Triple gold tastes pretty sweet for Victoria triathlete Colette Reimer, who has accomplished the feat at the Canada Summer Games this week in Welland, Ont.
Reimer, who opened the week Monday by winning the women’s sprint distance triathlon in a time of one hour, six minutes and 16 seconds, and added a gold in the super-sprint event on Thursday, climbed to the top of the podium for a third time Friday (Aug. 12) as part of B.C.’s mixed relay team.
The up-and-coming 21-year-old star, along with fellow Greater Victoria resident Daniel Damian, West Vancouver’s Sidney Clement and Trevor Laupland of Kamloops, recorded a combined time of 1:38.45 to beat silver medallist Quebec by 83 seconds.
“It was so fun to race the relay. Everyone executed their strengths today and just helped us get a bit of a gap and keep opening it up,” Reimer told Triathlon Canada.
The mixed relay format saw athletes each complete a 300-metre swim, an eight-kilometre bike course and a 1.6K run. Clement had B.C. in the lead when she handed off to Damian, who extended his team’s advantage. He was coming off a pair of silver medals in the individual events this week.
Doing the third leg, Reimer kept B.C. in front by the time she handed off to Laupland, who put in a solid performance to assure the team of gold.
“I wanted to keep working, because even though we had a bit of a lead, I wanted to hand over to Trevor with as much of a lead as possible. In the relay you just never know what can happen,” Reimer said.
For Damian, 19, changing the colour for his third medal finished things off in style.
“It went great today. Went right to plan and bringing it home for B.C. never felt better,” he said, adding the relay event always feels the best.
Reimer captured the gold in an ultra-close super sprint race (same distances as the relay) Thursday in a time of 25:57, edging Alberta’s Sophia Howell by just three seconds and Manitoba’s Anja Krueger by eight seconds.
In rainy, windy conditions for the sprint event Monday, Reimer pulled away from two close competitors in the 5K run to win gold in the 30-woman field with a time of 1:06.16, a full 16 seconds ahead of Krueger and 25 in front of Howell.
Reimer and other B.C. athletes led the 750-metre swim opener then on the 20K bike route it was Reimer, Howell and Saskatchewan’s Nata Kolesova who broke away from the pack.
Damian finished the sprint in 58:01, 18 seconds back of winner Mathis Beaulieu of Quebec City, and lost a thrilling race to the finish line in the super-sprint against Beaulieu, who won gold by a single second in 22:53.
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