Edmonton ITU Grand Final - Video

Nice!  What a great weekend that was!  Truly, something my family will never forget........Canada got it WAAAY right!

Your guys kits were awesome. Love the camo!

Bro - what they did to that pond was nothing short of amazing.

Very nice!

Ha! 

For those of you who weren't there......here's the deal with "the pond".  It was basically a duck pond.  Maybe  20-25 acres of what any of us would think of as your typical municipal park pond.  I did some homework on it and found that it was weed infested (like having to fight your way through the weeds), shallow (like you could stand up for much of it),  murky (like all of those duck ponds you are familiar with), and full of duck/goose chit (like, well, a duck pond).

From what I learned, they drained it.  Then they dredged it so that the "swim lane" was about 10 feet deep.  Then they lined it wit clay, and even a plastic liner in some places.  Then they refilled it.  Then they CHLORINATED it......like 2 tons of chlorine.  It was crystal clear, deep, unbelievably well marked with an actual lane rope dividing the out and back, and absolutely perfect for a triathlon swim.  I got quoted a couple of different numbers on the price tag.....but both were in the millions...I have no idea if that is correct, but I don't have any reason to doubt it.

Without a doubt Edmonton wanted to make it the very top of a first class event.......and they hit it out of the park!

On another note.....our trip up there was painful.  Our fight was delayed from our hometown, we missed our connection, spent the night in the Minneapolis airport, and got to Edmonton 16 hours before the race.  Our baggage, including Jrs. bike, was on three different planes with no timetable for when any of it would get there.  When we landed in Edmonton we told the people at the WestJet (the flight we ended up on) baggage handling about our plight, and the fact that Jr. couldn't race without his bike and race kit, and they were fabulous.  At one point, when nobody could find what city our bags actually ended up in, a man at WestJet simply said, "I will get this done, he will race".  His bike arrived 12 hours before the race, his kit arrived 10 hours before the race.....all delivered to our hotel.  I have no idea what they had to go through to get it to us, but I know what we had been through and I'm sure it was a job.  Once they knew we were there for the triathlon, they acted like it was their personal job to come through so that kid could race....and they did! In fact,  from the minute we landed in Edmonton, our trip was perfect.

I don't have enough good things to say about the people of Edmonton and the pride they obviously felt in hosting the event, and being great hosts.....we were treated like kings everywhere we went!