Now, the 24-year-old Stelly鈥檚 graduate is fashioning a comeback storyline with a resurgence that continued Sunday with a third-place finish at the Edmonton World Cup race for her first podium finish in three years.
Compromised by a stomach virus, former world junior champion Sweetland fought it off for her fourth career World Cup podium in 1 hour, 3 minutes and 29 seconds.
sa国际传媒 swept the medals with Amelie Kretz of Quebec first in 1:03:18 and Ellen Pennock second in 1:03:29 as the road to Rio 2016 suddenly got a lot more intriguing for Canadian women鈥檚 triathlon.
Although based in Victoria, Pennock was raised in Calgary and the devastating flooding disaster there wasn鈥檛 from from mind.
鈥淚t has been a tough week for Calgarians,鈥� said the University of Victoria sciences major, in a statement.
鈥淢y heart goes out to all the people in Calgary, and this performance by us Canadian girls was for the all those people back home.鈥�
But her mind also had to be focused on the race, which meant being focused on the resurgent and battle-tested Sweetland, who showed no effects of having missed two weeks of training due to the stomach illness in pulling along her Canuck teammates.
鈥淜irsten was an animal on the bike today,鈥� said Pennock.
鈥淪he did so much work, and we [top-three Canadians] were able to pull away on the run. It is unbelievable.鈥�
Olympian Kyle Jones of Victoria was silver medallist in the Edmonton World Cup race in 57:46 behind men鈥檚 winner Greg Roualt of France (57:39) and ahead of bronze-medallist Ivan Ivanov of Ukraine (58:01).
Because the event also stood as the national championship race, Kretz and Jones were crowned Canadian women鈥檚 and men鈥檚 champions.
