Helen Jenkins Kicks Off 2021 With E-Sports Top 10 In The Zwift Pro Tri Series This Week

Two-time World Champion triathlete from Bridgend, Helen Jenkins, kicked off her campaign for 2021 season with a top 10 finish in this week’s virtual pro event held on Zwift.

Racing on Zwift, the online cycling and running programme, enables users to interact, train and compete in a virtual world. This week, Helen competed against twenty of the world’s top female triathletes including 2-time Ironman World Champion runner-up Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR), 30+ Ironman and 70.3 Ironman Winner Meredith Kessler (USA) and many more.

The race is part of a wider series is made up of 3 legs, each raced over a bike-run-bike format. Races start with an individual time trial on the bike, followed by a run race on treadmills and then a final criterium style points race on the bike. Points are awarded for finishing positions in each leg.

In her first race, Helen finished 8^th overall, completing the run leg in 4^th position. She commented; “It was a really exciting new format combining both run and bike into the race. It was tough as the field was world class but was great to get into a competitive race format. Overall, it showed me that everything is moving in the right direction, I am still not fully bike fit after my latest round of back operations, but ran strongly which was encouraging. The race is full on and non-stop from the get-go, something that I wasn’t fully prepared for. That said, it was hugely beneficial for my training and I can’t wait for the next three races where I hope to climb even further up the leader board.”

Helen is really looking forward to the next race on February 10^th at 7pm in the UK, with additional races on the 17^th and 24^th. For anyone interested in watching her next race live here, it can be seen for free here: https://youtu.be/ZGDPTP7JcZo

For details of Helen’s next races follow her on Instagram and twitter on @heljinx and @helenjenkinstri on Facebook.