LOMA, Colo. – The University of Denver women's triathlon team heads to the western slope of Colorado on Sunday morning for the Desert's Edge Triathlon at Highline State Park.
The Pioneers get set to compete in their first full sprint triathlon of the 2025 season and the first such distance in their home state since the 2022 Oktoberfest Sprint in Longmont. Overall, the Desert's Edge will be the fifth multi-sport event that DU will have raced in on home soil, with the squad last doing so in an Aquathlon Eliminator duel against Colorado Mesa on the Denver campus to start the 2023 campaign.
Sunday's collegiate cup race begins at 7:30 a.m. MT and is being hosted by CMU, which is located in nearby Grand Junction.
The course begins with a one-lap, triangular swim around two buoys in Highline Lake. The competitors will then transition onto the bike and into a large, two-lap rectangular loop out of the park and to the south. The cyclists will head west on R Road before working their way over to 10 Road via 10 1/2 and Q 3/4 Roads. They'll head south on 10 Road before making their way back east along Q Road and north up 11 8/10 Road. After the second lap, the racers will re-enter the campground and get set for the run—a one-lap trek that is mostly an out-and-back along the lake's edge from the southeast corner over to the east end and heading north.
The 5K run finishes across the dam on the southern edge of reservoir and back to the transition area near the campground. There is approximately 119 feet of elevation gain on the run, with it mostly being downhill after the turnaround point.
Denver freshman
Mia Stanley-Hunt is expected to make her collegiate debut over the weekend, and she will be joined on the DU start list with senior
Elizabeth Harita, junior
Maira Carreau and fellow rookies
Lucrezia Gowdy, Jenna Topott and
Olivia Wimberger.
The Pioneers opened the season with a super sprint at the Southern Hills Triathlon on Aug. 30 in Hot Springs, South Dakota, where they finished fifth as a team. Carreau led DU with a fifth-place finish individually and is also coming off a podium placement in third at the Canadian National Championships last weekend in Montreal.
The same teams that raced at Southern Hills will also be at Desert's Edge, with DU squaring off against Arizona, Arizona State, San Francisco, South Dakota, TCU and Division-II Colorado Mesa and Black Hills State.
