Leanda Cave To Go After Commonwealth Games Spot

2012 Ironman world champion Leanda Cave will return to her short-course roots to go after a spot at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which will take place in late July in Glasgow, Scotland.

Leanda Cave has outlined her desire to complete a Welsh dream team for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer.

The former world triathlon and Ironman champion is hoping to join a team of all world gold medalists by linking up with Welsh wonders Non Stanford and Helen Jenkins, who is set to return to action next month after 18 months out through injury.

Stanford is the current world champion, while Jenkins won the global crown in 2008 and 2011. Cave also won the world short-course triathlon title in Mexico in 2002 and followed this up with long distance success in France five years later before switching to the longer Ironman discipline in 2007.

The move paid off when she became the finest female endurance athlete on the planet in 2012. The Australian-raised Cave created history to become the first woman to achieve the notable double of winning the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and half Ironman in Las Vegas.

After a troubled 12 months, Cave is now focusing on switching back to the shorter distance in Glasgow this summer to again compete in a Welsh vest.

This would signal Cave’s third Commonwealth Games after winning silver in Manchester in 2002 and finishing 13th in Melbourne four years later.

Cave had feared her Glasgow dream might have been over after a troubled 2013 where she was diagnosed with skin cancer and struggled with a torn hamstring.

Now speaking from her home in Tuscon, Ariz., Cave insisted she was back to full fitness with the Commonwealths her main goal for the first half of the year.

The 35-year-old has entered three races in South America over the next couple of months in her bid to qualify.

“Thinking of Glasgow gives me goose bumps,” said Cave.

“To be given the opportunity to go to the Commonwealth Games again after such a long time would be an amazing feeling.

“This was a place where I started my career as an athlete in Manchester in 2002.

“It would be like almost going full circle and prove a very humbling experience.”

Read more: Walesonline.co.uk

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