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 a third male slot. After the point regarding the number of places comes the most important question. Who will make the British Olympic team?
Read on to find out who has already made the team and who is best placed to exploit the selection criteria and claim the remaining places.
Who has been selected already?
Beth Potter, the women’s world champion, earned her Olympic slot the hard way by winning the Paris Test Event as well as the WTCS Final in Pontevedra. The British selection policy mandated that she had to medal at both to punch her Olympic ticket. In the end, she made an extraordinarily difficult task look rather simple.
Now, she heads into the 2024 season as the front-runner for Olympic gold.
As a reigning individual Olympic medallist and subsequent WTCS gold medallist, Alex Yee had to medal in Paris to confirm his Olympic place. He duly won the race. While he had an off-day in Pontevedra, anyone that watched him race in Paris will trust his ability to win at the biggest race this year.
Who could take the remaining slots?
Women
There is little beating around the bush here. The race to make the women’s British Olympic team is shaping up as the single most competitive in triathlon.
Injury deprived Georgia Taylor-Brown from sewing up qualification in 2023. Being a defending Olympic medallist, she was in the same boat as Yee and a medal in Paris would have been enough for her. As it was, she did not make the start line. In many respects, last season was a difficult one for Taylor-Brown. Yet she still won WTCS Cagliari in a display of her enduring class
Meanwhile, Sophie Coldwell won WTCS Yokohama in a spellbinding performance. She also added a silver medal in WTCS Abu Dhabi, making her the only British woman after Potter to win multiple WTCS medals last year.
Then there is Kate Waugh. The youngest of the three contenders, the 2022 World U23 champion won a maiden WTCS medal with her silver in Pontevedra. Her age gives her possibly the greatest space to still improve. Furthermore Pontevedra was a slightly bigger race than either Yokohama or Cagliari.
Turning to the British selection policy, Phase 2 nominations include athletes with a medal at a WTCS event in 2023 and who are a “clear and obvious individual medal contender for the Games”. (Phase 1 covered Yee and Potter).
Britain’s problem is they have three clear and obvious medal contenders but only two slots left. Taylor-Brown, Coldwell and Waugh all medalled at Olympic distance WTCS races in 2023 too. Phase 3 then covers realistic medal contenders while Phase 4 covers athletes selected more in mind for the Mixed Team Relay.
After being so crucial at the Tokyo Olympics, it seems unlikely that Taylor-Brown will be overlooked. Considering the relay, any team with Potter and Taylor-Brown probably does not need to worry about a third relay option. The again, injury could always strike so it will be taken with the utmost seriousness. Coldwell was unfortunate to miss out on going to Tokyo and probably has the upper hand with her greater experience.
With selection so finely poised, look for WTCS Yokohama and/or WTCS Cagliari in May to be a de facto final selection race, even if the policy makes no mention of a formal tie-breaker.
Men
The men’s side is a little different.
Yee is the only British man inside the top-30 of the Olympic Qualification rankings. As a reminder, to earn three male Olympic places, a country needs to put three men inside the top-30.
This time last year, double individual Olympic medallist Jonathan Brownlee was the favourite to take the second British male slot. However, he has slipped behind Barclay Izzard in the Olympic rankings (while Brownlee is ranked 47th, Izzard has moved into 44th place).
Brownlee’s silver medal at WTCS Cagliari in 2022 has faded into the distance a little and he ended the 2023 WTCS ranked 40th in the Series. A silver medal at the 2023 European Championships in Madrid was promising, although he otherwise has earned one WTCS top-20 finish since Cagliari in October 2022 (he placed 17th in Montreal in 2023).
Izzard beat Brownlee’s 2023 WTCS best on three different occasions. He placed 15th in Abu Dhabi, 13th in Hamburg and 8th in Sunderland. He also finished 17th at the Paris Test Event to match Brownlee’s Montreal result.
World Cup medallists Hugo Milner and Sam Dickinson could come into the equation, as could the 2022 World U23 champion Connor Bentley. On balance, the second men’s slot will likely be selected with the relay in mind so if anyone can prove themselves on the relay front they could steal a march on Izzard or Brownlee. Milner’s running speed makes him an attractive proposition to add in, although his current swimming level could make him a risky move.
On the note of the relay, Brownlee did not compete in a relay in 2023 while Izzard helped Britain to the silver medal at the Mixed Team Relay in Paris.
Right now, then, Izzard is probably the man in the box seat to join Yee while Coldwell and Taylor-Brown may get the nod to accompany Potter to Paris.
