TEMPE, Ariz. – The University of Denver women's triathlon team heads to Tempe Town Lake on Saturday for the 2025 Collegiate National Championships.
This year's nationals return to the Arizona State-hosted site after last year's event was held in Clermont, Florida. The last time DU raced in Tempe was in 2023, which saw then-freshman
Maira Carreau claim the first individual national championship in program history and the team place fourth overall.
Denver has finished in the top five at the triathlon championships in each of its four years at the event, including a third-place result in 2022—the highest-ever finish for an individual women's sport in school history.
Six Pioneers qualified for nationals with junior captain Carreau leading the team with an 11th-overall ranking in the country. Senior captain
Elizabeth Harita is set for her final collegiate race and will be joined on the start line by freshmen teammates
Lucrezia Gowdy, Mia Stanley-Hunt, Jenna Topott and
Olivia Wimberger.
Wimberger will get DU started by racing in the B wave at 12:45 p.m. MT before Carreau, Gowdy, Harita, Stanley-Hunt and Topott take to the course in the final C wave at 3 p.m. MT.
The national championship course is the same as it was in 2023, beginning with a one-lap swim of 750 meters that starts on the north side of the reservoir. It will be an in-water start from North Shore Beach, where the triathletes with swim out before making a sharp right at the first buoy to begin forming a rectangular course. The 20-kilometer bike route includes three laps around the proximity of the lake and features several long straightaways, L-turns and two tight U-turns. The 5-kilometer run is on the north side of the lake, heading west out of transition and is a straight, two-loop out-and-back course.
Denver is coming off a fourth-place finish at Western Regionals two weeks ago in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 26, with Carreau coming in sixth overall to earned and her third career All-Region Team honor.
The University of Arizona is the defending national champions after taking its first title last year in Clermont.
