BERKELEY, Calif. – The Denver Pioneers women's triathlon team heads to Northern California this weekend to wrap up the regular season at the Bearathlon. The race will be held on Sunday at the Berkeley Marina near the University of California's campus.
The women's draft-legal wave is currently set to begin at 8:30 a.m. MT.
DU is coming off a strong finish at the Western Regional National Qualifier on Oct. 15 in Stockton, Missouri, where the team placed second overall behind the Arizona State Sun Devils. The Pioneers have come in first or second in all four races this season and are the No. 3-ranked team in the country among Division-I squads heading into next month's national championships.
Among the NCAA squads that are also racing in the Bearathlon is the University of San Francisco and Colorado Mesa University.
The Berkeley course features a one-lap swim of 750 meters in the Berkley Marina, with the athletes starting from the windsurf launch dock and exiting off the main marina dock. The bike portion will feature four loops along the frontage road adjacent to Interstate-580, totaling 20 kilometers. The 5K run course will be two laps on the nearby San Francisco Bay Trail.
Denver's start list for the race includes graduate student
Melissa Funes, senior
Stormy Hegg, sophomores
Olivia Ebenstein and
Avarie Faulkner and freshmen
Coco Diemar,
Elizabeth Harita and
Nadiya Linde-Elmhirst.
Ebenstein will look to build off her second top-10 finish of the year after leading the Pioneers in eighth at Western Regionals. Funes (17), Faulkner (18), Harita (19) and Diemar also had strong showings in Stockton, with them all posting top-20 results as well.
DU will be without
Clara Normand and
Freya McKinley this weekend, as the two sophomores are representing their home countries at the Americas Triathlon Junior Championships on Saturday and Sunday in Montevideo, Uruguay. Normand (Canada) and McKinley (United States) previously raced at the World Triathlon Junior Championships in June in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The Pioneers close their 2022 campaign in two weeks' time at the Collegiate National Championships on Nov. 12 in Tempe, Arizona.
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