As the lakes cool and the leaves start to fall, and triathletes across the Great White North shift their focus toward turkey dinners and cyclocross season, it’s time for our second‑last Top 5 of the year. This month brings three new faces and two returnees, keeping the rankings fresh as the season winds down. And yes — still no Sanders sightings in this one.
Jackson Laundry
The Jack is back — this time on top of the list.
As y’all know, the 70.3 World Championships were held in France in September, and with no Canadians in the top five, we looked elsewhere for great Canadian performances. We naturally started with the letter A and worked down from there. We didn’t have to look too hard.
Augusta 70.3.
While all racers benefitted from a downriver swim in the Savannah River to make them seem like they were partly Northern Pike, when it came to the bike, it was all athlete. A 1:58 bike split meant that Laundry “only” had to run a 1:13 for the win. He did, and amassed a four-minute margin of victory. Makes you kinda wonder how he would have done against the Norwegians in Nice, but that’s for next year.
Martin Sobey
The 70.3 in Nice wasn’t the only World Championships held in September. Over in Spain, we had the Championship Finals for World Triathlon. The week featured the elites of short course plus age-group World Championships, junior and U23 racing, and para-triathlon World Championship events, all happening in the same host city.
How does Martin Sobey fit into all of this?
Well, he was Canada’s top male elite performer at the championships. In the elite standard-distance race, he placed 12th — two minutes behind the overall winner, Australia’s Matt Hauser.
Sobey has no Achilles heel. His splits of 17:28 for the swim, 51:43 on the bike and 30:20 for the run were front-pack performances through and through. The Prince Edward Island native now lives and trains in Victoria and has been on the national squad for four years.
Sidney Clement
July’s number five is now September’s number three!
At just 21, West Vancouver’s Sidney Clement has already put herself in some pretty select Canadian company. Her bronze medal at the U23 World Championships in Spain was Canada’s first women’s U23 Worlds medal since 2013 — and she did it by running her way onto the podium after coming off the bike in ninth.
Clement is only the sixth Canadian woman ever to win a U23 World Championship medal, so while Martin Sobey gets the No. 2 spot for his outstanding month, Sidney earns No. 3 — and might be the name on this list we’re talking about a whole lot more in the future.
Luke Tasker
Making the list for the first time is the British rower turned ski bum turned firefighter turned pro triathlete and racing team director for the B.C.-based Hummingbird Collective.
Tasker kicked off his first year as a pro with some near-podium performances on the 70.3 circuit, including a fifth-place finish — just behind Lionel Sanders — at the inaugural race in Northern California.
In Tasker’s debut at Ironman Maryland, he placed fourth. The bike results were adjusted because a medical emergency forced officials to stop athletes. The race removed the entire affected 24-km segment from everyone’s bike split to keep the standings fair.
In speaking with Tasker, we found out that his recovery has gone well and his desire to improve is strong.
Here comes Cozumel — November 26!
Carly Zanatta
While That Triathlon Life fans may contend that Paula’s ninth-place finish at the 70.3 Championships was a big deal, we wonder if she was “all in” at the event, considering her “all in” approach for Kona.
That’s why Carly Zanatta’s victory at Barrelman in Ontario is significant.
The up-and-coming pro, whose academic credentials might even outweigh her athletic ones — at least so far — had a toe-to-toe battle with Miranda Tomenson on the run course and won by a scant 20 seconds.
Like Luke Tasker, her engine was developed in competitive rowing. Like Tasker, the best results are still to come.