On Sunday, July 19th the pre-event for Yokohama International Triathlon/2009 NTT Triathlon Japan Cup Ranking 7th Stage/ITU World Championship Series in Yokohama, World Kids Triathlon and World Kids Sports Summit in Yokohama which will be held from Friday, August 21st to Sunday, August 23rd was held at Yamashita Park in Naka ward, Yokohama city.

For the World Triathlon Championship to be held for the first time inYokohama, divers cleaned the sea bottom of the swim venue in front of Yamashita Park and watercraft rescue training was also carried out by Yokohama Harbor Police.

Also, mini-mini triathlon (50m or 400 m for swim, 2km for bike, 1km for run) was conducted with participation of about 30 kids including a dream team consisting of President of Yokohama Triathlon Association Kiyoshi Hanaue for swim, Mayor of Yokohama Hiroshi Nakada for bike and a TV personality and PR Goodwill Ambassador, Risa Stegmayar for run successfully finished the race. 

I took part in bike and it was wonderful.  If I joined the race from swimming, I am not sure if I could finish the race or not.  I realized the strength and power of the triathletes now again, commented Mayor Nakada. I felt good under the good weather.  I also swam the swim course and the water was clean and easy to swim, Ms. Stegmayer said.

As a part of the event, Mr. Masayoshi Hayashi, Director of Yokosuka City Museum gave a lecture in the afternoon on Living creatures in Tokyo Bay/ Water purification by organisms at Workpia Yokohama.  Ms. Risa Stegmayer also joined the panel discussion with Professor Akira Yoshida of Tsukuba University and Director Masayoshi Hayashi under the title Lets create the old clean sea!