Press Conference: Gwen Jorgensen Ready To Defend Gold Coast Title

American ITU star Gwen Jorgensen returns to World Triathlon Series racing this weekend in Gold Coast, Australia for the first time since she claimed her second ITU World Championship title in Chicago in September. Jorgensen has won 12-straight WTS races and will be looking to make it 13 on Saturday. The women will get the 2016 Gold Coast ITU World Triathlon Series underway at 9:36 a.m. on Saturday April 9 (7:36 p.m. ET Friday), while the men will follow at 12:36 p.m. local time (10:36 p.m. ET Friday). Follow all of the action live at triathlonlive.tv and on twitter @triathlonlive.

Read a few pre-race comments from Jorgensen below and see what a few of the other top contenders had to say at Triathlon.org:

On returning to the Gold Coast:
“I’m excited to be here, I came here last year and it was a great race so I’m excited to be back here again and looking forward to Saturday.”

On Olympic qualification:
“I am really grateful that I am already qualified for the Rio Olympics and all the racing and training I do out to August 20 will hopefully prepare me for Rio. It’s not to say that I didn’t come here to try to do well.”

“I know that Ashleigh has Olympic qualifications on the line and I know that Jodie has Olympic qualifications on the line and I watched them race in Abu Dhabi and they both fought until the bitter end. Ashleigh came off the back and got back on and she really showed a lot of fight in there and come Saturday it’s going to be a really tough race and they’re going to be giving it their all and I will be too.”

On her form under Australian coach Jamie Turner:
“It’s been a huge factor. I train with the Wizards every single day, they push me to become a better athlete and Jamie, I believe is the best triathlon coach in the world that’s why I employed him back in late 2012 and he’s really help me grow as an athlete and really taught me a lot about performance.”

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