Emma Snowsill takes out ‘Four in a Row’

Taking out her fourth major race in succession, Queensland’s Triple World Champion and Commonwealth Games Gold Medal winning Triathlete Emma Snowsill continued her blistering good form in the lead up to the Women’s Olympic Triathlon by winning the opening round of the 2008 LifeTime Fitness Triathlon Series race in Minneapolis today (US time) by a handy 2mins 32seconds,

The event served as a final tune-up race for 10 competing triathletes who will represent their countries at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and Snowsill will now go into her final stages of preparation.

Exiting the 1.5km swim in Lake Nokomis behind US super-swimmer Sara McLarty Snowsill was tightly clustered by Beijing bound Sarah Haskins of the US, Jodie Swallow of Britain plus Jodie Zeiger and past World Champ Julie Dibens onto Transition 1. Riding hard throughout the 40km non-drafting bike course, Snowsill entered Transition 2 in tandem with Becky Lavelle of the US, but then raced away from the entire field. Running a blazing 33:57, for the 10Kms, Snowsill outran the second placegetter by over 2minutes with no other woman breaking 36 minutes for the tough course.

In addition to 40 professionals, more than 3,000 amateur triathletes participated today representing 10 countries and forty US states.

By taking first place over US women Sarah Haskins and Becky Lavelle in third, Snowsill also emerged as women’s point’s leader in the $1.45M US Series which ends in the Toyota Cup in Dallas Texas after races in New York City, Chicago, and City of Los Angeles; however due to her Olympic campaign Snowsill will not be able to compete in the required number of series events to claim the overall prize.

In the men’s race Sydney Olympic Gold Medal winner Simon Whitfield of Canada took out the win with Andy Potts of the US and Australian Greg Bennett, who narrowly missed selection for Beijing, rounding out the Podium. U.S. Olympian Hunter Kemper, who finished 10th among the men, was penalized a minute for drafting during the bike leg, which cost him at least two places in the final standings.

Speaking from Minnesota Emma said ‘‘I’m happy with this result as I’ve done a lot of kilometers in training. It was non-drafting format which suited me because I could go hard on the throttle all the to see exactly where I was at.”

Prior to this win the petite Snowsill has won three rounds of the ITU World Cup Series in Mooloolaba Queensland, Ishigaki in Japan and Des Moines Iowa in the US.