Jack Moody and Valerie Barthelemy take inaugural Challenge Cap-Quebec wins

It was a small pro field, but lots of triathlon enthusiasts were keeping their eye on the action in Quebec City today for the inaugural edition of Challenge Cap-Quebec. It’s no secret that Challenge-Family has struggled to make its mark in North America, so a successful event here in the picturesque city was critical. We’ll have more on the entire event and the age-group racing over the next few days, but suffice it to say that the event was a huge success. The exciting pro racing just added to the great day.

Moody takes fourth win of the season

The Kiwi might be gearing up for a big day at his hometown race in Taupo (for the 70.3 worlds), but 2024 has seen Jack Moody put himself in a great position to take the top spot in the Challenge Family World Bonus thanks to his fourth win of the season (and third Challenge-Family win, too).

Moody was fifth out of the water, 46 seconds behind swim leader, America Matt Schafer, but it wasn’t long before he was in front. By the halfway point of the bike he was 1:23 up on American super-cyclist Andrew Starykowicz, and the gap just kept getting bigger from there. Moody was 2:40 up on the American into T2 and by the end of the run was well clear of the rest of the field with his 3:40:14 finish. That put him over nine-minutes ahead of Canadian Nicolas Gilbert (3:49:26), while another Canadian, Brennen Smith, rounded out the podium in 3:53:33.

You can see the full results list here.

Barthelemy bounces back from Olympic disappointment with big win

After representing Belgium at the Tokyo Olympics, Valerie Barthelemy had a frustrating qualifying stretch for the Paris Games and ended up just missing the Games this year. The upside was that she can focus on some long-distance racing (she’s also looking to head to Taupo for the 70.3 worlds at the end of the year) – and, thanks to a neck-and-neck day of racing with Great Britain’s Jodie Stimpson, she got some excellent race experience over the distance.

The two were well clear of another oh-so-close-to-qualifying-athlete, Canada’s Dominika Jamnicky, who missed a spot in Paris by just one spot, after the swim, hitting T1 over 90 seconds up on the rest of the field. The pair continued their domination on the bike, finishing just under three minutes ahead of Angela Naeth, with Jamnicky just over six minutes down.

The pair continued their side-by-side racing through more than 16 km of the run before Barthelemy was finally able to break clear and run through for the win in 4:12:13. Stimpson would take second (4:13:21) just over a minute behind, while Jamnicky would round out the podium in 4:21:09.

You can find the full women’s results from Challenge Cap-Quebec here.

Triathlon Magazine was at today’s event and we’ll have more coverage from the event over the next few days.