Canadian athlete Paula Findlay says she was just as surprised as everyone else when she won gold in her very first World Championship Triathlon Series race on the weekend.
"It was very, very surprising. I went into it with not very high expectations and I came out of it with the win, so it was very, very cool," she told CTV's Canada AM from Edmonton.
"Every single race I keep surprising myself."
The 21-year-old from Edmonton won the London Triathlon on Saturday, when she pulled ahead of three other competitors in the running portion of the race.
She joined the leaders of the race about halfway through the cycling portion of the race, and pulled ahead with about 800 metres to go in the running section for a finish of 1 hour, 51 minutes and 48 seconds.
Findlay partially credited a three-week high-altitude training camp in the Pyrenees Mountains for the win.
"I felt really awesome on the run, it definitely had an impact on my race," she said.
Findlay said the most challenging portion of the Olympic-distance triathlon -- a 1.5 kilometre swim, 40-kilometre bike and 10 kilometre run -- is the swim.
"It's so rough and so violent . . . sometimes you can get clear water but it's very hard to find," she said.
Findlay's win came on the same course that will be used in the 2012 London Olympics.
She has not qualified yet for the Olympics but it is her goal to return to the course for Canada in 2012.
