Aussie Men Ready To Light Up Birmingham Commonwealth Games

Following the spectacular opening ceremony at Alexander Stadium earlier this morning, where Australia led out the athlete parade of nations, it’s now down to business where the stage is set for another classic Commonwealth Games battle as triathlon makes its fifth appearance. The first medal of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games will be raced and won in the triathlon sprint distance at Sutton Park, just outside Birmingham, with Australia represented by Charlotte McShane, Natalie Van Coevorden and Sophie Linn in the women’s event and Brandon Copeland, Jacob Birtwhistle and Matthew Hauser representing the Aussie men.

The sprint-distance course takes place over a 750m swim of Powell’s Pool lake in Sutton Park before transitioning to a fast 4-lap 20km bike through the city streets and rounding off with a 2-lap, 5km run course back in Sutton Park. Team Australia have been building through the season with Matt Hauser coming into an impressive run of form landing his first WTCS podium in Hamburg after 4th place in Yokohama. Matt has the added motivation to make the podium this year after finishing fourth at the Gold Coast Games in 2018 by just two seconds.

Matt is 10th in the international rankings, and he will go head-to-head with New Zealand’s world No.1 Hayden Wilde, as well as English star Alex Yee, who is ninth.

I’ve always known those performances are there in me, but it’s nice to finally get some bang for my buck

While 2018 silver medallist Birtwhistle and face of the new generation Copeland will be ready to show their potential as they hit the starting line.