Debuts
Selina Klamt logged the best performance of the female debutants in Hamburg. She was the only woman making her first start to earn a spot in the final after qualifying through the repechage.
In the final, she enjoyed a good swim and made it to the front pack of nineteen women. At that stage, she seemed to be in a perfect position to secure a place in the second round. However, the intensity of the race ultimately told and she slipped back into the chase group.
In the end, Klamt could not quite find another gear on the run to recover. Nevertheless, 29th on debut was a very encouraging performance from the young German. Only a week prior she won a silver medal at the German Championships. Earlier in the summer, she had also claimed successive European Cup wins. Hamburg, then, continued a good run of form and represented a very encouraging start to Klamt’s WTCS career.
Olivia Thornbury arrived in Hamburg on the back of a bronze medal at the European Cup in Holten. In Hamburg, she finished 24th in her qualifier and then placed 13th in her repechage. She was considerably quicker across the board in the repechage and was in contention to qualify for the final going into the run. At the last, though, she did not have the speed to fight for the top-5 she needed.
Her result was nonetheless a solid start to her WTCS career.
Amber Schlebusch, Anja Weber and Clara Carlquist narrowly missed breaking into the top-50 on debut. Each will be able to take plenty away from the experience and will likely improve in their next appearance.
Janus Staufenberg arrived in Hamburg with a recent win in Holten to his name. Like Klamt, he managed to make it to the final after placing 3rd in the second men’s repechage. His experience in the final was also similar to Klamt’s as the pace on the bike became a little too intense after already battling through two rounds.
Staufenberg managed to hold on but the efforts on the bike burned through a few matches too many and he was unable to compete for a spot in the top-20. Still, with his 27th place Staufenberg was the best performer of any debutant in Hamburg.
The World U23 champion, Connor Bentley, was the only other man to make his debut in Hamburg.
As it happened, he won the same two European Cups as Klamt in May, in Caorle and Olsztyn, respectively. In making his WTCS debut at the same venue as the German, Bentley continued the entanglement of their seasons.
The qualifier did not quite go to plan for the Brit and he conserved his energy on the run in preparation for the repechage. In an improved showing, he took 8th place and missed making the final by 5 seconds. Bentley’s swim was particularly promising in the repechage as he was the fourth man out of the water. With a first appearance in the Series done and dusted, he will be able to turn his attention to his next race in Sunderland.
Personal Bests
The women’s final in Hamburg saw a series of remarkable performances. Four of the top-10 female finishers at WTCS Hamburg recorded personal bests, with three of them finishing in the top-10 for the first time.
Annika Koch, the World U23 silver medallist from 2022, produced a phenomenal display to claim 4th place. Across the three rounds of the final, she quietly worked her way through the standings. After the opening round, she crossed the finish line in 9th place. In the subsequent round, she moved up to 5th.
Then, in the last round, Koch dropped a brilliant run split to seal 4th place.
To cap off a splendid weekend, she then won gold in the World Mixed Team Relay Championships as the second leg for the victorious German squad.
Koch’s compatriot Marlene Gomez-Göggel finished only 3 seconds back to take 5th place in the final. Gomez-Göggel is coming off the back of a hectic racing block in which she took on WTCS Yokohama, a hat-trick of Bundesliga races and the European Championships.
Her previous best WTCS finish of 6th place also came in Hamburg back in 2021. If there is one thing anyone can say about this iteration of the German team, it is that they know how to step up on home turf.
Of any woman in the final, none can claim to have had as dramatic an experience as Cathia Schär.
In both the second and third rounds, she emerged last out of the water and looked like she had been cut adrift by the field. On both occasions, she came roaring back on the bike. Her recovery during the third round was perhaps the most impressive. Having toiled to catch the front pack alone, Schär was then the first woman out onto the run.
In the end, she did not have the energy left to compete for a medal. However, she still made a major step forward in taking her first WTCS top-10.
At Schär’s last WTCS outing, in Montreal, she had improved her best result to 12th. That lasted only a few weeks. After a competition in which she has established herself as one of the leading athletes on the bike, Schär could go even better yet at her next WTCS race in Sunderland.
Jolien Vermeylen was the fourth woman in the top-10 to record a best result. Her jump was the most eye-catching as she completely skipped a spot in the twenties and teens to land in 9th. In addition Vermeylen was the best performer of any athlete to qualify for the final through the repechage.
With her unmistakable running style, she was hard to miss throughout the final and was the third women across the line in the first round. By the end, all of her racing seemed to catch up with her. Yet that was no major problem. Vermeylen had already sealed a stunning finish to conclude an eye-catching weekend.
Not to be missed from the final was Nora Gmür’s personal best finish.
Gmür improved her previous best WTCS result by 12 places as she crossed the line in 26th. While that was not enough to put her into the second round of the final, it still capped off a great competition for the Swiss athlete.
After missing automatic qualification in her qualifier, Gmür had been forced to qualify via a tight finish in the first women’s repechage. Like her compatriot, Schär, Gmür’s cycling was arguably the most impressive element of her weekend. With both Swiss women being born in 2001, they could carry their national team for many years to come.
Tilda Månsson followed up her win at the Tiszaujvaros World Cup with a WTCS best finish in Hamburg. She also came close to making the women’s final after finishing 7th in her repechage.
Ekaterina Shabalina and Noémi Sárszegi also logged personal bests and took steps forward in their career. Sárszegi’s result would have been particularly sweet as it represented her first finish in the Series.
Max Studer continues to be an enigma.
He finished 10th at the single-day World Championships in Hamburg in 2020 and then followed it up with a brilliant performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Then he entered a period of injury-induced radio silence.
Aside from a 35th place at WTCS Hamburg last summer, he did not properly resurface in the Series until the start of this year. Acting as if nothing had happened, he promptly finished 9th in Abu Dhabi in a showing that beat his personal best result of 10th. And then he submerged once more.
He popped up to win a slightly random Asia Cup in Dexing in April but otherwise stayed away from the Series.
In Hamburg, he came back. Maybe there is something about the city he likes; three of his four WTCS starts from the past three years have come there. Whatever it is, he was on song again and claimed a brilliant 6th place. While he did not have the speed to go with the five medal contenders on the run, Studer was certainly the best of the rest.
At his current rate of improvement, a medal seems likely in Studer’s future. Given his erratic pattern of appearances, though, that could happen this year or in 2026.
Simon Henseleit had a very impressive weekend. Throughout his races, he was aggressive on the bike and not afraid to hit the front on the run. This season, with European Cup wins and a medal at the German Championships to his name, he really seems to have grown in stature and is maturing as an athlete.
He took 14th place in the end and was the second best German man, beating WTCS medallist Lasse Lührs by a single place.
Like Koch, Henseleit added the cherry on top by winning a gold medal as part of Germany’s relay.
Brock Hoel may have established himself as one of the best swimmers on the WTCS level in Hamburg. He was superb in the water in both the qualifier and the repechage, beating Márk Dévay into T1 on both occasions.
A 13th place in the repechage saw Hoel miss the final. However, the format did not seem to fully suit him and, as much as he tried, he could not quite get a break to stick off the front. When the Series turns to the Olympic distance, his swimming prowess could set him up nicely.
For now, though, a new best finish of 37th is a solid milestone with which to depart Hamburg.
