The COVAX facility, which is co-led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, and Gavi: the Vaccine Alliance, approved in March a channel of vaccine doses that will be reserved for the most vulnerable people in the world, who have no access to the life-saving vaccines.
The channel will redirect 5% of the doses allocated to COVAX to the most vulnerable people, including displaced people. The doses will be administered by NGOs including Doctors Without Borders.
COVAX estimates that 33 million people could obtain doses from the channel, but it’s unclear whether or how the other 13 million displaced people counted by the WHO will be able to access the vaccines.
The United Nations’ refugee agency this week called for Covid-19 vaccines to be made available to people who have been displaced, warning that fully protecting public health for the global community “means protecting refugees.”
“To build back stronger from the pandemic, fair and equal access to Covid-19 vaccines is needed for everyone everywhere, including displaced people,” the UNHCR said.
“As we learned from the outset of Covid-19 and all the restrictions put in place, availability of testing, and access to healthcare for coronavirus, no one is safe until everyone is safe, and that is absolutely the same for vaccination programs,” Nadia Hardman, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The Guardian.
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Decided your A-race this summer? This could be a contender for all you middle distance athletes: the new Ironman 70.3 Durban.
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The race will start on 2 August with a 1.9km swim off the city’s world-famous surfing beaches, followed by a 90.1km bike which takes athletes past the iconic Moses Mabhida stadium which was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The race will finish with a 21.1km run along Durban’s Golden Mile.
(Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons)
“The popularity of triathlon in South Africa is on the rise – and athletes have long awaited the introduction of an additional race in the region,” said Keith Bowler, Managing Director for Ironman South Africa. “Durban is a great location that is also one of the original South African triathlon hotbeds, with the South African pioneers of the sport thriving in the 1980s.”
This year’s Ironman 70.3 Durban will have 30 qualifying slots for the 2016 Ironman 70.3 World Championship, taking place in Australia’s Sunshine Coast, and there will also be a total prize purse of US$50,000.
Registration will open on 2 February at 1pm UK time, and more info can be found at www.ironman.com/durban70.3.
Check out Joe Beer’s new year training plan for middle distance racers here.
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Will you be entering Ironman 70.3 Durban? Let us know in the comments!
Five years after winning the first ever Outlaw, former Royal Marine Paul Hawkins will be on the start line for both the Outlaw Half on 31 May and the Outlaw on 26 July.
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Hawkins was a relatively unknown winner in 2010, but is likely start this year’s Outlaw Triathlon and Outlaw Half as favourite to win both and challenge the existing course records.
“I have very fond memories from winning the first Outlaw,” said Hawkins. “It was that performance in 2010 that made me realise that I was good enough to compete with some of the very best in the sport.
“If could win them both it would be incredible. Obviously it would be tough and I expect to have to fight for it, but after two years of frustration with injury I finally feel fully recovered and better motivated then ever before.”
As well as Hawkins, last year’s women’s winner of the Outlaw, Jenny Bosman, will be on the starting line up. Both events are already sold out, but both are free to spectators to watch.
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The Outlaw has also been shortlisted for Event of the Year (over 500 entries) in this year’s 220 awards – full shortlist here.
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If you’re hunting omens for British triathlon success in 2015, look no further than the icy Yorkshire Dales on New Year’s Eve, where Alistair Brownlee was winning the Auld Lang Syne fell race.
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It was three years on from hist last appearance and victory – the following summer he would be crowned Olympic champion. With brother Jonny third, the two split by another British triathlete, Mark Buckingham, an injury-free winter’s training for the siblings is a good sign of what’s to come.
It’s just as well. Building a solid base is going to be needed because there has never been more on offer for the short course speedsters to get stuck into. The ITU World Series has been extended to 10 events, starting in Abu Dhabi on the first weekend of March before travelling via Auckland, Gold Coast, Cape Town, Yokohama, London, Hamburg, Stockholm and Edmonton, to the Grand Final in Chicago in September.
The Olympic test event in Rio de Janeiro in August will also be a priority, a key selection race for most countries trying to qualify a maximum of three slots for the 2016 Games, and triathletes looking to secure their individual berths to compete beside the Copacabana.
Add a further eight races with the second tier World Cup series, plus the European Championships in Geneva in July and the inaugural European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan in June, and even Team GB may struggle to challenge on all fronts.
Rio focus
On the men’s side, expect consistency from Adam Bowden and Aaron Harris, who finished 2014 ranked 14th and 17th respectively, with Harris sixth in the Commonwealth Games. Plus potential breakthroughs from a trio of 20-year-olds: Gordon Benson from the fabled Leeds training group, and Scottish team-mates, training and study partners Grant Sheldon and Mark Austin. Olympic selection will be tough, but the thorny issue of that third team member being a domestique (or ‘pilot’ using the new lexicon) can stay on the backburner… for now.
