World champion Lauren Parker has won her third-straight home victory at the City of Newcastle Paratriathlon on Saturday.
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Parker raced home with around a 10-minute lead on the competition in a race that she had earlier said would help fine-tune preparations for the Tokyo Paralympics, which begins in August.
The Newcastle Herald reported this week that, though the Australian paratriathlon team has not yet been announced, Parker is the current world champion in her classification and has done enough to qualify for the games.
The Newcastle 32-year-old is aiming for gold in Tokyo and was keen to get a gauge on her progress this weekend after a lack of racing for the past year due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, Pelican triathlete Nathan Stewart, 42, is chasing another hometown title in the Spark Helmore in Newcastle on Sunday.
After some time away from the sport, Stewart placed third last year and feels fitter for this year's standard distance of 1500-metre swim, 37-kilometre cycle and 10km run.
"It's one of the hardest courses there is," Stewart told the Herald on Saturday. "You climb King Edward Park five times on the bike. It is a hardman's course. If you win this race it's because you were the best out there.
"I've been back training for a while now and feel like I am going pretty well. We'll see how I go against the young guys on the weekend."
There will also be a sprint distance race of 750m swim, 22km cycle and 5km run and an enticer course (300m swim, 12.5km bike and 2.5km run).
It will complete a weekend of multi-sport racing in Newcastle.
- The details of this report are developing. It will be updated.
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