Month: January 2024

Team Italy Set To Descend Upon New Zealand For Races

Benjamin Eastman

The racing is about to begin. While the Oceania Para-triathlon Championships will kick off the final stretch to the Paralympic Games, the looming Oceania Cup in Wanaka will launch the Olympic season of 2024. As expected, there will plenty of home team faces on the start line in Wanaka. New Zealand have a large team headlined by the likes of Dylan McCullough, Brea Roderick, Janus Staufenberg and Olivia Thornbury. Similarly, the local Australian team will be well represented. Lachlan Jones is one to watch from the Australian men while Emma…

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The State of Play in the Spanish Olympic Triathlon Team Race

Benjamin Eastman

For all the luminaries from Spain that have graced triathlon, it remains the case that the country has only ever claimed one Olympic medal in the sport: Javier Gomez Noya’s silver in 2012. As a country that has churned out so many talents (and claimed seven men’s WTCS titles between Gomez and Mola alone), it seems like a surprisingly low return. Looking ahead to the Paris Olympic Games, though, the Spanish federation will look to change that as they compose their team. Luckily for the selectors, they are spoilt for…

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Looking Back At How The Rising Junior Women of 2023 Fared

Benjamin Eastman

Yesterday we flagged five promising female athletes that graduated from the Junior ranks at the turn of the year. However, identifying rising prospects is one thing. What happens next is something else entirely. It is therefore instructive to wind back a year to take a look at the equivalent list from the start of 2023. Another cohort of talented athletes had just aged out of Junior racing and were looking to make their mark on the U23 and Senior levels. Being only their first year in the post-Junior environment, it…

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Five Fast Junior Women That Will Age Up in 2024

Benjamin Eastman

Recently, we took a look at some of the leading U23 athletes that aged up at the turn of the year. Today, we are turning our attention to those that could replace the rising U23 stars by surveying some of the standout female athletes that have now left the Junior ranks. When compiling this list, two key elements came into consideration. In general, we have placed a greater emphasis on championship racing and Senior racing when assessing the athletes to watch. Performances at Junior Cups are an important marker at…

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Pearson and Vermeylen Take On Off-Season Races

Benjamin Eastman

Two 2023 World Cup medallists turned back the clock at the weekend and returned to their pre-triathlon sports. Morgan Pearson, the winner of the Karlovy Vary World Cup, plumped for some racing on the track indoors over training outdoors in the cold. A runner in the days before becoming a triathlete, he dusted off his spikes and toed the start line at the Potts Invitational in Colorado. It was a rare deviation in training from the zone 2 guru. Pearson nonetheless put up some head-turning performances. He took on the…

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The State of Play in the German Olympic Triathlon Team Race

Benjamin Eastman

Germany is one of the few countries to have almost completely finalised their Olympic team. All three of their women’s slots have been allocated while only one slot remains on the men’s side. As the defending world champions in the Mixed Team Relay, they have secured, at minimum, two male and two female places at the Games. Such is the state of the Olympic Qualification rankings, though, adding a third male and female slot will be a formality. Like America, Germany could come away with medals in all three Olympic…

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The State of Play in the American Olympic Triathlon Team Race

Benjamin Eastman

The American triathlon team finds itself in one of the more unusual positions on the international stage insofar that it could leave Paris this summer with medals in all three events or in none. Whereas a couple of countries, such as France and Britain, feel like bankers to take at least one medal, America does not quite inspire the same base confidence. And yet it nonetheless feels eminently possible that they could medal in each event. Perhaps Germany is the only other team in the same boat. One of the…

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Who Made the Biggest Percentage Improvements in 2023?

Benjamin Eastman

When we looked at the biggest raw improvements of the 2023 WTCS season, the athletes that rose from a lower starting point stood at an advantage over those that had earned a top-10 race finish in the season prior. Anyone trying to match the 29 place improvements made by Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal and Max Studer would have faced a challenge had they finished 2022 with a season best result of 8th. In this article, we will therefore visit the 2023 improvements once more albeit this time in terms of…

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The Final WTCS Bridesmaid: Time For A South American Race

Benjamin Eastman

Australia is back in the WTCS. Following the recent announcement of Wollongong as the host of the 2025 WTCS Final, the country will join a select group of countries to have hosted a WTCS stop in three separate locations. Moreover, the Wollongong Final will represent the second occasion in which Australia has hosted the Final (the other being in Gold Coast in 2018). It will also stand as the third Final to take place in Oceania; Auckland in 2012 was the other instance. Broadening the view, Wollongong will serve as…

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The State of Play in the New Zealand Olympic Tri Team Race

Benjamin Eastman

After a successful 2023, the New Zealand triathlon squad are bubbling nicely ahead of the Olympic Games. With a defending individual medallist and a promising relay, they could potentially contend for multiple medals in Paris this summer. New Zealand are forecasted to take two slots for each gender. Their slots are all but guaranteed through the Mixed Team Relay which makes individual qualification somewhat moot. Securing a third athlete for either gender seems like a bit of a long shot right now. None of the New Zealand women are ranked…

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How Did The 2022 World U23 Medallists Get On In 2023?

Benjamin Eastman

Having pondered what the medallists from the most recent World U23 Championships might accomplish this season, it is fitting to turn the clock back a year to the podiums of the equivalent championships in 2022. How the medallists from 2022 fared in 2023 can offer a small insight into what could be expected from their 2023 counterparts in 2024. Moreover, they offer intrigue in and of themselves. While it was only one season in what are otherwise young careers, there is plenty to unearth. This time last year, the athletes…

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Wollongong Announced As WTCS Final Host For 2025

Benjamin Eastman

World Triathlon have confirmed that Wollongong, Australia, will play host to the World Triathlon Championship Series Finals in 2025. After being held in Spain for consecutive years (in Pontevedra in 2023 and Malaga in 2024), the Finals will return to the southern hemisphere for the first time since 2018 when they were held in Gold Coast, Australia. In 2018, Gold Coast also hosted the Commonwealth Games. In Wollongong, the 2025 world champions in the Senior, U23, Junior and Para-triathlon categories will all be named. This follows the pattern of the…

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What To Expect From The Reigning World U23 Medallists

Benjamin Eastman

With success comes attention. Winning a medal at the World U23 Championships is a surefire way to put oneself on the triathlon map. Such athletes generally draw greater scrutiny over the subsequent years of their careers and many, such as the current men’s world champion, go on to achieve even greater success. In this article, we will take a look at the medallists from the most recent edition of the World U23 Championships and forecast what might be expected from each this year. One point to note is that the…

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The State of Play in the British Olympic Triathlon Team Race

Benjamin Eastman

As things stand, Britain is in line to claim three women’s slots and two men’s slots at the Paris Olympic Games. Four of the slots (namely all bar one of the women’s places) have been secured already by dint of the British performance at the 2022 Mixed Team Relay World Championships. The third women’s slot is essentially a formality at this stage, based on the Olympic Qualification rankings. Meanwhile, Britain will require a big start to the season from two men not named Alex Yee if they want to earn…

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How Does Paralympic Qualification Look At The Start Of 2024?

Benjamin Eastman

On 1st July 2024, the qualification window for this year’s Paralympic Games will close, putting us a smidge past the midpoint of the window. In this article, we delve into the latest standings in each classification and assess who might be able to stage a comeback in the second half of the qualifying window to book their slot in Paris. As a reminder, there are 120 slots available for triathletes at the 2024 Paralympic Games of which 54 will be allocated to male athletes and 50 to female athletes. The…

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