Tamara Gorman wins again in USA Triathlon Nationals Mixed Relay

The Z3 Junior Triathlon Team held off a charging field of talented junior and youth elites to win the Mixed Team Relay event Sunday at the USA Triathlon Youth and Junior National Championships.

Z3’s Tamara Gorman (Rapid City, S.D.), Austin Hindman (Wildwood, Mo.), Katie Patrick (Sioux Falls, S.D.) and Spencer Clark (Clive Iowa) posted a time of 1 hour, 9 minutes 16 seconds in the 250-meter swim, 5k draft-legal bike and 1.2k run event.

“Even from the start of the day, three of the four of us didn’t have the best races yesterday, so we were extra motivated today,” Clark said. “We needed this.”

The Southeast Junior Team of Devon Dabney (Atlanta, Ga.), Brent Demarest (Charleston, S.C.), Nicole Chrzanowski (Peachtree City, Ga.) and Hunter Honeycutt (Tifton, Ga.) finished second in 1:09:54. MMTT-Mach II Elite squad of Julia Eyer (Rutherford, Calif.), Cooper Langanis (Cary, Ill.), Stephanie Jenks (Aurora, Iowa) and Patrick Bieszke (Orland Park, Ill.) finished third in 1:10:11.

USA Triathlon has incorporated the Mixed Team Relay into the Youth and Junior National Championships and Collegiate National Championships over the past few years to boost the event’s potential inclusion in a future Olympic Games.

“This event turns triathlon from an individual sport into a team sport,” Patrick said. “It’s a fun event.”

Also on Sunday, USA Triathlon released the final 2013 Development Team standings. The Southeast Junior team topped the standings with 37,684 points, followed by the Z3 Junior Triathlon Team with 35,380 points and MMTT-Mach II Elite with 23,012 points.