Africa Triathlon

Australia kept its hot streak alive on Saturday, sweeping the top two spots at the Mixed Team Relay event to conclude the triathlon portion of the Australian Youth Olympic Festival (AYOF). Great Britain joined the Australian teams on the podium in the bronze medal position.

A day after Jacob Birtwhistle and Jaz Hedgeland captured gold in the men’s and women’s individual races, they teamed up on Australia’s Green relay to earn their second win of the festival.

“It feels pretty awesome, I can’t believe it,” Hedgeland said according to the AYOF website. “I was so excited coming into today and then to come home with another gold is pretty cool, I’m really happy.”

The Aussies employed a strategy to spread its strongest athletes across two teams in hopes of capturing two medals. With the heat wave over, the plan panned out perfectly for the home teams, which finished within three seconds of each other and more than a minute ahead of Great Britain.

The Australian athletes led from line to line in the 300m swim, 8km cycle and 2km run relay event. Great Britain maintained pace until the third leg when the Australian teams proved too tough and pulled away. Australia’s Green team finished first with a time of 1:11:37, while their Gold team took second in 1:11:40. Great Britain came in next at 1:12:41.

Team ITU entered three relays in the race. Team White crossed over in seventh place, followed by Team Blue in eighth and Team Orange in 10th.

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With files from the Australian Olympic Committee at AYOF.