Year: 2023

Triathlon: A Hard Sport For Hard Times

Benjamin Eastman

What compels people to do a triathlon? On an individual level, all sorts of reasons have been put forward over the years. The challenge is oft-cited, as is the variety offered in training. Once the option exists, there will almost always be someone willing to sign up. On the wider front, though, the question remains. What is the driving force behind the collective organisation of triathlon? Take running. There is a logic behind the birth of competitive running. Of the past few decades, ample weight has been given to the…

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Selina Klamt On Her World U23 Title and Breakthrough Year

Benjamin Eastman

It started with a win and it ended with a win. Selina Klamt opened her account for the year by taking the gold medal at the European Cup in Caorle. A little over four months later, she signed off with another victory, this time at the World U23 Championships in Pontevedra. In between, she added another European Cup win, the European U23 title, a silver medal at the German Championships and made her WTCS debut. On virtually every level, then, Klamt’s season can only be described as a resounding success.…

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Breaking Down The Top Splits At The Miyazaki World Cup 2023

Benjamin Eastman

Swim The men’s race at the Miyazaki World Cup was perfectly balanced throughout. In each of the disciplines, the strongest exponents were able to make the most of the course and strike a blow against their rivals. But for a Ricardo Batista penalty at the finish line, the podium could have contained the fastest runner, cyclist and swimmer. To start with the latter, Dylan McCullough shared the top swim split with Márk Dévay in 16:58. McCullough and Dévay’s speed laid the foundation for the initial breakaway group and dropped several…

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Three The Magic Number As Seregni Wins Miyazaki World Cup

Benjamin Eastman

What happens when a winning strategy comes up against someone that cannot lose? Gwen Jorgensen arrived in Miyazaki having won a third straight World Cup race in Tongyeong a week prior. Across the races in Valencia, Karlovy Vary and then Tongyeong, she had proven unstoppable once she got up to speed on the run. Although she faced a strong field in Japan, the late withdrawal of the WTCS Pontevedra silver medallist, Kate Waugh, removed one obstacle from her path to a fourth consecutive victory. Yet Jorgensen was confronted by an…

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Hugo Milner Runs Down Rivals For First World Cup Win

Benjamin Eastman

There are only so many times someone can run the fastest split at a race before they end up on the top of the podium. After crushing field-leading splits at the World Cups in Tangier and Tongyeong, Hugo Milner uncorked yet another outstanding run. This time, it was enough to carry him all the way to the gold medal. In slightly choppy conditions, the athletes remained fairly bunched together in the first of the two swim laps. As Márk Dévay led Dylan McCullough onto the beach and then back into…

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Doping in Elite Triathlon and the Limits of Zero Tolerance

Benjamin Eastman

“As an unequivocal confirmation of its commitment to eradicating the use of prohibited substances and methods in triathlon, World Triathlon continues to commit time, effort, energy and a substantial budget to its anti-doping mission.” Lifted directly from World Triathlon’s website, the pledge of the sport’s governing body to tackle doping has noble intentions and should come across as reassuring. Yet in practice it may succeed in doing little more than chasing its own tail. Doping has returned once more to the foreground of the conversation in elite triathlon after Yuliya…

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Yuliya Yelistratova Receives Five Year Doping Ban

Benjamin Eastman

Ukrainian triathlete Yuliya Yelistratova has been banned from elite competition for five years following doping offences. Yelistratova’s first offence came to light with an in-competition sample collected by World Triathlon at the European Cup in Dnipro, Ukraine on 5 June 2021. Yelistratova won the Dnipro race ahead of Solveig Løvseth and Sophia Green, with Bianca Seregni finishing off the podium in 4th place. Yelistratova would then race at the 2021 Huatulco World Cup (where she finished 22nd) and won the Ukrainian Championships. However, prior to the Tokyo Olympic Games, out-of-competition…

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Mey Post-SV Tübingen Withdrawing From Women’s Bundesliga

Benjamin Eastman

Mey Post-SV Tübingen have announced that they will be pulling out of the women’s Bundesliga next season. In 2023, the team finished 8th overall having claimed 7th place in both 2021 and 2022. In that time, athletes like Pia Wolf, Alina Würth and Greta Groten have became consistent performers for the team. Going forward, however, they will have to look for a new outfit. Tübingen thus becomes the second team to withdraw from next year’s first division. In a previous major shock the defending men’s and women’s champions, EJOT Team…

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Which Athletes Have Won World Junior, U23 and WTCS Titles?

