Annabel Luxford and Lisa Marangon lead the Aussie charge at ITU Triathlon Pan American Cup

Last weekend in Monroe, Washington State USA five Australians, headed by former top ITU triathlete Annabel Luxford raced and performed well. Michael Fox was the only DNF after a flat tyre and no spare put him out. In 2005 Luxford was one of the best Olympic distance triathletes in the world, finishing 1st in the ITU World Cup Rankings and second at the ITU Elite World Championships in Gamagori. After winning two world cup races in 2006, Annabel sustained a foot injury in early April stopped her from racing for a long period. The end of 2010 saw Luxford finish with a displaced rib fracture and a partly collapsed lung after pulling out of her last race of the year in Mexico.

This year Luxford finished a very close 2nd behind 2010 ITU world No.3 Lisa Norden in a sprint triathlon this year at Elite Energy’s Jervis Bay multisport festival in Huskisson and raced at the Sydney ITU in April for 43rd. At the Madrid round this year a solid 19th was a good result although no doubt Luxford would have wanted more. Annabel says she is chasing points at this stage and the former ‘single digit’ world ranked triathlete must be desperate to get back in to the Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship league.

Lisa Marangon finished a solid 7th overall as she gains valuable racing experience on her way to a career in Olympic distance triathlons. Marangon acknowledges she needs to stop riding at the front and let others do some work so that she can save a bit for the very fast run. After her win at last weekend’s Boulder sprint triathlon Marangon was pumped about racing Olympic distance in Washington. This year is Marangon’s first serious tilt at Olympic distance after previously focusing on half and full ironman triathlons. Last year she placed 3rd at Lake Placid and won the 2010 Busselton half ironman along with a 2nd place at the Geelong half ironman and numerous other to long distance results.

Sophia Amor-Smith rounded out the women’s results for Australia with an 11th placing. Amor-Smith has spent the last few years racing without realising she had some food intolerance issues and could never figure out why she never had the energy to train properly. Now with these sorted she is hoping to get in a solid season of training and racing.

It was good to see Pete Schokman racing. He was down a bit on the swim and the bike but not too far off the pace. His run leg is looking strong with a 33:56. In 2010 Pete won the Yeppoon half ironman triathlon with a blistering 1:13 half marathon. Pete was also a very close 4th behind Micth Robins, Ryan Fischer and Peter Kerr at Mooloolaba this year only being run done in the dying stages of the run.

Michael Fox also raced but punctured out. On the upside he said he felt very strong before stopping. He is getting to grips with the altitude training he is getting at Boulder and loving being there and training with his good mate Paul Ambrose and others.