Tom Bishop anchored the Leeds 1 team to victory at the inaugural British Triathlon Mixed Relay Cup in Nottingham, UK.
Bishop, a member of the GB squad who competes on the ITU World Series circuit, led his team featuring Georgia Taylor-Brown, Jess Learmonth and Aaron Royle to beat 16 other domestic and international quartets to win the new format event for Triathlon.
The mixed relay format is set for its Olympic debut at the 2020 Games, comprising a team of two men and two women over a 300m swim, 7.5km bike ride and 1.5km run. Each member must complete the distance before tagging their teammate to take their turn.
“I thought I can’t leave it down to a sprint finish. I’m not known for that. It was still not 100% sure after the bike but I made sure. From the start of my leg I was nervous but by the end I was just so proud to compete for Leeds.” said Bishop.
Team Leeds 1 completed the four-person relay over super-sprint distance in 1 hour 18 minutes 58 seconds, with Loughborough 1 and Canada completing the podium.
Double Olympic Triathlon champion Alastair Brownlee commented: “The initial analogy in the idea for the Mixed Relay Cup was of the FA Cup – your local team could go through the rounds to have the chance to compete against the best. Hopefully it will go up to three or four events a year.”
Source: BBC
