Canada’s Naeth added to Daytona Championship field
Canadian Angela Naeth joins Olympic medalists Jonathan Brownlee, Lisa Norden and Henri Schoeman as wildcard picks for the PTO Championship
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Angela Naeth joins three Olympic medalists as the latest four wildcard athletes named to compete at the Professional Triathletes Organisation Championships that will be part of Challenge Daytona in December.
The Canadian joins Olympic silver and bronze medalist Jonathan Brownlee, 2012 silver medalist Lisa Norden and 2016 bronze medalist Henri Schoeman as the latest wildcard entrants for the race that will offer a US$1 million prize purse.
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Naeth has displayed incredible grit and determination over the last few years, overcoming Lyme disease in 2018 to take eighth at the Ironman World Championship, then qualifying for the 2020 worlds with a win at Ironman Chattanooga last fall despite having endured two wrist surgeries in May and June of 2019.
Naeth’s impressive career includes three Ironman and 19 Ironman 70.3 titles.
Olympic medalists join the fun
In addition to his two Olympic medals, Brownlee took the ITU world championship title in 2012 and is a two-time ITU sprint-distance world champion. While his brother, Alistair, made the move to long-distance racing a few years ago before declaring that he’d make another Olympic run for Tokyo, Jonathan has remained focus on the Tokyo Games, which he says will be his last.
Norden has been competing over the half-distance for a few years now, and recently took the Ironman 70.3 Gdynia title. She also represented Sweden at the recent cycling world championships in Italy, competing in both the individual time trial and road race events. Norden is possibly best remembered, though, for her sprint finish with Nicola Spirig at the 2012 Games in London, where she finished in a dead heat with the Swiss athlete.
Schoeman, the bronze medalist behind the Brownlee brothers in Rio, won the ITU Grand Final that year in Cozumel after Jonathan collapsed and Alistair helped him to the line. Schoeman took the 2018 Commonwealth Games in impressive fashion and made his half-distance debut earlier this year at Ironman 70.3 South Africa, where he finished third.