The global threat is likely to come from the select group of ITU racers who can run the coveted sub-30minute 10km off the bike. Chief amongst them will be Spain’s Javier Gomez and Mario Mola, and South Africa’s Richard Murray. With ITU and Ironman 70.3 world titles to defend, Gomez may dial back a notch from his hectic 2014 schedule.
The women’s side is no less intriguing. Non Stanford, the 2013 world champion, should be back after missing the entirety of last season with a foot injury, Helen Jenkins likewise, after pulling up before the Commonwealth Games. Birmingham’s Jodie Stimpson, who won that Glasgow showdown and another two World Series races, will be back on the ITU beat after her brief flirtation with middle distance racing in Bahrain, but Commonwealth bronze medallist Vicky Holland, showing the best form of her career last summer, won’t be in action until later in the season as she battles pesky plantar fasciitis.
Supporting them there are strong swim-bikers such as 2012 Olympic domestique Lucy Hall and Jessica Learmonth, but also look out for fast-running youngster Georgia Taylor-Brown, another to miss last season through injury, and possibly even British Super Series winner Emma Pallant, if she can continue to improve her swim.
The USA’s Gwen Jorgensen is on a record run of five straight ITU World Series wins, and starts as the favourite for the World Series. If she’s part of the front pack entering T2 then those odds shorten even further, but triathlon on the women’s side is notoriously unpredictable. It’s worth noting the world ITU title has only been retained three times in 25 years since inception.
This year will be the most exciting time in Paratriathlon’s short existence. Its six categories for the 2016 Paralympics decided, the athletes can earn their spots at events running parallel to the ITU World Series. Keep a particular eye on the women’s PT4 category, chiefly for athletes with limb deficiencies, as Britain swept the World Championship podium in Edmonton with Lauren Steadman, Faye McClelland and Clare Cunningham. They arrive in London on 30th May, catch them if you can..
It’s not only hectic with the short stuff. Going long, the traditional northern hemisphere summer season has been extended so the flagship events now run from February through December, thanks largely to an Arab injection of cash that has sprung a triple crown of big money middle distance Challenge events in Dubai (February), Oman (August) and Bahrain (December) yielding a $1million prize pot to chase.
Couple this with a swelled Ironman calendar that includes the annual pilgrimage to Hawaii for the World Championships, the Ironman 70.3 World Championship leaving the United States for the first time as it heads for Zell am See-Kaprun in Austria, and now five regional Ironman championships with the addition of South Africa (African) and Brazil (Latin American) and the professionals have never had more choice.
“I see no reason why we can’t have four ‘Majors’ a year like they have in tennis,” says British pro Jodie Swallow. “Specialists will excel in their preferred habitat.” Swallow is also considering a stab at the most highly supported race in the world, Challenge Roth in Germany.
Of the British contenders, look once more to the women’s side for success with Swallow and Rachel Joyce, under new coach Julie Dibens, tackling Hawaii with renewed vigour after five times placing in the top six.
Add in former champion Leanda Cave, reigning European champion Corinne Abraham, plus Alice Hector and possibility Emma Pooley, a former time-trial world champion and Olympic silver medallist who is still only 32, and the talent is exceptional.
All will have to get by Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf, who is now a proven threat. But as usual the rear view mirrors on the run will be set for the charging Kona specialist, course record holder, and pulsating marathon runner, Australian Mirinda Carfrae.
All change
It’s all change for the men and Spencer Smith’s fifth-placed British record finish in Kona should finally come under threat. 220 columnist Tim Don has almost secured qualification thanks to his third in the 70.3 worlds last year and win on Ironman debut in Mallorca.
If he can be in contention off the bike, the 28:56mins flat 10km runner is a real danger. As is Will Clarke, part of the successful Uplace-BMC team that scooped up 21 race wins in its debut season, Clarke contributing victories in half-Ironman races in Wimbleball and Lanzarote.
They could be joined by the ambitious Scot David McNamee, a short course racer who made the surprising and ambitious decision to turn his back on an Olympic spot and funding to throw himself straight into Ironman racing in South Africa. Others committed to the Big Dance are Challenge Weymouth winner and strong bike-runner Joe Skipper and the experienced Stephen Bayliss, who’ll kick things off in similar surroundings at Ironman Lanzarote.
There’ll be no return for Tom Lowe, as the second-fastest British iron-distance racer has bowed gracefully into retirement, nor Jersey’s Dan Halksworth, who has vowed to stick to middle distance and bike racing in 2015. Harry Wiltshire’s law exams also mean no repeat of his dramatic eight-Ironman season before finishing as leading British pro in Hawaii last year.
