The Road to Beijing Goes Through Iowa

The elite women ride through downtown Des Moines during the 2007 BG Triathlon World Cup race.

AP Photo/ITU, Delly Carr

The ITU World Championship race held in Vancouver, Canada, on June 8 was the final cutoff race for valuable ITU Olympic Qualification points. If you've been following the columns on the Olympic qualifying process, you know that individual athletes need to be ranked in the top 125 in the world to be eligible for the Olympic Games.

Last month, we learned that the U.S.A. had lost our third men's Olympic start position. There was one chance left to regain that slot. In Vancouver, Matt Reed was literally racing for his own secure position on the Olympic team. Reed had a strong race and managed to outrun all of the necessary competitors. His place on the Olympic team and start line is now secure.

The final race to determine which athletes will join Laura Bennett, Julie Ertel, Jarrod Shoemaker and Matt Reed on Team USA is the Des Moines World Cup race on June 22. The start list can be found here. There will likely be changes made right up to race day, so if you are watching one particular athlete, keep your eye on the list. 

Des Moines Women's Race

In the women's race, there are twelve American women entered. This is an unusually high number of racers from a single country entered into a World Cup race; however, the ITU management team agreed to allow more entries for the U.S.A. because the race is one of our Olympic qualification races. All eligible athletes are allowed a start.

Out of the 12 women, there are only two that have a shot at getting that third spot on the team—Sarah Haskins and Sarah Groff. Recall from the qualifying process that the third team member is the one that has the lowest combined two scores from the three qualifying races. If there is a scoring tie, the winner is the one with the highest finish in Des Moines. You can find the Olympic Selection document here.

It helps to have a cheat sheet (see below or click here for a larger version). Once you look at the cheat sheet, you can see that unless there is a crash with injuries the third slot goes to one of the Sarahs. Haskins already has a score of 4, so essentially the spot is hers to lose.

The only person who can also get a score of 4 or lower is Groff. The only way Groff can do that is by being the first American across the finish line. This gives Groff a score of 4 and the highest finish at Des Moines as the tie breaker so she would get that third Olympic slot. The alternate to the team is also selected in Des Moines by the same scoring system.