A good turnout is expected for Saturday’s Liberty Mutual Mixed Team Relay National Championships at Clearwater Beach in St David’s.

Bermuda Triathlon Association president Steven Petty indicated that ahead of last night’s close of registration, 80 triathletes had registered. Competition on the day is for the 7-10 and then the 11+ age groups.

“As of Friday we had 80 registered competitors, before the close of registration at midnight,’’ Petty said. “We had nine teams in the juniors, 7 to 10 years, and then the balance was for the seniors.

“Mixed team relay is where each person does the whole event. It’s a super-sprint, which is what they had at the Olympics.

“The whole idea was to have the older Carifta triathletes compete against the adults. The 7-10s are not doing the super-sprint, they are doing a 100m swim, 5k bike and 1k run. Here they have three categories, male, female and mixed.

“For the 11+, they are doing a 300m swim, 10k bike and 2k run. We have five categories for this age group – mixed, male, female, corporate, and family.”

Some of the teams to watch out for are combination between Bermuda gold medal-winners at the Carifta Triathlon and Aquathlon Championships in Barbados, Naomi MacGuinness and Sanchez Smith. Jackson Langley has teamed up with Dylan Eiselt, while Will Green and Alex Waldauer will be favourites.

The event was added to the BTA calender after a saving was made from the National Sprint Triathlon Championships. Normally, that action would have been held on Front Street in Hamilton, but due to a clash of dates with the motor festival at the end of June, it was moved to Clearwater.

“Liberty Mutual gave us the same amount of money and asked us to do two events,’’ the BTA president said.

“We did the sprint national championships in June at Clearwater, and we’re doing this event at the same venue.

“There’s a lot of interest on the back of Carifta. People are going away to do 70.3 events over the next couple of weeks.

“There’s a group going to Italy and there’s another group going to Long Island in New York. We also have our Olympic Distance Championships on October 6 at Clearwater Beach.

“On October 27, we have the Cambridge Beaches event, which is a sprint up in Somerset.”