Life for Regional Triathlon Centre-Guelph athlete Jason Wilson this year has finally slowed down and he's grateful for the chance to catch his breath.
"I'm glad this spring is over," he said Thursday, a day after returning from Barbados where he spent a couple of weeks after it was announced that he had qualified for this summer's Olympics. "I've done a lot of racing this spring and I'm just looking forward to being back here in Guelph and preparing for the Games now."
While he now spends the majority of his year in Guelph, Wilson will race for Barbados in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. He was born there in 1990 and took up triathlon when he was 11.
"He's grown into an international racer," RTC-Guelph coach Craig Taylor said. "When he started, he was just coming out of junior. He was U23. We were pretty late to the process for London, but we tried to make the London Games with a year to go. That's really difficult and he just missed it. He set a goal for the last four years to make it here and he's progressed to really solid senior racing."
"It's been a long-time goal," Wilson said of qualifying for the Olympics. "I've been here for six years now working with Craig and we tried for the 2012 Games in London and just barely missed it by the skin of our teeth and now we've made and we're going to Rio in August."
However, the quest to qualify for the Olympics meant a packed schedule the first five months of the year. This year's Olympic field will be limited to 55 competitors with no more than three from a single country. International event winners gained automatic berths while the other berths would be filled by athletes ranked in the top 140 in the International Triathlon Union's points list. And the athletes had to have competed in 14 international races since May of 2014 to qualify.
After going home to Barbados for Christmas, Wilson returned to Guelph in early January and then it was off to a training camp at Clermont, Fla. That was followed by races in Abu Dhabi, Australia, New Zealand, Australia again, South Africa, Mexico and Japan.
"That was all in four months so it was hard to get any kind of training in there," Wilson said. "It was one race after another on different continents, 14-hour time differences, jet lag. I knew it was going to be a hard spring, but it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I definitely wouldn't try to put myself in that boat again come Tokyo in four years. I'll try to qualify earlier and not in the spring leading up to the Games."
The grind did pay off as Wilson is ranked 61st on the ITU list with just under 1,595 points and is poised to become the first Barbadian, or Bajan, to compete in an Olympic triathlon.
Wilson is hoping the Rio race goes similar to the Pan Am Games triathlon, but with a bit better finishing place.
"The Pan Am Games last summer was amazing," he said. "The race played out really well for me. I was leading the race up until one lap to go in the run and I eventually ended up getting caught by a group of guys and finishing fifth.
"If you actually finish first in that race, it's automatic qualification for the Olympic Games so I was a little disappointed by that, but all in all, it was a great race. Everyone who came to watch the race said it was the most exciting race they'd ever seen."
The men's triathlon at Rio is set for Aug. 18.
After that he'll return to Guelph and will be on the University of Guelph campus this fall and winter.
"I have one more year left on my (environmental engineering) degree," he said. "I'll finish off my degree so I'll be here all winter as well."
