Race Previews

New England is Lovely This Time of Year...

Tuesday, 14 August 2012 02:30

2012 USAT AG NATIONALS - Nationals is Saturday, and we're peeing ourselves anticipatorily.

Okay, that sentence is clumsy and we totally made up the adverb. Nevertheless, we're sure you caught our drift.

In this post, we will discuss the Minnesota women who will be participating in Burlington this weekend. Even though two-time Nationals podiumer Cathy Yndestad won't be there, we're sending a very strong estrogenic contingent, perhaps our best yet....

And guess what? We're predicting that a Minnesota girl will WIN! Not only that, we think that as many as three of our state's women will crack the overall Top 10, and a couple more should place between 11th and 20th.

How cool would that be!

Who do we think is gonna win? What Minnesota girl is fast enough to outrace podium hopefuls Catherine Sterling (MA), Kim Pancoast (WA), Calah Schlabach (TX) et al, plus the heretofore unknowns who ALWAYS emerge at Nationals? gaby

Answer: Jenny Shaughnessy, who is now training in Colorado and listing "Rochester, MN" as her hometown. (The former Minnesota Rookie of the Year and swim star at The U has been living in Durham, North Carolina, since the fall of 2010, doing that grad school thing.)

Some of you may have been expecting us to name Claire Bootsma, the Minnesota Triathlete of the Year in 2011, as our pick to win it. We think that Boots will race well on Saturday, perhaps even placing above the 6th spot, where she ended up in her triumphant nationals debut last year. Yes, she has a shot at the podium finish, perhaps even the win, but we believe that Jenny is better prepared right now. She's totally focused on her racing, whereas Boots is dividing her attention between triathlon and, more importantly, building her bright new career. (She is on the nursing staff at Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul.)

Shaughnessy kicked off the year with a brilliant 2nd place overall finish at the Collegiate National Championship behind phenom Marissa Ferrante, who has since gotten a professional license. Jen followed that up with another undefeated season of regional racing and a 2nd place finish behind Canadian pro Gabrielle Edwards at an ITU Elite Development race in Dallas in June.

We believe that Massachusetts' Sterling, who you may recall, set the Elite Amateur course record at Life Time Tri - Minneapolis in 2011 and placed 2nd overall at Nationals that year, will be Jenny's formidablest foe on Saturday. (Okay, we made up another word; this time an adjective.)

The other Minnesotan--along with Shaughnessy and Bootsma-- that we believe can sneak into the overall Top 10 is Duluth's mercurial Elaine Nelson, who is undefeated regionally this season.

Steph Solfelt cracked the Top 15 in Burlington last year. She's faster this season and we hope that she is able to better her position, maybe even sneak into the Top 10. If she's healthy (she just placed 2nd behind Claire at the YW-Tri last Sunday), she just might do it.

We sure hope she does.

We also think that Duluthian Jess Rossing has Top 20 potential, and who knows, maybe Forest Lake's Gaby Bunten (photo above R) can sneak into the Top 25. We're anxious, damply so, to find out.

Here are the Minnesotans, girls and boys, who are scheduled to race on Saturday.

Brian Bich, 46, Duluth