The Return of Henri Schoeman
After a challenging twelve months, including a nasty elbow injury, Schoeman made his first WTCS start since Yokohama in May 2021.
Indeed, Schoeman had not started individually since the Tokyo Olympics where he unfortunately did not finish. His one race start in that period came as part of the mixed team relay for South Africa at the Commonwealth Games in July.
On his day, Schoeman is one of the best athletes in the field. The 2018 Commonwealth Games champion has WTCS wins in Abu Dhabi and Cozumel to his name and took the African Championships title in 2021. With his return, the front of the swim gains another contender. It was a welcome sight to see him in the front group in Abu Dhabi this weekend and, if he can remain healthy over winter, we can expect to see more of the same in 2023.
The Debutants
A little unexpectedly, the WTCS Final saw a number of athletes making their WTCS debuts.
Only one man made his bow on the men’s side: Jack Willis of Great Britain. Willis was primarily in the field to work as a domestique for Alex Yee as Yee competed for the world title and was regularly seen towards the front of the chase group. He did have one spot of misfortune, though, as Willis was one of two athletes to crash at the same corner, costing the chase pack valuable seconds.
On the women’s side, the debutants were led by Bergen World Cup winner Tilda Mansson. At only 18 years old, Mansson was by far the youngest athlete in the field and the World Junior champion acquitted herself well as she finished 44th.
Of the remaining debutants, Xinyu Lin of China finished 31st while Noemi Sarszegi of Hungary and Huiwen Jia of China did not finish. After almost three years of strict COVID lockdowns, we have not seen many appearances from Chinese athletes on the international level as the Chinese government continues its pursuit of a zero-COVID policy.
The Youngsters
Three men still eligible for the U23 category finished in the top-25 of the overall WTCS standings.
First among those was Vasco Vilaca, who took 8th overall. Since his breakout in 2020, where he took silver behind Vincent Luis in the one-off world championships in Hamburg, Vilaca has steadily grown on the world level and could be a contender for the Series crown in coming years.
After winning the first race of the 2022 season in Hamburg last September, Tim Hellwig managed to hold on to a top-25 position with his 21st place. Finishing just one place behind Hellwig in the Series was 2021 U23 world champion Csonger Lehmann. All three men were born in 1999 and so will age out of the U23 category next year. Based on their performances this year, though, they are well positioned to continue to progress.
Emma Lombardi (2001) was the only woman aged 23 or under that made it into the top-25 of the women’s Series. She finished 11th overall in the Series after a season in which she took 8th in Abu Dhabi, 2nd in Cagliari, 4th in Yokohama. 2022 has truly been a breakout year for Lombardi and it will be interesting to see if she dabbles in any U23 racing in the future or if she will stick to the senior level.
The U23 World Champs Splits
This section was originally going to devoted to Leonie Periault’s exceptional run in Abu Dhabi. With a split of 32:54, Leonie Periault had the second best run of the women’s field and she gained over 20 places over the course of the run en route to 5th place.
However, she did not actually have the second best run of the day. That honour went to Anahi Alvarez Corral in the women’s U23 race. With a 32:39 run, Alvarez Corral was 15 seconds quicker than Periault and within striking distance of Flora Duffy herself.
Similarly, Bianca Seregni had the fastest women’s swim of the day by 12 seconds. Her split of 19:08 would have comfortably led out Flora Duffy and Summer Rappaport in the elite women’s race.
None of the U23 men logged a run or swim split that would have challenged in the elite men’s field. (Note, bike splits are not included as the U23 athletes raced on a different course).
The End of Year World Triathlon Rankings
The World Triathlon rankings differ slightly from the WTCS standings. They are not used to determine the best athletes in the world, but rather the rankings are used to assist with start lists at World Cups and WTCS events.
With no more WTCS or World Cup races this year, the leaders will not change.
Leo Bergere has a comfortable lead and sits 585 points ahead of second place, Alex Yee. Interestingly, Bergere has actually out-scored Yee in the current period by 5 points (4219 to 4214). His lead mainly stems from the previous period in which he raced more often. Bergere, then, has the nice symmetry of leading both the WTCS rankings and the world rankings.
Women’s world champion, Flora Duffy, however, only ranks fourth in the World Triathlon rankings.
The best woman is currently Taylor Spivey. Like Bergere, she has a 500 point lead over the next best athlete (Beth Potter). 2022 WTCS runner-up Georgia Taylor-Brown currently sits in third.
