For the 13th consecutive year, the northern Hungarian town of Tiszaujvaros comes alive as it welcomes the ITU Triathlon World Cup this Sunday.
One of the longest running world cups in ITU history is a favourite for many top athletes for the week-long party atmosphere and the generous crowd support. With only four weeks to go until the Dextro Energy Triathlon - ITU World Championship Grand Final in Australia, athletes are looking to sweep up any valuable points they can.
Elite women start at 10:30am local time (UTC/GMT +2) while the elite men go at 1:30pm. Live coverage will be available at www.triathlon.org
In the men's race, the Russian team of Dmitry Polyansky (currently ranked 6th), Alexander Brukhankov (currently ranked 10th) have both been on the podium this year in very tough fields and will be looking for their first win of the season in Hungary. They are joined by Denis Vasiliev, younger brother of Ivan, who undoubtedly will show his strong swim and bike prowess on the flat and fast Tiszaujvaros course.
Other notables on the young and talented start list include James Seear of Australia, Leonardo Chacon of Costa Rica and 2007 Junior Champion Aurelien Raphael of France. A few triathlon veterans are also toeing the start line in hopes of teaching this young talent a thing or two, Ukraine's Volodymyr Polikarpenko and hometown hero Csaba Kuttor. In all, over 80 men will start on Sunday.
The expected women's field is led by New Zealand's Nicky Samuels and Olympian Erin Densham of Australia. Both women have been close to the top of the world cup podium but neither has ever achieved it. Samuels is in good form this year with multiple top-20 results in Dextro Energy Triathlon - ITU World Championship Series events, while Densham has been relatively quiet in 2009 after an appearance at the IAAF world cross-country championships in March.
Others to watch include ITU sport development alumnus Yuliya Sapunova of Ukraine, Poland's Maria Czesnik, Helle Frederiksen of Denmark, Vanessa Raw of Great Britain and local Olympian Zita Szabo of Hungary. Also back in action is past world cup winner and Olympian Maxine Seear of Australia.