That race witnessed nine Europeans in the top 12, and expect that stronghold to continue with Sebastian Kienle, Jan Frodeno and Freddie van Lierde the ones to beat once more, but keep half an eye on Lionel Sanders, his 6:58:46 winning time in Florida, albeit with a cancelled swim, illustrated the Barry Shepley-trained Canadian is a fast-rising star.
Not that there is any need to leave these shores for diverse, challenging racing. Ironman will deliver a superfast 70.3 at Staffordshire as a contrast to the notoriously tough Wimbleball and Ironmans of Tenby and Bolton, with all races already sold out. Challenge also expect a strong field of high standard age-groupers and professionals, having teamed up with the European Triathlon Union to make Weymouth a championship venue in September.
It’s the same story for cross-country tri lovers, as Xterra England doubles as the European championship on the Vachery estate in Surrey with an increased purse of $25,000 and 50 slots for the world championships in Maui. It’s a terrific success story after the event’s future looked in doubt with the demise of original franchise holders Brave Events at the start of last year.
The rich British triathlon heritage continues with independent events like the Slateman, Sandman and the award-winning Outlaw gaining TV coverage, plus the Castle series which provides another five scenic events from Ireland to the north of France culminating at Hever Castle where the range of distances extend from super sprints to the full distance Bastion and see hundreds of kids brave the moat for a first taste of open water swimming.
Cost remains an issue, so whether Go-Tri, the gateway triathlon events in the mould of the successful Parkrun, can catch on will be interesting. There appear to be just a handful of pilot events available at present. If not, the behemoths of Blenheim, Windsor and London can be relied on for fantastic entry-level racing, raising plenty of smiles and vast sums for worthwhile causes, and allowing all comers to hobnob with reality TV stars.
The ITU’s much-debated decision to change sprint distant rules should see a few draft-legal races crop up, and possibly race directors’ premiums as insurance companies catch-on to the pack-riding risks. For now the elite age-group scene will remain vibrant and Great Britain will send a strong contingent to Geneva for the Euros and Chicago or the worlds, every medal hard fought for as the competition becomes tougher.
It’s not all about bling and time splits though, it’s about new experiences and testing yourself. Whether a novice triathlete, first time going long, or experienced age-grouper, triathlon continues to offer something for everyone. That’s why, from a posse of Under-10s revelling in a Scootathlon (scoot, bike, run) at Eton Dorney, to multiple-world champion Chris McCormack plunging into the icy waters of Norseman’s fjords, or American Lew Hollander stepping up to the 85-89 category in Hawaii, get to the start-line and you’ll be loving – almost – every minute of it!
(Illustration: Daniel Seex)
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What are your tri highlights of the 2015 calendar? Let us know in the comments!
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Conrad Stoltz, Ben Allen, Richard Stannard, Jacqui Slack, Emma Garrard and Rachel Clay – all six former winners of Xterra England will return for this year’s event at the Vachery Estate in Surrey.
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Up for grabs on the Bank Holiday weekend of 29th/30th August are national and European titles, a $25,000 prize purse and qualifying points for the 20th edition of the world championships in Maui, Hawaii.
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Last year Stoltz (RSA) and Garrard (USA) clinched victory, with ‘The Caveman’ Stoltz overtaking Stannard on the bike to finish 3mins clear and claim his fiftieth Xterra win, and Garrard overtaking Slack on the bike and hanging on to claim her first.
Other pros lining up for this year’s Xterra England include: Matt Dewis (GBR), Doug Hall (GBR), Yeray Luxem (BEL), Tim McDowell (GBR), Paul Hawkins (GBR), Theo Blignaut (RSA), Aya Stevens (SVN), Joanna Carritt (GBR) and Louise Fox (GBR).
The championship distance is open to all triathletes and athletes of any ability and background and combines a 1.5km swim / 30km bike / 10km trail run on Sunday. There is also a half-distance sprint race option and athletes can join together to tackle either triathlon as part of a relay team. New for this year will be 10km and 22km trail runs on the Saturday, kids triathlons and the possibility of a bonfire and movie night.
Xterra England will be the last stop on a 12-stage European race tour, which also takes in Malaga (Spain), Golega (Portugal), Lake Plastira (Greece) and Lago di Scanno (Italy). Undisputed highlight of the off-road calendar though will be the 20th edition of the world championships held in Maui, Hawaii on 1 November.
Registration for this year’s Xterra England is open now at www.xterraengland.com.
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Will you be racing Xterra England this year? Let us know in the comments!