TRIATHLON: Some training on the road and swimming in a dam at Lyndhurst Stud has helped Emily Tapp on the way to a gold medal in the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Rotterdam.

Tapp competes in the PTWC category for wheelchair athletes in triathlon and completed a 750m swim in cold water in the ocean before riding 20km and running 5km to win gold.

She is originally from the Northern Territory and was injured in a campdrafting fall which restricts her to a wheelchair.

Tapp went to boarding school at Fairholme College and is now based in Canberra but has spent a lot of time in the Warwick area with family down the years.

Her mother Traci McHours said Tapp would be back in Warwick next week with her gold medal and was likely to do some light training on district roads.

"My partner Eric Klaui goes on the bike for training rides of up to 40 kilometres with Emily when she is home,” McHours said.

"Emily is grateful to the Kruger family at Lyndhurst Stud who allowed her to train in their dam in preparation for her first open water swim.”

At the end of the swim in Rotterdam, she was in second place but overtook a girl from The Netherlands early in the bike leg and maintained her lead to the end of the race.

Tapp is an automatic nominee for the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast next year which makes up a little for the disappointment of missing the 2016 Paralympics after an injury did not heal well enough to allow her to compete in athletics. As triathlon was not a Paralympic event, she shifted to athletics last year.