By Kerry Larsen

Two massive weekends on the local triathlon calendar starts this weekend when the Coral Coast Triathlon is held in Port Douglas on Sunday.

Download Coral Coast triathlon  course here 

The Great Barrier Reef Marathon team were presented with their singlets on Thursday night at The Beach Shack in preparation for this weekend's Coral Coast Triathlon and next weekend's Challenge Cairns international event - the two events joined for the first time in 2011.

This weekend's Coral Coast Triathlon starts and finishes in Port Douglas with a course featuring Four Mile Beach.  The event is open to olympic, sprint and enticer distances for both individuals and teams.

Tri-Port Challengers will use this weekend's tri as a warm-up for next weekend's big Challenge Cairns, with Nick Carling hoping to get in a warm-up swim, while Lucy Forbes and Kate Houlahan will compete as an individuals in the enticer distance before next week's half ironman.

Sean Cooper, Natalie Smith, Melissa Fanning and Marni Liddell will feature in a relay team in the sprint distance, while Al Spence will compete as an individual in the olympic distance.

Enticer Triathlon (7.30am) - 300m swim / 10km cycle / 2.5km run
Sprint Triathlon (7.45am) - 750m swim / 20km cycle / 5km run
Olympic Triathlon (8.15am) - 1.5km swim / 40km cycle / 10km run