It's Official - Triathlete Laura Bennett Secures 2012 Olympic Team

May 15, 2012 - PRLog -- It's Official-Triathlete Laura Bennett Earns London 2012 Spot!




 
Laura Bennett - 2012 U.S. Olympian

 

 



May 15, 2012 - Chicago, IL


With a fourth place finish at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Laura Bennett was just one step short of an Olympic medal. She vowed to herself that she'd be back for more in London 2012 but knew that in order to step onto the medals podium there were countless steps she would need to take, endless hours of training she would need to log over the next fours years to once again earn the right to represent Team USA at the Olympic Games.  On Friday evening, at the inaugural ITU World Triathlon San Diego, Bennett took one more step, this time a giant leap, towards that Olympic podium.  Her third place finish claimed the third and final spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic Triathlon Team.  


Bennett (Boulder, Colo.) will head to her second straight Olympic Games in August thanks to a time of 2 hours, 11 seconds on the 1,500-meter swim, 40-kilometer bike, 10-kilometer run course throughout Mission Beach.


Bennett was among the first women out of the water and rode with a pack of eight leaders throughout the 40k bike. After helping build a 2:30 advantage on the chase pack heading into the second transition area, Bennett and American Sarah Haskins, who also had her sights set on earning an Olympic Team birth, pushed the pace on the second half of the bike, quickly established themselves in the top four on the run.

Bennett and Haskins were within a few yards of each other for much of the run before Bennett opened up a 13-second advantage heading onto the bell lap. By extending that lead to lock up third, Bennett claimed her first career World Triathlon Series podium finish and the third all-time by American woman.

"It's tough when you have go up against a good friend," Bennett said on her duel with Haskins, a fellow Beijing Olympian. "I put a lot of pressure on this day. Last year in London (at the first Olympic qualifier) I just had a terrible day for some reason; I'm still just not quite sure what happened. You know, in the end I think it was a blessing in disguise because there were things that I changed in my training that I wouldn't have changed if I had made the team and I think it has made me a better athlete. It's hard to have the courage to change things when things are going well. So, I'm really happy."



Follow Laura on Twitter:  @laurarbennett



Read Laura's bio



www.bennettendurance.com





contact: Patrick Quinn
630-903-0000
Patrick@ChicagoSEP.com
 

About Chicago Sports & Entertainment Partners - www.ChicagoSEP.com  


Chicago Sports & Entertainment Partners (CSEP) is a full service sports marketing, management and consulting agency. We are a team of senior level sports marketing executives with over sixty years of combined experience in corporate brand strategies & activation, media/public relations & corporate social responsibility and athlete representation & management. We utilize this experience, and our strategic business relationships, to provide our clients unparalleled depth of service across a broad spectrum of the sports marketing industry. Our role is to assist our clients in fully leveraging their sports marketing dollars and to deliver to them tangible, measurable results targeted to achieving specifically defined corporate business objectives.