will be one of my targeted races this season, along with our two Olympic qualifying events in Rio and Chicago. I'm looking forward to racing with teammates Ellen and Joanna in front of a Canadian crowd!"
Two hometown boys, Kyle Jones of Oakville, Ont. and Andrew Yorke, from Caledon East, Ont.) lead the men's team. A World Cup medallist, Jones has raced in all major international triathlon competitions, while Yorke placed fourth at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Tyler Mislawchuk, a 20-year-old rising star from Oak Bluff, Man. and the top performer in the men's program this year with a career-best 10th-place finish on the World Triathlon Series, rounds out the Canadian squad.
The team will stage their final training sessions at Kingbridge Conference Centre and Institute in King City, ON, on July 5 before arriving in Toronto on July 8. Triathlon is first out of the gate at Ontario Place West Channel with the women's race set for July 11 followed by the men on July 12.