Benjamin Eastman

Some athletes enjoy tremendous success at a young age, hitting highs like winning the World Junior Championships. Other athletes peak later in their careers. While they do not necessarily have the greatest success as Juniors, they come through to win the WTCS later in their careers. Stepping onto the top of a World Championship podium, whether at the Junior, U23 or Senior level is a major achievement. The question is, which athletes have achieved all three milestones in their careers? As it happens, the current men’s WTCS champion, Dorian Coninx,…

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Beth Potter On Winning Her First World Title

Benjamin Eastman

It has been a year of firsts for Beth Potter yet the athlete that speaks now is as similar as they are different to the one that started the season. Potter opened her account for the year with a first WTCS win in March. A commanding performance at WTCS Abu Dhabi marked her out as one to watch and further firsts followed. In August she made her first Olympic Test Event appearance; in 2019 she was not ranked highly enough to get onto the Tokyo Test Event start list. Most…

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Jorgensen Will Have Work Cut Out To Continue Golden Run

Benjamin Eastman

After winning three World Cups in a row, it is possibly a safe assumption that Gwen Jorgensen will be fairly competitive at this weekend’s Miyazaki World Cup. Her most recent win in Tongyeong showed the size of the task her competitors have in getting past her. In contrast to her win in Valencia, Jorgensen did not have an especially good swim. She balanced that out with a good bike split. However, a slow T2 put her on the back foot once more. Nevertheless, even as others around her elevated their…

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Gold Rush For Spain At The World Para Cup In Malaga

Benjamin Eastman

Spain played host to a second World Para Cup of 2023 in Malaga at the weekend. As had been the case in A Coruna back in July, the home team filled their boots with gold medals. In the women’s PTWC class, Eva María Moral Pedrero claimed the gold medal for the home team after edging out Melissa Nicholls by 22 seconds. Nicholls had taken the lead in the swim, but Moral came back on the bike. The Spanish athlete then held on to take the win, one of several for…

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Pozzatti Attempting To Repeat Miyazaki Gold Aginst Tough Field

Benjamin Eastman

Later this week, Miyazaki, Japan, will play host to the third Asian World Cup stop in three weekends. Looking to defend his gold medal from the event from 2022 will be Gianluca Pozzatti. The Italian athlete won in Miyazaki in memorable fashion last year, albeit over the Sprint distance. This time the event will run over the Olympic distance. Pozzatti, though, will arrive in Japan in decent form. He finished 19th at the WTCS Final in Pontevedra and then followed it up with a 12th place at the World Cup…

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Kir and Krupyakov Power to Victories at Yenisehir Junior Cup

Benjamin Eastman

Alongside the final European Cup of the season, Yenisehir, Turkey, played host to the final European Junior Cup of 2023. Although the fields were fairly small in the Junior event – with seventeen women and thirty men starting – there was nonetheless plenty of talent on display. Multiple European Junior Cup winners took to the start line as did the men’s Asian Junior champion, Alexandr Ten of Kazakhstan. When the starters horn went off for the final time of the season, the racing did not disappoint. Women’s race Selinay Tuğçe…

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Dey and Rust Denied By Angelini and Morton in Yenisehir

Benjamin Eastman

After the drama of the European Cup in Alanya, many of the same athletes remained in Turkey a week later to take on the European Cup in Yenisehir. In piping hot conditions, the racing took place over the Sprint distance. In both the men’s and women’s events, the race came down to a late fight for gold and the both silver medallists can count themselves extremely unlucky to have been denied the wins. Men’s race At the final European Cup race of 2023, the men’s race was a battle from…

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