TRIATHLETES Melissa Burgoyne and Josh Dew are facing a solid Ballarat winter training program to stay in line with the northern hemisphere summer.
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They are preparing to pull on the green and gold to represent Australia at the International Triathlon Union’s world age group championships in Edmonton, Canada in early September.
Dew, a draftsman by trade, is no stranger to the international competition.
He has raced against his age’s best in Auckland, Budapest, Beijing and on the Gold Coast.
Burgoyne, a physical education teacher in Geelong, will follow his lead.
“This is my first championships – he can show me the ropes, I guess,” Burgoyne said.
“It’s exciting and I just want to do as well as I can and finish as high up as I can.
“...Everything we do from now is to get us up to compete at international level because that’s a whole other level to what we’ve been doing in Australia.”
Burgoyne, racing in the 30-34 year-olds division, will contest an Olympic distance triathlon, featuring a 1.5-kilometre swim, 40km cycle and 10km run.
This is Burgoyne’s first season back in competition from a shoulder reconstruction.
Qualification for Edmonton was based on points earned through the Triathlon Australia national series, including double points for a top-six finish for the Australian championships in Tasmania.
Dew, in the 25-29s division, is selected for a sprint distance triathlon: 750-metre swim, 20km bike and 5km run.
Only this time, Dew’s selection came as a bit of a surprise.
“It’s kind of exciting because I hadn’t really planned for it, it’s not something I specifically went for in competition,” Dew said. “It’s great.
“There are about three to four thousand competitors out there usually, so it’s a pretty big event.”
Burgoyne and Dew, of the Southern X Triathletes stable and coached by Dave Huggett, will compete on September 1, the final day of the seven-day championships.