Starting sports at an early age does not necessarily provide athletes with an advantage, and practice levels accounts for just 1% of the difference in elite athlete performances, new research from Case Western Reserve University has found  Advertisement “While practice is necessary for elite athletes to reach a high level of competition, after a certain point, the amount of practice essentially stops differentiating who makes it far and who makes it to the very top,” said lead author Brooke Macnamara, assistant professor of psychological sciences at Case Western Reserve University. “Human performance is incredibly complex,” she said. “Multiple factors need to be considered, only one of which is practice.” According to…

The 500 competitors will take on one of the most physically and mentally demanding running races of the year. The course, which Red Bull promises tests the limits of human endurance, will follow a difficult and treacherous route across 22,8 miles of the National Park. Advertisement And the participants will have to be tactical if they want to be in with a chance of winning as there are four steeples to reach, and if they fall into the slowest third at the first three they will be eliminated. Only 40 runners will reach the final steeple in Lynmouth (Steeplechasing )  At the first knockout, Trentishoe, 160 male runners and 160…

The Leeds event will be held on the weekend of June 10-11 2017, again hosted as a partnership between Leeds City Council, UK Sport, the ITU and the organising team of British Triathlon and IRONMAN. Advertisement It is reported in excess of 80,000 people lined the route of the elite races from Roundhay Park to Leeds city centre, where Gwen Jorgensen and Ali Brownlee triumphed in grandstand finished on Millenium Square. However despite the elite races being a success, there were organisational issues for the 6,000 people taking part in the mass-participation triathlon events across the weekend, which left many stranded in the city centre for hours without their belongings.…

Setting the pace through the opening 750m swim and then simply riding away from the entire field over the 20km bike leg, the British duo had established a lead of well over a minute and a half before hitting the run course, leaving the large chase pack with no chance to catch them. It was then a sprint finish to decide the victor with Lucy Hall just getting the better of Jessica Learmonth. Advertisement It has been a successful year for Hall and this title adds to her winning the ETU World Cup race in Spain last month  Bronze medallist Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) was still 43 seconds behind Learmonth at the finish. In the elite…

Click:AOC The 2015 UK Ironman champion David McNamee has won the pro men’s race at the inaugural Challenge Galway in Ireland, in a time of 3:51:47, with fellow Brit Joe Skipper taking second in a time of 3:55:11. While in the pro women’s race Emma Bilham from Switzerland took gold in a time of 4:16:35 followed by 220 columnist and winner of Ironman 70.3 Staffs Brit Lucy Gossage in a time of 4:22:09 and Laura Siddall came in third in 4:27:41 Advertisement  As well as these two elite races, there were a special Try­a­Tri race, a sprint, olympic, as well as the Full and Half Iron distance events, attracting nearly…

Rugby legend Austin Healey, who earned 51 England caps during his career, is to take part in the Leader Board team relay triathlon on 3 July at Eton Dorney in Berkshire and raise money for Sport Relief. He will be taking the bike leg, while two of his daughters will be taking on the swim and run legs. Advertisement  “The girls are very sporty and I reckon we will have a pretty good chance of finishing quite high up,” he says. “My daughters are quite competitive, and they are saying ‘Dad you had better not let us down on the bike’.  If I could choose any sport for them to be of…

 Sadly this year extreme weather conditions, including heavy thunderstorms, forced  the swim to be replaced with a 4km run leg start thirty year old Allan Hovda from Norway took the men’s crown in 10:55:00. The second and third placed athletes, Andreas Wolpert from Germany and Sebastian Bräuer from Switzerland, climbed into Kleine Scheidegg with only 2 minutes separating them, 33 and 35 minutes respectively behind the winner. Advertisement In the women’s, Lise Lavoll Borgen, also from Norway, took victory finishing in a time of  12: 52:00. She took the lead from the eventual second placed athlete Julia Nikolopoulos shortly after the bike climb to Gotthardpass and further extended her position by 19…

It’s (nearly) here! Shimano have released news of their latest and most advanced groupsets ever, the Dura-Ace R9100 mechanical and R9150 electric. Advertisement There are several firsts for Shimano here, including the option to add in an integrated crank-based power meter and/or hydraulic disc-braking. The all new synchronised shifting technology, which seeks the next highest/lowest gear from the touch of one button on the right lever without having to change ring, could be of particular benefit to triathletes on race-day looking for even quicker and smoother shifting. Perhaps lesser news for triathletes but more important for roadies is that the groupset can be purchased with hydraulic disc brakes. The new Dura-Ace…

This weekend the world’s elites will be flocking to Sweden for WTS Stockholm, the sixth in the World Triathlon Series, and the series penultimate race before Rio. Run over the cobblestone streets of the Swedish capital, there is a two-lap swim, eight-lap bike and four-lap run course. Advertisement In the men’s the Brownlee brothers will aiming for a repeat performance of WTS Leeds where they took first and second. Hoping to prevent this will be Spaniard Fernando Alarza, who has scored a silver medal in Gold Coast and a win in Cape Town so far this season and is second in the WTS rankings behind Mario Mola, who won’t be in Stockholm. However…

Today was Flora Duff’s day. After a good swim in choppy cold water conditions that required wetsuits she exited the swim in the lead group of US athletes Sarah True and Katie Zaferes and then on the bike she made the brave decision to go out alone after the two  couldn’t stay with at the level she wanted. Advertisement Duffy would have hoped to have had some of the other good cyclists with her like GB’s Helen Jenkins but a bad swim for Jenkins where she exited about 40 seconds behind Flora, meant she had to race solo. A very good technical cyclist she made the most of the technical parts…