The US nation’s top collegiate club and high school triathletes will compete for national titles this Friday and Saturday at the USA Triathlon Collegiate Club & High School National Championships. These are returning to Tempe, AZ, for the first time since 2014. Approximately 1,200 collegiate athletes and 150 high schoolers are expected to compete.
Racing begins the morning of Friday, April 5, with the seventh-annual Draft-Legal Collegiate Championships. Up to 75 men and 75 women will compete on a 750m swim, 21km bike and 5.1km run course. The draft-legal racing format, which enables athletes to ride in packs and work together on the bike, is similar to the racing style contested in elite International Triathlon Union events and the Olympic Games.
The collegiate men race first at 08:15 PT, followed by the collegiate women at 10:00.
Also on the docket for Friday is the fourth annual High School National Championships. The high school course covers the same 750m swim, 21km bike and 5.1km run as the collegiate draft-legal race, but it is held in a non-drafting format. The boys are set to race at noon, and the girls follow at 13:00.
The action continues on Saturday with the marquee Collegiate Olympic-Distance Championships, which has long been a staple of the Collegiate Club Nationals program. About 1,200 collegiate athletes will cover a 1,500m swim, 41km bike and 10km run, with the men starting at 07:30 and the women at 10:20.
The final race of the weekend is the collegiate Mixed Team Relay, set for Saturday at 16:15. Teams are comprised of four athletes representing the same club (two men and two women). Each athlete completes a super-sprint triathlon — 250m swim, 5km bike and 1.2km run — before handing off to the next teammate, with the fastest combined time winning the race. The mixed relay discipline debuts as a medal event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The main venue and finish line are located at Tempe Beach Park, on the south side of Tempe Town Lake. For all races, athletes will swim in Tempe Town Lake, traverse Rio Salado Parkway and neighbouring roads on the bike, and run primarily on the Tempe Town Lake Path (south and north banks).
Qualified athletes may compete in both the draft-legal and Olympic-distance Collegiate National Championship events, and both races will count toward the overall team scores. Winners of individual races, as well as all team standings, will be announced at the Awards Ceremony set for 20:00 on Saturday at the Tempe Marketplace District Stage.
Tempe is a familiar city for USA Triathlon, as it previously hosted Collegiate Club Nationals in 2013-14, the USA Paratriathlon National Championships in 2014, and the Women’s Collegiate Triathlon National Championships in 2017-18.
