Fully healed from an April training incident where she broke her wrist, Cedarville University runner Grace Norman has been making up for lost time.
First, she defeated the world’s best paratriathletes in an International Triathlon Union-sanctioned event on July 28 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.Then on Aug. 12, she used Utah’s longest running triathlon — the Jordanelle Triathlon — as a tune-up for the upcoming World Championships. Running against a field of able-bodied competitors, Norman was the first overall female to finish the event.
On July 28, Norman competed in and won the International Triathlon Union-sanctioned World Paratriathlon Series event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a total time of 1 hour, 10 minutes, 44 seconds. She won over former world No. 1-ranked paratriathlete Lauren Steadman, of Great Britain, by nearly two minutes. Current No. 1 paratriathlete — Kate Doughty of Australia — finished third just over three minutes behind.
Norman turned in her fastest swim leg ever, of 10 minutes, 30 seconds to grab the early lead. She had the slowest transition time out of the five international competitors in the women’s PTS5 class, but quickly made up the deficit with the second quickest bike time (37:20 to Steadman’s 37:05), then Norman had a better transition into the running stage, where she pulled away with the event’s quickest time (20:14).
Because of her injury, Norman has not been able to compete in as many ITU-sanctioned paratriathlon events. She has competed and won her last two, while the other top-ranked competitors have competed in three sanctioned events.
Currently training in Utah, Norman is ranked No. 4 in the world among women’s PTS5 paratriathletes, behind Doughty, Steadman and Gwladys Lemoussu of France.
Norman plans on competing in the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final which will take place Sept. 14-17 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
