Australian Triathlete – July-August 2017

10 | AustrAliAn triAthlete

Jake birtwhistle

Without a doubt, he is the best

triathlon talent to come out of the Apple

Isle since the legendary Craig Walton, but

what Birtwhistle has that Walton didn’t

possess is blinding foot speed. That

necessary ingredient needed to give

yourself a chance to win the elusive

Olympic Triathlon Gold Medal.

The fact that Birtwhistle made the

jump across from athletics to triathlon is in

large part due to the efforts of another

Tassie legend Craig Redman who first saw

Jake when he was in the Tasmanian

school’s team at the National

Championship in Devonport. Redman’s

wife was involved with the team as the

manager, and she was quick to tell her

hubby that he needed to have a look at

this very talented kid.

“That was the first time I had seen him,”

Redman said. “He loved his athletics, and I

T

o be any chance of getting

a podium finish on the ITU’s

World Triathlon Series the

numbers are pretty intense.

Success requires a special kind of all-

round athlete who is mentally tough,

isn’t afraid of a bit of pain and is able to

produce a sub-30 minute 10km run off

a hard 40km ride, and after an intense

1500m swim.

If you are struggling to come to terms

with the maths, picture the machine-like

way the Brownlee brothers, Spain’s Javier

Gomez and his compatriot Mario Mola

have been tearing up the world circuit with

their take no prisoners approach and their

explosive run leg.

Quite simply they have taken the sport

to a new level, and several years ago for

the talent scouts of all the world triathlon

federations, it became acutely obvious

that if their country was to be competitive,

they needed to heavily invest in finding a

new breed of athlete.

For Australia, it was no different. In fact,

given our past successes, it was

imperative that Triathlon Australia rebuild

the men’s program and find us the new

Brad Beven or Greg Welch to fly the flag on

the international stage.

Well, after searching the country far

and wide, Australia has found such an

athlete, and without putting too much

pressure on the young lad, his name is

Jake Birtwhistle.

For many years the Australian triathlon

pundits have been saying that he is the

one to watch and, much to the disgust of

Athletics Australia who had been grooming

him as a middle distance runner, Jake was

on the radar of Triathlon Australia’s talent

scouts since he was a youngster.