The start lists for the fifth installment of the 2023 WTCS season are now available as the Series returns to what might just be its spiritual home: Hamburg.
The German city has been an ever-present in the WTCS, hosting a race every year since the inception of the competition. During the uncertainty of 2020, it managed to cobble together a single-day world championships in lieu of the Series. Indeed, there has been a world-level short distance triathlon in the city in every year since 2002.
As races to win go, Hamburg is up there with the biggest.
This year, the event will deviate from its classic Sprint format. Instead, the athletes will race over the Super Sprint, with heats (and repechages) taking place on the Friday. The finals will then occur on the Saturday. The equivalent iteration of this format was held at WTCS Montreal in 2021 and 2022.
Under this new design, a win will be worth 875 points; more than the Sprint distance events in the Series but fewer than the 1000 awarded for wins over the Olympic distance.
As enticing as a win is from the perspective of tradition, the points on offer add to Hamburg’s draw.
Who’s there?
With two wins from two races, Alex Yee will be the man to watch in Hamburg. Yee has not yet finished on the podium in Hamburg, with his best result standing at 5th from 2020. Given his success this year, plus his win at WTCS Montreal in 2022 over the same format, he will probably be the favourite.
Yee will be joined by Jonathan Brownlee and Barclay Izzard. Brownlee is coming off a silver medal at the European Championships so will be worth watching in his own right.
Meanwhile, Yee’s closest rival for the win will be Hayden Wilde. The New Zealander returns to the site of his 2022 win, with a win in Yokohama already under his belt this year. After narrowly being beaten by Yee in Cagliari, Hamburg might offer his best shot at getting one over his rival.
Tayler Reid and Dylan McCullough will also be racing for New Zealand. Both will be looking to assert their claims to join Wilde in the Mixed Team Relay.
Kristian Blummenfelt will be racing however after three races it appears his hopes of winning back his world title have gone. His coach confirmed that the world title was no longer the goal for this year. With racing taking place over the Super Sprint distance, he may not figure much.
Rather, when all is said and done, Vetle Bergsvik Thorn could be the leading Norwegian man.
Heading up the Spanish team will be David Castro Fajardo, the winner of the European Championships in Madrid. He will be joined by Roberto Sanchez Mantecon, Antonio Serrat Seoane, Genis Grau and Sergio Baxter Cabrera.
Matthew Hauser and Jacob Birtwhistle have both enjoyed success in Hamburg over the years. The former won a silver in 2022 while the latter won the race in 2019 after silvers in 2016 and 2017. Both will arrive in contrasting WTCS form; with their background both could be in the mix. Brandon Copeland and Luke Willian will also be on the Australian team, while Oscar Dart will be making his WTCS debut after recent wins in Subic Bay and Lianyungang.
Vasco Vilaca’s run of medals was broken in Cagliari but he will nevertheless be a dangerous prospect. He won his first WTCS-level in Hamburg back in 2020 and has developed considerably since. Joao Pereira, the oldest man due to start, will be keeping him company from the Portuguese team.
On the the home front, Germany will be represented by Lasse Lührs, Valentin Wernz, Jonas Schomburg and Johannes Vogel. Simon Henseleit also gets his chance to impress in the Series after his recent win in Poland.
Manoel Messias and Miguel Hidalgo will be leading the charge for Portugal while Jelle Geens and Marten Van Riel will be Belgium’s duo. Both Switzerland Hungary will be sending their usual quartet of men. For the former, Adrien Briffod, Sylvain Fridelance, Max Studer and Simon Westermann will start. For the latter, Csongor Lehmann, Márk Dévay, Gábor Faldum and Bence Bicsák will be looking to make a splash.
Among the countries with one athlete are Israel (Shachar Sagiv), the Netherlands (Richard Murray), Japan (Takumi Hojo), Chile (Diego Moya) and France (Tom Richard).
On the women’s side, the current Series leader, Taylor Spivey, headlines the American team. She will form part of the standard USA quintet alongside Taylor Knibb, Erica Ackerlund, Kirsten Kasper and Summer Rappaport.
Only one race winner from the 2023 Series so far will appear in Hamburg. As such, Beth Potter, the winner of WTCS Abu Dhabi, will be among the early favourites. She leads a fairly young British team, with Kate Waugh, Sian Rainsley and Olivia Mathias slated to start.
The largest cohort of either gender will be the German women.
Laura Lindemann has enjoyed plenty of success in Hamburg, including a win in 2021. However she will be only one of seven women starting. Nina Eim, Lisa Tertsch, Anabel Knoll, Annika Koch, Marlene Gomez-Göggel and Lena Meißner complete the line-up.
After her strong end to 2022 and start to 2023, Meißner has recently had to battle with illness and injury. A slight question therefore hangs over her form. On the note of form, though, Nina Eim is currently the leading German woman in the WTCS. After an impressive showing at the race last year, in which she logged one of the fastest run splits, she could be a dark horse to land on the podium.
