Photo: Top finishers in Junior 16-19 division, Jasmine Oeinck, Eileen Lapeta, Jenna Yeakel, Kyle Hughes, Steven Duplinski. Missing Brian Hague).

The third stop on the USA Triathlon Athlete Development Future Stars of Multisport Series was the beautiful Pleasant Prairie Development Triathlon near Kenosha, Wisconsin on June 20th, 2004. Sixty four athletes from age 7 to 23 took part in the swim-bike-run events.

The first race of the day was the draft-legal sprint distance (750m swim / 20k bike / 5k run) triathlon for the Junior and U23 athletes aged 16 to 23 years old. Eighteen male triathletes hit the warm waters of Pleasant Prairie Lake at 6:45 am with eight females following them two minutes later. Just under an hour later, the winner of the U23 division was Barrett Brandon (55:25) from Fort Worth, TX who had the fastest swim of the day and worked with 2nd place finisher Branden Rakita (Clermont, FL) on the bike to stay out in front of the large pack of chasers. U23 athlete, Jenna Shoemaker, (Sudbury, MA) used her much-improved cycling power, developed while racing for her college cycling team, to pull away from the other women and built an insurmountable lead to win in 1:02:23. Following behind Jenna Shoemaker was Jenna Yeakel from Canton, OH, who won the Junior division in a time of 1:04:24. The top male Junior was Steven Duplinsky (Kensington, MD) who used a blazing 15:44 run split to finish 4th overall.

The true spirit of the day shone through like the bright sun at Pleasant Prairie when the 7-15 year olds took to shorter distance triathlons over the same roads and paths as the 16-23 year-olds. A large number of the kids came from nearby Chicago to race and looked as professional as their older counterparts, many complete with their names across the rear- ends of their swimming suits!

The top finishers in the 7-9 age group were Josh Kanute and Maggie Majewski. In the 10-12 division the winners were Luke Verbas and Kelly Whitley. Kaylee Jamison and Adam Alter won the 13-15 year old category.

Full results are available at www.tri-pleasantprairie.com/junior/index.ht ml.

The next and fourth stop in the Future Stars series is the Table Mountain Youth Development Triathlon in Denver, Colorado on July 17th.

For more information on the series and events for young athletes, visit www.usatriathlon.org/Juniors/draft_legal_s eries.htm