Counting down to Beijing

Good news and congrats for Paul Tichelaar, I suppose, but it's kind of like being promoted to first mate of the Titanic. I'm a huge Simon Whitfield fan, but can anybody catch Javier Gomez? Results at the Worlds in Vancouver (find them here) would lead one to believe, not so much.


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Canadian men's Olympic triathlon team is set
JAMES CHRISTIE
Globe and Mail Update
June 9, 2008 at 11:15 AM EDT
Canada's top-rated triathlete of 2008, Paul Tichelaar of Edmonton, will join forces with two-time Olympian and 2000 gold medallist Simon Whitfield of Victoria and Olympic rookie Colin Jenkins of Hamilton, Ont., for the 2008 Games in Beijing.
The team selections were announced Monday by Triathlon Canada.
Tichelaar, 25, sits sixth in the world rankings after top-eight performances in the South Pacific section of the triathlon world circuit at the Mooloolaba, New Plymouth and Tongyeong World Cup events.
He underlined those performances when he came in ninth at the world championships in Vancouver this past weekend.
"Our men's team in Beijing will be among the strongest of any country," said Triathlon Canada's executive director Alan Trivett.
"The addition of Jenkins and Tichelaar adds the opportunity to race as a team with Whitfield; however Tichelaar has been very consistent on the World Cup Circuit over the past year and is equally capable of producing a top result for Canada on his own."
Jenkins, also 25, had four top-20 World Cup finishes in 2007, including in Vancouver where he finished in seventh place. Ranked 47th in the World Cup rankings after the 2007 season, Jenkins is a strong swimmer and cyclist and has been cast in the role of a pace-setting domestique. The Triathlon Canada statement says he was named to the team to help Whitfield's efforts to the podium.
Whitfield qualified for the team based on 2007 results of a top-8 finish at both a World Cup event and the World Championships, while Tichelaar and Jenkins were nominated to the team for submission to the Canadian Olympic Committee late Sunday night by Triathlon Canada's selection committee.
Tichelaar's breakthrough year came in 2006 when he notched his first World Cup top-8 finish (in Edmonton) and came in eighth at the Commonwealth Games. Tichelaar didn't slow down in 2007, posting three top-eight World Cup performances including a silver medal in Cancun, Mexico.
Whitfield, the No.3 Canadian in the World Cup rankings in 12th spot, won the gold medal at the Ishigaki BG Triathlon World Cup in 2008 — the only World Cup race he has competed in this year.
At age 33, the veteran completed eight World Cup races in 2007 and ended the year ranked second in the World Cup rankings. Whitfield finished 11th at the 2004 Athens Olympics. At the World Championships in Hamburg last year, he finished fourth, following that up with a sixth place finish in Vancouver on the weekend.
The women's Olympic triathlon team will be named within the next two weeks.