Just one more night until the athletes get ready to compete at the Winter Triathlon World Championships in Strbske Pleso, Slovakia. Most of the big guns of this new sport are present to try to steal the titel from current World Champions Sigrid Lang (Germany) and Sigi Bauer (Austria).

Most of the athletes arrived earlier this week in order to prepare properly for this year’s biggest event in WT. Good snow conditions and clear weather welcomed the competitors, who took the opportunity to train on the course every day.
Unfortunately weather conditions changed on friday morning, when snow began to fall, which gave the organisers a hard time in preparing the course once again. Temperatures wide under zero don’t make it easier both for athletes and organisers to prepare for this competition.

Despite these small problems, a great course has been set up for tomorrow’s race, as Ladislav Kuril, the main race organiser told the athletes at today’s technical briefing held at 16.00. After going through the details, he spoke about the possibility to cut the number of laps - 4 laps of running (6,4 K), 8 laps of MTB (13,6 K) and 4 laps of cross country skiing (11,6) - if new snow (30 centimeters are expected for tonight) is coming down.

At the great opening ceremony held open air, all 16 nations were present to listen to Les McDonald (ITU president), Jan Mokos (mayor of Visoké Tatry). They greeted the athletes and the big crowd of spectators who – despite the freezing temperatures – passionately watched the performance of the native folk dance groups.

So the new snow might make it for all the athletes hard to perform well tomorrow in this freezer Strbske Pleso. Many of them will try to reach for the Winter Triathlon crown tomorrow: Sigi Lang will surely do her best to stay on the throne, while Marianne Vlasveld (NED), Camilla Hott Johansen (NOR) and Sarka Grabmüllerova (CZE) might have other ideas who the gold medal sholuld go to. Carina Wasle (AUT) is the big favourite for the U23’s competition.

Although current champ Sigi Bauer is ready to defend his title tomorrow, there are plenty of candidates for gold: local Patrik Kuril, Nove Mesto’s hero Thomas Schrenk (GER), Holmenkollen’s winner Alf Roger Holme (NOR), current European silver medalist Nicolas Lebrun (FRA) and bronze medalist Victor Lobo (ESP) will try their best to win the race.
So watch out for tomorrow’s competition, there is a good chance to have another great thriller in Winter Triathlon (press release and pictures on www.triathlon.org and www.etu-triathlon.org).