Carp's Brown continues to ring up positive results
Posted Jul 29, 2010 By Jeff Maguire
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Tweet ThisEMC Sports - A teenage athlete from the West Carleton area of Ottawa continues to achieve very positive results on the North American triathlon circuit.
Joanne Brown, 17, of Carp was a very respectable fourth, finishing just out of the medals, at the Junior Western Triathlon Championships held at Pike Lake, Sask., on Sunday, July 11. Pike Lake is just 20 minutes outside Saskatoon.
The event was actually the second race in this year's Tech National Junior Series. It attracted the top junior athletes from across Canada and was the first national elite triathlon ever held in the prairie province.
One of three events staged as part of the Pike Lake competition, the Junior Elite Race required participants to swim 750 metres, bicycle 20 kilometres (km) and run an additional five km.
The race was won by 18-year-old Christine Ridenour of Cowichan Bay, British Columbia in just over an hour. Her gold medal time was 1:00:27. It was her second straight series victory. She also won the opener in Quebec.
Right behind for second place silver was Gabrielle Edwards of nearby Saskatoon who finished just 17 seconds later than Ridenour (1:00:44). Alison Cooper of Victoria, B.C. was third (1:00:55).
Brown, the only Ontario athlete to finish in the top five in either the women's or men's races, finished a slim 11 seconds behind Cooper to miss bronze. She recorded an impressive time of 1:01:06. The fifth place finisher was Ellen Pennock of Calgary, Alberta (1:01:25).
Matt Sharpe of Victoria was the men's race winner in a golden 55:20.
The three-race series, sanctioned by Triathlon Canada, is the nation's premier development race circuit. It is used as the basis for World Junior Team and Canada Games selections.
Medalled in Mexico
Back on May 22, Brown was one of three Canadians to capture medals at the Pan American Triathlon Confederation (PATCO) junior continental triathlon championship in Ixtapa, Mexico. Ixtapa is a beach resort community located on Mexico's Pacific coast some 240 kilometres (km) northwest of Acapulco.
Brown claimed gold in the junior women's race with an impressive winning time of 57:24. The triathlon included a two-km run, a 20-km bike ride and a five-km sprint.
Triathlons normally include swimming. But games' officials were forced to scrub that part of the competition because of high waves along the Pacific coast which made swimming too dangerous for the competitors.
Mexico's Adriana Barraza came second to Brown in a time of 57:51, while fellow Canadian Ridenour, who won the recent Saskatchewan event, really earned her bronze medal. Ridenour was nipped at the wire, finishing a scant one second behind Barraza.
"This (Ixtapa) was a good race, but it was a little different for sure without the swim," Brown told Canwest News Service following her success this spring.
The Carp teen expressed disappointment that she wasn't able to prove herself in all three disciplines, with swimming ruled out the day of the event. However, she was thrilled that two Canadians finished at the top of the pack.
"Christine and I worked really well together," Brown stated.
Hooper of Victoria, who was third in Saskatchewan July 11, placed seventh in Mexico in May. Edwards, the silver medalist at Pike Lake, was eighth.
Carp's Brown, who began competing in marathons and then triathlons as she entered her teens, has enjoyed considerable domestic success in recent times.
Last August she added a Canada Summer Games medal to her trophy case in Summerside, Prince Edward Island (PEI). The Canada Summer Games, which began in 1967 Canada's Centennial Year, are held every two years.
The then 16-year-old shook off injury and illness the previous spring and enjoyed another strong triathlon season in 2009. On PEI she teamed with Dominika Jamnicky of Port Hope and Dorelle Hinton of Kingston to claim third place bronze in the women's triathlon team competition. Brown competed in the final (third) leg of the team event for Ontario.
In the individual triathlon, held earlier in the same national event, Brown finished a solid sixth.
Prior to the 2009 Canada Summer Games she won both the provincial and eastern Canadian junior titles. Brown was also an impressive fourth overall in the national competition.
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