Bermuda elite junior triathletes Tyler Smith and Erica Hawley are looking forward to returning home to compete in the inaugural Digicel Bermuda TriFest and ITU Continental Cup next month.

The sprint triathlon for elite male and female athletes, as well as age-group races, will be held on April 9. Smith and Hawley are both fresh off competing in the ITU Junior Caribbean and Central American Championships in Costa Rica where they placed third and second.

The pair are set to participate in the North American Junior Championships in Sarasota, Florida, this weekend.

Smith attends the University of Leeds and juggles his training regime with a busy study schedule.

He describes a typical day as starting with a high intensity 5,000 metres swim, followed by a four-hour bike ride. To push himself to the limit, Smith will also run after the bike to get the “feeling of tired legs before heading to the gym for strength and conditioning at the end of the day”.

When asked about the Bermuda TriFest, Smith said he “can’t wait for the fast paced ITU draft-legal style racing”.

Hawley is following an intense training schedule in Boulder at the University of Colorado, where she braves the temperamental weather as she prepares for competition.

She said that Flora Duffy is her inspiration for “changing the way women race triathlons”.

“I felt really inspired seeing someone from a small island like Bermuda win so many races in the world circuit that I started to believe that I could be a pro,” Hawley said.

Besides the warmer weather, Erica said she is “looking forward to returning to a home crowd and showing my sponsors, peers and family who I am and what I can do”.

The race is part of the Continental Cup race series, which is the first level of professional racing for triathletes with only World Cup and World Triathlon Series experience.

As the race is also a part of the CAMTRI region, including North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean, the race will attract professionals and elite juniors.

“It has been over 20 years since Bermuda has hosted an ITU elite level event and a few of us on the BTA thought it was time for us to showcase Bermuda again, especially given the visibility of some of our athletes on the international circuit,” Aaron Smith, the race director, said.

“We were thrilled to be awarded the race and we have some great partners like Digicel and the Bermuda Tourism Authority to help bring it to life.”

The racecourse, starting in Hamilton, will be very similar to the course for the World Triathlon Series races to be held in Bermuda from 2018 to 2020.

The event will include junior races over shorter distances for 7 to 10, 11 to 12 and 13 to 15-year-old age groups.

Adult age group and elite races will be held over the regular sprint distances of a 750-metres swim 20-kilometres bike and 5km run. The Bermuda Triathlon Association welcomes any triathlete, locally or abroad, to participate in the age group race.