Nearly three thousand amateur and professional triathletes from 32 states and 11 countries will swim, bike and run in the waters and roadways around the City of Los Angeles during the 8th Annual Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Triathlon Sunday morning, September 9, 2007.
The professional triathletes start in the first wave at 6:45 a.m. racing to the waters off Venice Beach for an Olympic distance .9 mile ocean swim, followed by a 24.8 mile bike course through Hollywood, and ending with a 6.2 mile run to the finish line at STAPLES Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Once the pros are out of the water, the amateur field will start in waves of approximately 150 competitors per wave every 10 minutes with the last wave going off at approximately 9:00 a.m. The Awards Ceremony is at 12 noon at Gilbert Lindsey Plaza, STAPLES Center.
The key story in the men's pro field is 2006 LA champion, Australian Greg Bennett. A win in Los Angeles will give him four victories in four outings in the Life Time Fitness Triathlon Series five-event championship. If he captures all five titles, he wins the Series Super Bonus of $300,000, in addition to $208,000 earned in event wins and for being the Series points leader. The first three Series events were in Minneapolis, New York and Chicago, and the final event is the Toyota U.S. Open Triathlon Championships in Dallas, October 14.
The women's story is Emma Snowsill, also an Australian and the 2004 and 2006 Los Angeles champion. Snowsill is a three-time ITU world champion, a record for women triathletes. (Simon Lessing, also competing in Los Angeles, holds the record of four world championships.) Snowsill is flying directly to LA from Germany, where she won the silver medal in the 2007 ITU world championships on Sept. 2. Los Angeles will be Snowsill's third event in just three weeks. She will then fly to Beijing for the Olympic Test event next week.
Street Closures: http://trafficinfo.lacity.org
There are approximately 25 miles of street closures Sunday morning that start at Venice Beach and end Downtown. Streets will be opened by noon. Closures are implemented in waves moving from the Westside (Venice Blvd. east to Fairfax); north to Hollywood Blvd./101 Fwy.; on to 1stand Grand; and to the finish line at Gilbert Lindsey Plaza at STAPLES Center. Route and street closure maps, crossing points and other closure information can be found at http://trafficinfo.lacity.org or by calling the City's Dept. of Transportation at (323) 224-6534.
Swim - Bike - Run Course Maps: www.latriathlon.com