BEIJING - Canadian triathlete Simon Whitfield thinks it's time to break up the Spanish Armada of sport.
"A Spaniard just won the Tour de France and Rafael Nadal won Wimbledon," he said. "The Spanish are on a roll and somebody has to stop it."
Spaniard Javier Gomez is the favourite to win the men's Olympic triathlon Tuesday at the Ming Tomb Reservoir.
"Of course, he's got to be the favourite," Whitfield said. "I don't say that to pile pressure on him.
"He's won every race he's competed in this year except for European championships where I think the other countries ganged up on him."
Whitfield won the gold medal when triathlon made its Olympic debut in Sydney eight years ago.
The 33-year-old from Kingston, Ont., ranks second among men in all-time career World Cup victories with 11. He was 11th at the 2004 Games in Athens.
Canada qualified a full men's team of three triathletes for the first time at the Olympics and they are Whitfield, Edmonton's Paul Tichelaar and Colin Jenkins of Hamilton, Ont.
Other Canadians in action Tuesday include Vancouver sailor Mike Leigh in laser. The medals will be handed out that day and Leigh has been in contention throughout the series.
Toronto's Jason Burnett has a risky trampoline routine planned that he hopes will get a big score and a medal.
Track cyclists Zach Bell of Watson Lake, Yukon, and Martin Gilbert of Chateauguay, Que., team up in the Madison race.
Marie-Pier Boudreau Gagnon of Riviere-du-Loup, Que., and Isabelle Rampling of Burlington, Ont., perform their free routine in synchronized swimming.
Two-time Olympians Ashley Holzer of Toronto and Leslie Reid of Langley, B.C., plus Jacqueline Brooks of Mt. Albert, Ont., will ride in dressage in Hong Kong.
Pradeeban Peter-Paul of Ottawa is in men's singles table tennis and Saeed Azerbayjani of St. Catharines, Ont., wrestles in the 60-kilogram weight class.
The men's field hockey team takes on South Africa.
Tabia Charles of Pickering, Ont., and Rukayatu Abdulai of Coquitlam, B.C., start women's long jump at the Bird's Nest.
Triathalon
The triathlon includes is a 1.5-kilometre swim in the reservoir before mounting the bikes at the base of the dam for a 40-kilometre bike and then 10-kilometre run.
Tuesday's forecast is for a high of 30 C and almost 80 per cent humidity. The conditions combined with a hilly bike and run course could make triathlon a war of attrition for the 55 men entered.
"It's a hard course. I like to say it sorts the men from the boys," Whitfield said. "There's no hiding on this course."
Spectator seating as been set up for 10,000 people and they'll watch from the slope of the dam above the transition area.
"It's got a temple in the middle of the lake and a huge dam wall right there," Whitfield said. "It's a spectacular course."
In a controversial decision, Triathlon Canada chose Jenkins over higher-ranked Canadian men in order to provide Whitfield with a domestique.
The job of Jenkins is to draft for Whitfield on the bike leg to help him chase down racers in front of him.
"We just want to be able to put together a team that has the best chance of winning," Whitfield explained. "That's what the Canadian public has invested in with where the funding dollars go and that's the expectations of the Canadian Olympic Committee."
Tichelaar, ranked in the top 15 in the World Cup standings, will race on his own.
"Simon and Colin Jenkins are going to work as a team," he said, "but I am allowed to do my own race."
Whitfield will start fifth from the outside on the pontoon when the gun goes to start the swim.
He's worked hard on his swimming in order to come out of the water with the leaders in Beijing. Whitfield also upped the number of repetitions in training to increase his strength on the bike and the run.
He says Simon Whitfield of 2008 would whip the 2000 version of himself.
"If you could ghost-race with yourself from eight years ago, I couldn't swim, bike or run with myself," he said. "How weak my swim was back then, I couldn't get away with now.
"I can actually visualize myself coming out of the water in the front group."
