James Edgar relishing another Commonwealth Games

As a teenager on the Gold Coast four years ago Edgar finished 22nd in the triathlon, but with a fifth-place finish in the recent European Cup the Lambeg athlete, who will be in action on the first morning at the Games, is confident of a good showing in Birmingham.

“I finished fifth there in the European Cup at the start of the year and that was against top level competition with Vincent Louis, who’s like two or three-time world champion now and the current World U23 champion Csongor Lehmann and Grenus Growe, who was third in that race, and he won one of the World Cup series races this year,” said Edgar. “It was a good competition and it’s nice to know that that I’m able to compete with those boys, it’s good coming into this type of race and championship.

“As long as the race sort of falls in my favour with the swim not being too violent, it’ll be a good day.”

Edgar is hoping he can take his learning from the Gold Coast four years ago and put them into Birmingham.

“It feels great, it’s good to be on team for the second time and after the experience last time in Australia, it’s good to get back out there and race against the top guys in world again,” he said.

“I was 19 (Gold Coast) and in my first year at university, so everything was kind of new at that stage.

“It was my first-ever time doing long-haul travel or proper long-haul travel, so it was a bit different.

“Then the weather that we all expected for the day of our race never really materialised and we ended up with thunderstorms and rain, so it was kind of like racing at home, so it wasn’t too bad race day.

“The Gold Coast is very much a university city, which we found out quite quickly afterwards, so yeah, it was brilliant getting to meet a lot of new people