Ming Tomb raiders to clash in grueling race

By Catherine Bremer

BEIJING (Reuters) - Triathletes will put their heat-beating skills to the test when they plunge, pedal and pound their way round a sweltering two-hour course in one of the toughest endurance events of the Beijing Olympics.

High temperatures and stifling humidity will make the women's and men's swimming, cycling and running events on Monday and Tuesday all the more grueling for athletes who in June were battling the bracing cold of the Vancouver championships.

The British have prepared for the race around the Ming Tomb reservoir by pounding treadmills in heat chambers and the Australians have brought crushed-ice drinks and cooling vests.

Others have sniffed at taking special measures.

"I'm actually hoping it's hot and humid because that's what we've been preparing for," said Britain's Helen Tucker, the 2008 women's triathlon world champion.

Most of the triathlete pack has been getting acclimatized together at a South Korean training camp, but the Spanish team drew the line at sauna work-outs and cooling vests.

"I'll compete the same way I always do," said men's world champion Javier Gomez Noya, who has dominated the sport over the past three years despite a minor heart condition.

"I prefer it colder. A milder climate. But it's not the first time I'm competing in heat and humidity," he said.

Triathlon, embodying the ideal of rippling all-round fitness, has been a hit with spectators since its Olympic debut in Sydney.

In Beijing, 55 men and 55 women will race the 1.5-km swim, 40-km cycle race and 10-km run on the mountain-fringed course.

The dam's warm water means rather than having don wetsuits for the swim leg, they can wear one lightweight suit for the whole race.

Yet temperatures above 27 degrees Celsius (80 Fahrenheit) and 70 percent humidity makes juggling cycling with sipping cooled energy drinks and sucking high-calorie gel especially vital.

SHOVING AND GRABBING

Gomez Noya's main rivals for the men's gold medal include Germans Daniel Unger and Jan Frodeno, and Britain's Tim Don.

The women's race will be a duel between Portugal's five-times European champion Vanessa Fernandes and three-times world champion Emma Snowsill, running with her fingernails painted in the Australian colors of green and yellow.