Gold Coast Triathlon sees Jake Birtwhistle near a second Commonwealth Games

At the same venue where he won individual silver and then anchored Australia to mixed team relay gold, the 27-year-old again settled for second in the Gold Coast Triathlon.

The winner was a teammate from that relay triumph, Queensland local Matt Hauser, who in the process secured the coveted automatic nomination for this year's Commonwealth Games to be held in the English city of Birmingham in July.

Launceston-born Birtwhistle said the Games represent his priority as he seeks to bounce back from a disappointing Olympic debut n Tokyo.

"The 2018 Games was everything or almost everything for me; it was a very special event," he said.

"This year the major focus is getting to Birmingham and it would be nice to go one better than I did on the Gold Coast and to come home with the individual gold.

"I'm really motivated to go there and improve on my 2018 performance."

In 14^th place after swimming 750 metres in 10:30, Birtwhistle worked his way up to fifth after a 27:41 20km ride and ran 5km in 13:54 to progress to second place.

The former junior world champion, who finished behind South African Henri Schoeman in 2018 before teaming up with fourth-placed Hauser, Ashleigh Gentle and Gillian Backhouse in the team relay, said triathlon represents one of the Commonwealth Games' strongest sports.

"In triathlon just about every top nation seems to be represented in the Commonwealth; there is only a handful of athletes missing who are usually up there as well.

"You have to look at it as the same as any World Series race. It's going to be tough and there will be plenty of challenges and hopefully we can get there and be as prepared as possible and as prepared as you need to be."

Hauser, who won Sunday's race by 30 seconds on his 24^th birthday, had started his year with an impressive win in the Devonport Oceania Cup Sprint race.

"I have been chasing Jake for a few years now and it makes me really proud but we have to work towards the world stage - that's where the competition is at and hopefully we can do that, as a collective group, and show we're a force again," he said.

"It was against top opposition today and there was a lot at stake."

In his fifth season with internationally-acclaimed coach Joel Filliol (now Australia's new podium centre head coach), Birtwhistle had been on a camp in Thredbo leading into Sunday's race.

"Thredbo was the most consistent pre-season block of training I've ever done; I'm really happy with it," he said.

"I had never been there before and it was a decent place to train; we definitely got in a very good block of work; I can see us going back there the same time next year too and it was good to mix things up a little bit."

The next Commonwealth Games automatic nomination race will be the Yokohama World Triathlon Championship Series in May.