It began in Quarteira in Portugal back in April and for many triathletes the European season will come full circle and end, once again, in Turkey at the ITU Premium European Cup final in Alanya.

The host venue for the 2013 European Championships witnessed a frantic end to the season last year and 2012 promises to be no different, with European ranking points available and a number of athletes in the mix to be number one.

The Junior European rankings remain close as ever. However, a number of the top ranked athletes are not competing in Alanya.

Nevertheless, there is potential for some changes further down and Olga Agapova (RUS) could scrape into the Junior Women’s top ten with a good result.

Elena Lokhmanova (RUS) is also on the fringes of breaking into the top ten, such is the close nature of the rankings.

Yagmur Aydogan represents Turkey’s best hopes of a podium finish on home soil, her 12th place finish at the U23 Championships represents a significant improvement and his testimony to her development by the coaches and the Federation.

The current Junior Women European Rankings are here.

In the Junior Men’s race, Ilya Prasolov (RUS) stands to gain the most. He will be a strong favourite anyway and a favourable result could propel him from tenth into the top five or even better.

But both Junior races are wide open and the opportunity is there for an athletes to end the season in style and really put down a marker to be one of the stars of 2013.

The current Junior Men European Rankings are here.