Blake Harris and Mathis Beaulieu: Catching Up With Our Project Podium Canadians

While attending a training and metabolic testing camp in Park City, Utah, the summer home base of Project Podium, I had the privilege of catching up with two of our young Canadian stars.

The first, Blake Harris, has recently made the move from short-course to long-course racing and is already making a name for himself with some impressive results. Excitingly, he’s headed to his first-ever Ironman 70.3 World Championship in just one month’s time on the iconic Nice course (and we can’t wait to be there watching him race in person!).

Mathis Beaulieu, meanwhile, shared his plans for this pivotal LA 2028 Olympic qualification period, which kicked off this May. He’s hoping to – and is on track to – become a potential third man representing Canada on the Olympic stage, which would mark his first appearance at an Olympic Games.

Two Canadians on two different paths, and plenty to be excited about.

Here’s a little more about each athlete’s journey (and why you should follow along, if you aren’t already!).

Blake Harris

Harris grew up playing hockey just outside of Winnipeg but made the switch to triathlon in high school, where he competed frequently in US-based development series races.

“The racing opportunities were just a lot better down in the US,” he shared. “Through that, I got to know a lot of the junior guys, and it’s also where I met Parker.”

So how did he come to be part of Parker Spencer’s squad? We asked because, as head coach of the US team, Spencer coaching Canadians is perhaps…a little unusual.

“Parker’s always held a couple of international spots on his team,” Harris shared. “Right ahead of my high school grad, a couple of older guys were phasing out, so there was space for another international athlete. I raced 17 times that summer after graduating and then immediately moved down to join the Project Podium crew,” he said with a smile, his gratitude for being part of the group evident.

When asked about his favourite part of training with Project Podium, Harris said: “It’s super awesome having a training group of all similar-aged guys. Very uncommon. Everyone’s so tight and everything. We’re always in the best training locations too, alternating between Park City and Tempe.” He added that Tempe is his favourite, as it’s the place that most feels like home base.

While Harris raced short-course for several years, at the end of 2025 he made the leap into long-course racing at Ironman 70.3 Indian Wells-La Quinta, where he placed seventh. The experience was a positive one, and his testing data was also suggesting that his strengths might shine most as the race distance gets longer…so he kept pursuing it into 2026.

“I was really proud of earning a T100 start in San Francisco,” he said, “and of finishing in the top 10 at the North American Champs in Happy Valley.”

He finished an impressive seventh in Happy Valley, while in San Francisco he posted the third-fastest run split of the day: 58:24, or 3:14/km, mere seconds behind Hayden Wilde’s 58:15 and Jason West’s 58:17.

“I also pretty much ran my 5km PR three times in a row in San Francisco,” Harris said with a laugh, noting that his splits across the 100km were only minimally slower. It was yet another indication of what his metabolic testing had been showing – that his forte may, in fact, emerge as the race distance gets longer.

Following these races, he went on to secure his first long-course podium with a runner-up finish in Mt. Temblant, followed by his first Pro Series podium with a third place finish in Boise.

Of course, we had to ask about the full Ironman. Harris definitely sees it in his future, but for now, his full focus is on Nice, and we’ll look forward to seeing him on the Promenade des Anglais!

Mathis Beaulieu

As for Beaulieu, his mind is very strategically focused on how to execute an exceptional Olympic campaign.

“I’m shooting to be the third Canadian, behind Charles and Tyler,” he said. “We need three guys in the top 28 to get three Olympic spots for Canada.”

Beaulieu shared that he has World Cup racing lined up before diving more heavily into World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) racing toward the end of the year, all in the name of accumulating valuable Olympic qualification points, with a total of 12 races counting toward qualification across the two-year cycle.

We asked him to break down just how much the different races are worth.

“Winning a World Series [WTCS event] is worth 1,000 points,” he said. “A World Cup is 500.”

But tactically, both series come with different pros and cons when it comes to accumulating the highest possible points total across those 12 races over two years.

Beaulieu is known for his exceptional running, but shared that he’s recently been putting a real focus on his swimming.

“To do well in LA, I need to be able to swim front pack,” he said. “Sometimes I’m swimming three times a day!”

The focus in the water, and also on the bike, is ultimately about setting himself up to arrive at the run as fresh as possible, where his most natural strength can shine.

When asked about his favourite part of training with Project Podium, Beaulieu said: “I think it’s just pushing each other. You might wake up and feel super tired, but you see everybody, and they’re doing it with you.”

He added that Thursday morning track is his favourite – perhaps unsurprising given his running prowess, but also because, in his words, “it’s really hard, but everyone’s going after it together.”

So far, since the qualification period opened, Beaulieu has secured seventh- and fourth-place finishes at the World Cup events in Rio de Janeiro and Asuncion, respectively. Next, he’s headed to the World Triathlon Championship Finals in Pontevedra, Spain, followed by WTCS Abu Dhabi at the end of the year.

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