Triathlon

The Ameriprise Financial SheROX Philadelphia Triathlon, will be held Sunday, starting at 8 a.m. A women's race, it consists of a half-mile swim, 15 1/2-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run. The course for the race runs along the Martin Luther King Drive side of Fairmount Park. The swim starts just off Martin Luther King Drive near Parking Lot 4 and finishes near the bottom of Black Road. Participants will then ride a two-loop bike course through Fairmount Park. The loop includes some fast and flat sections on Martin Luther King Drive as well as some small, short hills.

Hallie Terzopolos learned a valuable lesson while running, swimming and biking in a triathlon to raise money for cancer patients and research. "Never take anything for granted," the Upper Perkiomen High School senior said. "Appreciate everything you have, because others have a lot more problems and losses. " Terzopolos, who trained for four months for the event in Florida this spring, recalled running with parents racing in memory of their children and with children wearing "For mom" or "For dad" on their clothing.

The Flyers will hold their inaugural "Trial on the Isle" in Stone Harbor, N. J., tomorrow beginning with a relay triathlon at 95th Street and Second Avenue at 10 a.m. The three-man relay teams will compete in a three-mile run, a one-mile kayak and a four-mile bike race, ending where the relay triathlon began. Flyers players expected to participate include Brian Boucher, Todd Fedoruk, Chris Therien, Rick Tocchet and Justin Williams. Flyers assistant coach Mike Stothers, Phantoms coach John Stevens, Phantoms assistant coach Don Nachbaur and some of their players will participate.

They will test their constitutions in order to honor the Constitution. As part of the festivities commemorating the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, 200 hearty souls tomorrow will participate in the fifth annual Liberty-to-Liberty Triathlon, which starts in New York and ends in Philadelphia. For the competitors, it will not be as easy as munching on hot dogs or watching fireworks or marching in parades, but the race will provide its own kind of Fourth of July fun, said David Horning, who organized the event.

Philadelphia police were searching the Schuylkill on Saturday night for a 40-year-old Prospect Park man who disappeared in the morning while participating in a triathlon. The search was being conducted primarily around the area of West River and Montgomery Drives. The man, whose name was not released, had no history of medical problems, said Lt. David Byrne of the Southwest Detectives bureau. He had entered the water at 8:22 a.m. with about 100 swimmers in a 40- to 44-year-old age group.

A 19-year-old man from Kennett Square and a 43-year old woman from Riverton were the winners in the men's and women's categories of the Philadelphia Insurance sprint distance triathlon Saturday. In a sprint distance triathlon, competitors compete in a .9-kilometer swim, a 24-kilometer bike race, and 5-kilometer run. The race started at Martin Luther King Drive and Black Road, near Memorial Hall. Among the men, Nicholas Halkowski won in a time of 1 hour, 12 minutes and 4 seconds.

The Marshalton Village Inn Triathlon may be over, but questions remain about how much of the proceeds will go to the West Bradford Fire Company. The issue came up Tuesday when supervisors chairman Ken Klunk questioned Fire Chief John Carbo about how much money the company expected to receive from George Mershon, co-sponsor of the Oct. 4 event. "I have no idea," said Carbo, who was on hand at the supervisors meeting to give the monthly fire department report. Carbo added that Mershon had said no information on proceeds would be available until January.

A friend slapped a magazine on my desk and pointed at a large ad. "Can you believe that?" he asked. I shared his amazement. The ad was for a food product, and it showed a couple of strapping athletes - both triathlon champions - who endorsed the food because it pumped them with energy and made them perform better. As the ad said: "Not a drink, not a bar . . . But high-carbohydrate, low- fat real food . . . " This kind of sales pitch isn't new. Athletes have been endorsing foods for years.

When they handed out awards at Thomas Jefferson University's Fifth Annual Corporate Team Triathlon Sunday, Rohm & Haas of Philadelphia collected most of the baubles. "What kind of drugs were you using?" the announcer joked as one of the chemical corporation's teams collected its prizes. While the city entry was succeeding, Main Line corporations entered in the triathlon in West Fairmount Park didn't fare as well and weren't the butt of any of the jokes. But it didn't seem to matter.

It might be the first time it has ever been done - certainly the first time in South Jersey. It is a multiple-choice competition. Take your pick - either a duathlon or a triathlon - and you will still be competing against the entire field of entrants. Of course, it is all in good fun, and, appropriately, the event has been named the Do the Tri Try the Du Race. It is scheduled for 8 a.m. Sept. 4 at Cooper River Park. Race directors Bob Neeman of Cherry Hill and nationally recognized triathlete Russ Jones (formerly of Collingswood)

Manchester City demolished crosstown rival Manchester United, 6-1, at Old Trafford on Sunday, opening a five-point lead in the English Premier League. Man City's Mario Balotelli had two goals just 36 hours after escaping a blaze started by fireworks in the second-floor bathroom of his rented $4.75 million home in suburban Manchester. Edin Dzeko also hit two, with Sergio Aguero and David Silva also scoring. United, 19-time English champions, had been unbeaten in 37 games at home.

