Three Gold, Two Silver, One Bronze In South Africa for GB Paratriathlon

The first major race of the 2016 Paratriathlon season, the Buffalo City ITU World Paratriathlon Event in South Africa, offered two British athletes the chance of automatic qualification of sport’s debut at Rio 2016. That chance was grabbed by both, in emphatic style.

With their victories today, Lauren Steadman (F-PT4) and Alison Patrick (F-PT5), have confirmed their status as World Championship medal winners in both 2014 and 2015, to now fully focus their season on being in peak performance in Brazil later this year.

Steadman, 23, won the PT4 category and has now qualified for her third Paralympic Games, having competed twice before as a swimmer. She commented: “The top women weren’t here today so I planned to keep it steady and ensure that nothing went wrong. Meeting automatic qualification was the absolute priority.”

While automatic qualification wasn’t available to Ryan Taylor (M-PT2) today, as a medal winner at the 2015 World Championship he was already a small step up the selection ladder. A win today will further cement his status as hot favourite to join Lauren and Alison in Rio.

Head coach, Jonathon Riall said that it was “a great start to 2016 with two more quota places secured for Rio and two athletes meeting automatic qualification.”

2016 Buffalo City ITU World Paratriathlon Event; Sunday 20 March; 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run
GB Athlete results

F-PT4

Gold – Lauren Steadman

F-PT5

Gold – Alison Patrick (Guide, Nicole Walters)
Bronze – Melissa Reid (Guide, Hazel Smith)

M-PT1

Silver – Phil Hogg
6th – Bret Crossley

M-PT2

Gold – Ryan Taylor

M-PT4

Silver – David Hill