WAIS para-triathletes Brant Garvey and Claire McLean will this week attempt to qualify Australia entry for their classifications at next year’s Rio Paralympic Games.
The 2015 ITU World Championships are being held in Chicago, with Garvey (PT2), McLean (PT4) and reigning world champion Sally Pilbeam (non-Paralympic Games class PT3) all set to compete for Australia in Friday’s Elite Para-Triathlon event.
Selection for the Paralympic Games will be intense, with only ten athletes per class entering competition when Para-Triathlon makes its debut on the Games roster next year in Rio.
With only the winner of each Paralympic class earning their country a berth for Rio, finishing as high up the standings as possible will be the main aim, with ranking points for Paralympic selection accrued according to finishing position.
With this year’s World Championships providing one spot for Paralympic selection, the next six will be determined on a rankings basis, with the final three spots reserved as invitational at the discretion of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Competing in the PT2 class, Brant Garvey – a congenital above-knee amputee was sixth at the ITU World Championships in Edmonton last year and has been progressing steadily throughout 2015, winning the Sunshine Coast WPE earlier this year.
Garvey will be joined in action by fellow Australian Glen Jarvis, who has made the switch to para-triathlon from a cycling background.
Claire McLean, who will compete in the PT4 class, similarly took up triathlon having previously represented Australia at World Championship level in road cycling, whilst she is also a silver medallist in cycling from the 2004 Athens Paralympics.
Pilbeam who is racing in the PT3 class, is a Perth schoolteacher and mother of two, who lost her right arm to cancer. The WAIS scholarship holder won her maiden world title in Edmonton last year and is aiming to go back to back.
