Recommendations for first Olympic Tri

I enjoyed the MSC cobourg race this year.  The bike course was nice, the swim was a simple single triangle, and the run course is in a suburb where a bunch of people were sitting on their porches cheering us on (and one house had a hose on a ladder to cool you off).

The only Olympic i've done is Guelph which is a good race - earlier in the season. The main drawback is that it is quite a big race - at least for triathlon.  Traditionally it was a two loop swim with a mass start - but this year it was a 1500m rectangle with 3 waves to start.  

Not sure what your background is but there are probably a couple of things that i would look at when choosing:

1. The swim - if you're nervous about open water swimming you probably want a smaller lake swim for your race.  For example Cobourg or the Toronto Triathlon Festival is swum in Lake Ontario which, at least for me was nerve wracking, at least when i start but both are great races by all accounts.

2. Course profile: are you near hills to train on? If you can train on and don't mind hills then really any of the races are good options for you. Guelph has some rollers, Bracebridge and Muskoka are definitely not flat.  But you can poke around or ask here to see what people thought of the course. 

Bracebridge has a cool swim cause it's a TT start - every 5sec someone goes.  It's in a river which (at least this year) was super calm and you end up having tons of space.  Even though it was out and back, it was a fast swim (or short).  Bike is pretty hilly, but nothing ridiculous, and the run is fairly flat.

I've also done Guelph, but only as a mass start, 2 loop swim.  The road is pretty crappy for the first/last few km, but the rest is in good shape, and just a little undulating.  Run has some small ups and downs through the camping area.

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I did the Sprint race at Guelph I in June this year and didn't include this particular race on my list because of the number of competitors (the Sprint course was ridiculously crowded) and the condition of the roads. 

As for Coboug, I also raced the Sprint course at Cobourg, but the bike portion was altered to run east-west and avoided the hills.  I believe the Olympic course remains unchanged and so you have to tackle the "Northumberland Hill".  I was trying to avoid a particularly hilly course for my first Olympic.

That is good to know about the Bracebridge swim.  I did the Welland Tri this year which also had a time trial start.  It definitely eased the stress and congestion of the normal start of the swim.

I'll disagree with you, just for the sake of disagreeing.  In terms of pure elevation increase, outside of the Muskoka 1/2, the Bracebridge Oly has more hills than any other Tri course I've raced.  Of course I can't find the data now, but measured as meters gained/km, you'll see it ain't flat.    Doesn't mean these are unmanageable hills by any stretch, but they do exist.