MONTREAL—Canada’s elite and U23 mixed relay teams both fought for solid fifth-place finishes to cap off the inaugural World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championships in Montreal on Sunday.

Two-time Olympian, Tyler Mislawchuk, led a new-look squad of Canucks to the start line in the elite race. The Oak Bluff, Man. resident was joined by Emy Legault (Ile Perrot, Que.), Charles Paquet (Port-Cartier, Que.) and Dominika Jamnicky (Guelph, Ont.). The Canadian four-pack combined for a time of 1:29:06.

“It has been the most incredible experience. To get back to this level of racing and be able to put my foot in there and give it my all, it was a dream come true,” said Jamnicky, who took on the anchor leg for Team Canada. “To be alongside three amazing, talented Canadian triathletes and to toe the line for them it was unreal.”

The mixed relay race format debuted at the 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo. An action-packed, spectator-friendly event consists of teams of two women and two men. Each athlete completes a 300m swim, 6.6km bike and a 1.5km run before tagging off to their teammate to take on the next leg.

Mislawchuk took on the opening leg where he was in top-six position until the intense and lightning-quick run where he dropped to 12th. Canada’s emerging star, Emy Legault, dug deep to get the red and white back into the race.

Coming off a career-best 12th-place World Triathlon Championship Series finish in the individual race, the 26-year-old Quebecer powered through the choppy waters to position herself in a fight on the bike. With four nations breaking away, the 26-year-old Legault worked well in the chase pack to help form one large group of 12 heading into transition two.

Legault tagged Charles Paquet in eighth spot where the 24-year-old moved around from fourth to seventh place throughout the swim, bike and run.

Dominika Jamnicky was in seventh spot for the swim and bike before feeding off the boisterous hometown crowd with a spirited run to climb into fifth.

“The streets were lined with people yelling and screaming for us and that is exactly what I needed for us to come top-five today,” said Jamnicky. “I’m incredibly, incredibly happy.”

France were crowned World Mixed Relay champions after breaking the finish tape with a time of 1:27:14. Great Britain stormed to the silver medal at 1:27:37, while the Americans won the battle for the bronze at 1:27:44.

Complete Elite Mixed Team Relay Results:

An all under-23 team of Filip Mainville (Laval, Que.), Kira Gupta-Baltazar (Toronto, Ont.), Pavlos Antoniades (Trois Rivieres, Que.) and Colette Reimer (Victoria, B.C.) joined forces to clock a time of 1:26.21 for a fifth place finish of the their own earlier in the day in the Junior-U23 World Mixed Relay Championships.

“It was really good to have a U23 team, and for development, we did really well,” said Colette Reimer who was the Canadian anchor. “We all executed on the parts we wanted to, and going last was nice to have the opportunity to see everyone coming in. We were right in the running and it was all Canada cheering out there and just a great day to be racing in Montreal.”

Mainville took on the opening leg for the Canadians where he was part of a five-person group that formed at the front. Mainville tagged off to Kira Gupta-Baltazar in fourth, 18 seconds off the leading mark. Gupta-Baltazar took advantage of being one of the strongest swimmers in the field to make up time on the pack and jump into third place but couldn’t connect onto Great Britain and France.

Gupta-Baltazar dropped back into fourth after the run, tagging to Pavlos Antoniades who dropped one spot until the final lap of the run where he scrapped his way back into fifth.

Reimer bounced around from third to sixth spot in her anchor leg, but in the end, brought the Canadians home fifth in the 16-team race.

France won with a time of 1:24:07, followed by Great Britain at 1:24:26 and Germany in the bronze medal-position with a time of 1:25:40.

Complete Junior/U23 World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championship Results:

For complete race and schedule details on the Groupe Copley World Triathlon https://montreal.triathlon.org/

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Chris Dornan

Triathlon Canada

T: 403-620-8731

E-mail: chris.dornan@triathloncanada.com