ITU Moments of 2017: Team Australia Wins Mixed Relay Hamburg Championship

In this video, the International Triathlon Union (ITU) looks back at Team Australia’s victory in the Mixed Relay World Championship in Hamburg, Germany. This was Mixed Relay’s first event after officially becoming an Olympic Sport to be featured in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. This was Australia’s first ever World Championship victory.

Team Australia includes Charlotte McShane, Matthew Hauser, Ashleigh Gentle, and Jacob Birtwhistle. These are the folks who beat silver winner USA and bronze winner the Netherlands. Just a day earlier, Gentle and Birtwhistle won silver medals, individually, in the World Triathlon Series (WTS) sprint distance races in Hamburg, which are also organized by the ITU.

The race was composed of a 300m swim, a 7km bike, and a 1.6km run. The bike leg began with USA’s Ben Kanute and France’s Dorian Corinx leading the nearest competitor by 11 seconds. Most of the race was brutal and unpredictable, but it was Birtwhistle who inched his way through the run to score Australia’s first victory.

Mixed Relay Triathlon an Emerging Sport

Mixed Relay Triathlon will be introduced in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia for the first time.

The ITU began the Mixed Relay format in 2009, partially for the purpose of introducing triathlon as a team discipline in the Olympics. The format will be introduced in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia for the first time.

McShane summed up the Mixed Relay spirit pretty well after her team’s victory. She told Triathlon.org, “I feel like there is a lot more pressure on you when you race because you aren’t just racing for yourself, you are racing for your whole team, but it is definitely so much fun to be able to come out here and win together.”