ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Navy women's triathlon team will close out its 2024 season at the NCAA Nationals this weekend. The race will kick off with the swim portion on Friday at 10:45 a.m. in Clermont, Fla., and will resume on Saturday at the Lake Louisa State Park. The race is set to begin on Saturday at 10:00 a.m.
Due to the split structure of the race, Saturday will start based on Friday's swim times. The racer who finished first in the swim will start first on the bikes and will be followed by the athletes behind her. If the top racer finished nine seconds ahead of the next athlete, the athlete in second-place will have to wait nine seconds before she can begin.
The race will consist of a standard 750m swim, 20km bike and a 5km run.
Fans can follow the live results using the link provided on navysports.com.
"This is the nationals and it only gets faster each year. Our team has some solid opportunities to compete with the best and learn a lot about ourselves," said head coach Billy Edwards. "Emely [Vela] will be competing in her final event as a Navy varsity triathlete and I want her to see how far her hard work has taken her. Dylan [Cashin] and Natalie [Wang] continue to improve in the sport weekly and this race will be another big step for them to test that growth."
Student-Athlete Spotlight: Emely Vela
Senior captain Emely Vela (Chester, Md.) was featured in the Student-Athlete Spotlight presented by Northrop Grumman. VIDEO.
Meet Format
The NCAA Championship is split between two separate heats (heat A and heat B). Heat A is the fastest heat with the top 75 athletes. Natalie Wang (Fr., San Diego, Calif.), Dylan Cashin (Fr., Amagansett, N.Y.) and Vela will represent Navy in heat A for their performance at the NCAA East Regional Qualifier last month.
MC Kistler (So., Apex, N.C.) and Ella Sims (Fr., Nairobi, Kenya) will begin the day for the Midshipmen as they compete in heat B.
Each team can score up to five athletes in the event. Team scores will be added up based on the top-five individual times from each program to determine a winner. The top three athletes will be presented at the awards ceremony after the completion of the race.
Seeding
Navy enters the championships as the 13-seed out of 15 competing teams. Arizona State goes into Clermont as the top-seeded team, the Sun Devils have been a power house in the sport and have won seven-consecutive national championships.