The newly-crowned European champion Jeanne Lehair will be another athlete with a great chance of earning a first medal. Prior to this year, Lehair’s best WTCS finish came in Montreal over the same two-day Super Sprint format. Notwithstanding her success over the Olympic distance in 2023, a return to the short stuff could pay dividends.
Moreover, with five talented athletes starting, Australia could have a good weekend in Hamburg. The team will be comprised of Natalie Van Coevorden, Emma Jackson, Sophie Linn, Jaz Hedgeland and Charlotte McShane; at this point in time, it is essentially guesswork to say who will come out on top in the shortened format.
Nicole Van Der Kaay and Ainsley Thorpe form New Zealand’s two-woman contingent while Rachel Klamer and Barbara De Koning will carry Dutch hopes.
Austria will be represented by Julia Hauser, Tanja Stroschneider and Belgium have Claire Michel and Valarie Barthelemy racing.
The Brazilian team will be hoping for a big performance from Djenyfer Arnold. Both Vittoria Lopes and Luisa Baptista will be racing too, but if Arnold can score some big points, she could push into the top-30 of the Olympic rankings and earn her country and third female Olympic slot.
Cassandre Beaugrand will be France’s only female starter. Likewise, Miriam Casillas Garcia and Alberte Kjaer Pedersen will be the only staters for Spain and Denmark, respectively.
Who’s not there?
Most of the French team will be skipping Hamburg. Among the men to miss out are Leo Bergere, Dorian Coninx, Vincent Luis and Pierre Le Corre. Additionally, Leonie Periault and Emma Lombardi will be absent. As with WTCS Montreal, we are seeing the French federation prioritise the Olympic Test Event in Paris at the expense of the short distance swing in the Series
After a good start to the year, Kenji Nener will be passing on Hamburg.
Morgan Pearson and Gustav Iden are two other big names that are not currently on the start list.
On the women’s side, race winners Georgia Taylor-Brown and Sophie Coldwell will sit this one out. Moreover there will be no Mexican women starting. That means a break for the silver medallist from WTCS Yokohama, Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal.
Maya Kingma is another name to opt against racing while Flora Duffy’s injury-enforced absence continues.
Main talking points
Olympic places on the line
This year, perhaps the most important aspect of Hamburg will take place on the day after the finals. This is because the World Mixed Team Relay Championships will be held on the Sunday.
The relay represents a final chance to qualify a team for the Paris Olympic Games before the allocation of slots moves on to the rankings. As things stand, France have qualified as hosts, while Britain are also in after their silver medal (behind France) at the equivalent race in Montreal last year.
The winner in Hamburg (or best finisher after France and Britain) will therefore claim two men’s and two women’s slots for Paris. Should any athletes put their Olympic hats on, they may face a dilemma. Do they hold something back on the Friday and Saturday, cognizant of the importance of Sunday?
The relay has been a fixture at Hamburg so it is nothing new to back up racing on the Saturday with the relay. However the two-day WTCS format adds a day to proceedings. With the elevated Olympic value, the relay might yet prove a distraction for some athletes.
A first win for Spivey?
Taylor Spivey is in the unique position of being the only woman to have made the breakaway at all three WTCS races in 2023. In doing so, she has inserted herself with a comfortable lead at the top of the standings.
However, she is inching closer to another distinctive claim.
At this moment, Spivey has the second most WTCS medals of any women without a WTCS win. Jessica Learmonth still leads the way with nine, but Spivey is gaining on her.
Given her consistency (as highlighted by her smattering of 4th places last season), it seems probable that Spivey will add more medals this year and indeed beyond. A first win, though, remains in sight.
In 2021, she won bronze in Montreal over the same format so has previous success to her name. With Georgia Taylor-Brown and Sophie Coldwell absent, she also has two 2023 winners out of her path in Hamburg.
With both Brits likely to return at WTCS Sunderland (a home race) and then the Series moving to the Paris Olympic Test Event and Final in Pontevedra, Hamburg might be Spivey’s best shot at claiming a first win.
A WTCS medal of any colour is never anything to sniff at, but that long-awaited gold would certainly be welcome for an athlete of Spivey’s calibre.
A return for 2022 medallists
On the note of medallists, Hamburg will see a number of returning athletes to have claimed first medals at the 2022 race.
Jawad Abdelmoula won his first WTCS medal by taking bronze. Likewise Lisa Tertsch won bronze in the women’s race. Both will be gunning for a second-ever medal this time round. Tertsch recently added a silver at the European Championships in Madrid so will arrive in good form.
Matthew Hauser also won his maiden WTCS medal last year in Hamburg. This year, he added another in Yokohama.
The silver medallist in the women’s race, Beth Potter, won only her second medal in the Series last time round. It was also a first silver medal in the Series for the Scot.
This year will offer a chance for all of them to return to a happy hunting ground.
No return for Hellwig
One medallist that will likely be denied a return to the streets of Hamburg will be Tim Hellwig.
The 2021 race winner has only seen sparingly in the Series since his dramatic triumph.
Recent wins in M’Diq and Sharm El Sheikh were not enough to convince the German selectors to add him to the start list. When the wait list is published, though, he may yet appear.
View the men’s start list here and the women’s start list here.
