It’s that time of the year again, to take a step back in time to remember this year’s Dextro Energy Triathlon ITU World Championship Series through the eyes of some of the world’s best sports photographers. They were on hand to capture every twist, turn, and colourful moment in the each and every world series race, but now it’s your turn to decide the official ITU Photo of the Year.

Starting this week, this competition will look at each of the eight races this season – Sydney, Madrid, Kitzbuhel, Hamburg, London, Lausanne, the Beijing Grand Final and Yokohama. You will have the chance to vote on a selection of images from these races and each weekly winner then earns the right to appear in the ITU Photo of the Year final. In addition to the contest, readers will hear from each event photographer about their favourite shot from the event. This will be published alongside the winning pictures from each week. Whether you are an avid photographer yourself, or simply an admirer of pretty composition, it’s a great way to hear the story behind some amazing images.

The first week of the ITU Photo of the Year series takes us back all the way to the start; a day at the Opera House in Sydney. In the men’s field, the season opener shaped up as battle between the two athletes who had dominated men’s triathlon for the past three years, Javier Gomez and Alistair Brownlee. In the end, after a slip on a rain-slicked road, Gomez launched an epic comeback after a bike crash to beat a Brownlee to gold. It’s just that instead of Alistair, who slipped on the run, it was his younger brother Jonathan Brownlee. Read the race recap and watch video highlights here.

In the women’s race, it’s fair to say most of the attention was on Australia’s two golden girls - Beijing Olympic gold medallist Emma Snowsill and two-time reigning ITU champion Emma Moffatt. But it was Canadian Paula Findlay who stole the show as she proved her two series win in 2010 were no fluke; beating Chile’s Barbara Riveros Diaz and New Zealand’s Andrea Hewitt. Read the full race recap and watch video highlights here.

The Sydney event photographer was Delly Carr, last year’s ITU Photo of the Year winning photographer.