One competitor died and another is in a critical condition after Sunday's Nautica New York City Triathlon. A 64-year-old man died after getting into trouble during the swimming portion of the race, while a 40-year-old woman is being treated at New York's Roosevelt Hospital after also falling ill during the swim portion, race director Bill Burke said in an e-mailed statement without identifying the competitors. Participants in the annual race swim 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles)

A WARM, MUGGY day of campaigning nearly starts off badly. Karen Brown, the Republican nominee for mayor, is ready to leave her South Philly block when her righthand man, Rick Modglin, goes to dump a cup of lemonade on the street by the car. Don't do it, Brown warns. The drink will draw flies and then the ire of Gracie, the woman who keeps clean the block of tidy two-story rowhouses. Most of them have her campaign poster in their windows. All politics are local. Brown and a few volunteers in three cars head to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where the fifth annual SheROX Triathlon is under way. She spent the weekend buying all the rally towels she could find - about 1,000 - and having them printed with her name and campaign website.

STONE HARBOR, N.J. - It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. What do a lanky German, a Quebecer with four Flyers prospect camps under his belt and a kid from Bryn Mawr have in common? They come from vastly different backgrounds. They each have taken different roads to end up on the same camp roster. But yesterday, basking in a sun-drenched sweat with cheers from fans lining the street in Stone Harbor, Marcel Noebels, Kevin Marshall and Kyle Mountain were champions of the Trial on the Isle.

Doris Swarn wasn't being rude, although you got the sense she could take or leave all this interview stuff. It was just that answering questions between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. - swim hours at Hartranft pool - could be a chore, especially with children in the water. And with the summer season here, and as many as 500 kids per day signing up to swim, a dedicated lifeguard simply can't have distractions. "Can you come after 5?" she asked. If a disproportionately violent, traditionally neglected community like Hartranft, between Sixth and 10th Streets from Lehigh Avenue to York Street, is going to turn around, it's people like Swarn who are going to make it happen.

Andy Potts extended his points lead on the professional triathlon circuit and set a course record in winning the seventh annual Philadelphia Triathlon yesterday. Potts, 34, a 2004 Olympian and the gold medalist at the 2007 Pan American Games, finished the course in 1 hour, 46 minutes, 5 seconds, more than 3 minutes better than the previous mark. Nearly 1,600 athletes finished the course through Fairmount Park that featured a 1.5-kilometer swim, a 40K cycling course and a 10K run. The total prize money was $40,000, with $10,000 each to the men's and women's winners.

Andy Potts calls triathlon a "family and friends kind of sport" because it's out of the mainstream. That truly was the case for the top male and female finisher at Sunday's seventh annual Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon. Potts and Rebeccah Wassner set course records en route to victory, and each credited the presence of familiar faces in the crowd with providing an extra boost during the most demanding parts of the three-event endurance race in Fairmount Park. "This is the closest I've been to a home course," said Potts, a Hershey, Pa., native who spent much of his youth living in Princeton.

Saturday Sprint Distance Triathlon and children's races Starting line, transitions, and finish line: Martin Luther King Drive at Black Road. Race starts at 7:30 a.m. The first male finisher is expected at 8:45 and the first female at 9. Awards ceremony: 11:30 a.m. Kids' duathlons and kids' fun runs: 12:30 p.m. to 2. Who: More than 1,500 competitors are expected to swim half a mile, bike 15 miles, and run 3.1 miles in the triathlon.

One year after an athlete drowned during the swimming portion of the sprint-distance race, the director of the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon said event organizers have taken several steps to increase participants' safety in the competition. Richard Adler, the CEO of Philadelphia Triathlon L.L.C., which owns and operates the event, said there is heightened awareness of safety issues after last year's tragedy. Derek Valentino, a 40-year-old from Prospect Park, Delaware County, drowned on June 26, 2010, during the sprint distance triathlon, a shorter race held one day before the main event.

Three local men will be among the 1,500 athletes to compete in Saturday's Philadelphia Insurance Sprint Distance Triathlon. And while these three had not met before this event, they share an intriguing link. Prosthetics Innovations, a company in Eddystone, Delaware County, organized team ProLimb to promote its high-performance prosthetics, and John O'Brien, Joe Sanphy, and Brian Wacik form its relay team. Sanphy, 52, will swim the half-mile part of the triathlon in the Schuylkill.