In this next segment of the TriStats Top 30, we are entering the territory of the athletes that can push for WTCS medals and World Cup wins.
To put the rankings together, WTCS performances have generally taken priority. At the same time, results at World Cups and Continental Championships also feature and attempts have been made to strike a balance between the different levels of the sport. Moreover, we have tried to weigh the consistency of some athletes against the medal-winning exploits of others.
Remember, these rankings are not intended as a prediction for the year but rather more of a survey of how we feel the field stands going into the new season. We have tried to strike the balance between who would win on any given day and who would perform best over the course of the year.
There will always be an element of subjectivity in these rankings so feel free to disagree with any names or suggest your own in the comments below.
18) Bianca Seregni ITA (2023: 19th)
Seregni is a rare kind of athlete that can shape an entire race on her own. She is the best female swimmer in the triathlon world right now and has turned the first discipline into an fearsome weapon. Her supremacy in the water is akin to Taylor Knibb on the bike or a Cassandre Beaugrand/Beth Potter on the run. It is simply Seregni’s misfortune that the swim is the ugly step-sister of triathlon and takes up the smallest portion of the race, limiting her chances to maximise her advantage.
Nevertheless, her performance at the Paris Test Event showed exactly what she is capable of in the swim. A stick of dynamite would not have blown the field apart with any greater success than Seregni managed in the water. She was coming back from injury that day so her final result did not catch the eye. When fit, though, she will be primed to exploit breakaways.
Seregni won a hat-trick of World Cups in 2023, taking the golds in Weihai, Chengdu and Miyazaki. Each win came over the Olympic distance and at each she combined a superb swim with a field-leading run split. In Miyazaki, she even out-ran Gwen Jorgensen.
Her WTCS results have not yet caught up to her potential. In 2023, her best finishes were a 20th in Pontevedra and a 22nd in Yokohama. Although, Seregni also has a 10th place from Bermuda in 2022 to her name.
Given her dominant swim and advancing run speed, it seems a matter of time before she cracks the WTCS. All things considered, multiple World Cup and possibly WTCS medals can be expected this year.
17) Julie Derron SUI (2023: 17th)
Despite missing a large chunk of the season with injury, Derron powered back with remarkable late season form.
Finishes of 7th in Sunderland, 8th in Paris and 8th in Pontevedra confirmed her as a reliable top-8 threat. While she was only able to race three times in the Series, her form suggested that with a full season she could have troubled the top-8 overall.
After finishing 23rd overall in the Series in 2022, which was taken as a sign of progress given the stage of her career, she finished 20th last year. The only other athlete top make the top-20 with three races was Taylor Knibb and Derron was only around 300 points behind the acclaimed American.
In between, she claimed 4th at the Karlovy Vary World Cup; a bronze medal had seemed assured until a heroic final lap from Marlene Gomez-Göggel denied Derron. The Swiss athlete, though, has previous World Cup success to her name. She medalled in Arzachena in 2022 and has previous wins in Weihai and Karlovy Vary to her credit.
Derron, then, is clearly an athlete on the rise. If she can avoid any repeat of the injury problems that stalled her first half of 2023, she might produce a very special campaign in 2024.
16) Summer Rappaport USA (2023: 18th)
After a mixed 2022, Rappaport rebounded impressively in 2023. She made it back onto a WTCS podium with a gritty bronze medal in Montreal. In Canada, she battled as part of a two-woman breakaway with Taylor Knibb and was rewarded with a season best finish.
Elsewhere, Rappaport narrowly missed another podium as she took 4th in Abu Dhabi. Finishes of 7th in Cagliari, 10th in Yokohama and 10th in Hamburg also helped her to 11th overall in the Series. Notably, she did not finish at the WTCS Final which compromised what otherwise would have likely been a top-8 overall.
Having improved upon her 2022 levels, the former WTCS race winner had to rank higher this time round.
Similarly to someone like Nina Eim (ranked 19th) earlier in the ranking, Rappaport’s slot here does not fully reflect her WTCS status or her place in the world rankings (10th). This is in part driven by the horrible crash she endured towards the end last season which will have eaten into her winter. Ultimately, though, the gap between Rappaport and several of the athletes ahead is fairly minor and her 2023 form showed that could easily jump a few more places.
15) Annika Koch GER (2023: unranked)
The 2022 World U23 silver medallist demanded attention last summer with a run of spectacular form.
A best ever WTCS finish of 4th in Hamburg really put Koch on the radar and then a couple of weeks later she went even better as she won the bronze medal at WTCS Sunderland. Shortly after, she won the Yeongdo World Cup to cap a pretty ridiculous month of racing.
As a previous World Cup winner (in Huatulco in 2022), Koch’s form was no flash in the pan. However, her newfound level in the WTCS certainly caught a couple of people off-guard.
Across the season, Koch was a little inconsistent, although that makes sense for where she is in her career. Like Derron and her fellow 2022 World U23 medallist Seregni before her, the German athlete is showing signs of progress and can be expected to continue to grow as a top level triathlete. Having won a first WTCS medal, she faces the difficult task of repeating the trick.
Right now, Koch’s profile is similar to her compatriots Nina Eim and Marlene Gomez-Göggel, who came before her in the ranking. Being the only WTCS medallist of the trio, the youngest of the trio, and a World Cup winner in both of the past two years (which neither Eim nor Gomez-Göggel managed), she takes the spot ahead.
If she can add greater consistency to the high levels she has already shown, Koch could develop into a significant force.
14) Leonie Periault FRA (2023: 8th)
Periault has won a solitary silver medal in each of the past three WTCS seasons. She therefore presents a conundrum. On the one hand she has become a reliable candidate for podium finishes. On the other, she has often not been consistent enough and has not troubled the podium on multiple occasions.
Her form across late 2021 and early 2022, when she won silver medals at WTCS Edmonton and then WTCS Yokohama, showed that she can deliver on her day. Likewise, her silver medal in Montreal last year, in which she pushed the world champion Beth Potter right until the line, was also a head-turning display.
In 2023, she also finished 4th in Sunderland when a fall cost her a possible medal. Furthermore, she finished 5th at the WTCS Final in 2022. Aside from that, though, Periault has not finished in the top-10 of a WTCS race in the last couple of years.
She is therefore a little all or nothing. Generally twice a year, she will step up with a performance that either claims a medal or shows she can claim a medal. It is entirely possible that this year her single day abilities carries her to an Olympic medal. For the rest of the season, whether due to injury or other factors, she then does not quite repeat her levels.
On any given WTCS start line, she seems the likeliest woman in this section to medal and she will most probably win another medal this year. Time is starting to run out, however, to prove she can win multiple WTCS medals in a single campaign.
13) Lisa Tertsch GER (2023: 13th)
Tertsch is quite a tricky athlete to figure out. On paper, the German champion had a very good 2023. The majority of elite triathletes would bite your hand off to enjoy a similar season yet for some ineffable reason there is a sense that she had more left in the tank.
A string of good finishes in the WTCS, including 8th in Cagliari, 9th in Paris and 10th in Abu Dhabi, set up her season well. She then delivered a grand-stand finale in Pontevedra as she powered to 4th place. At the WTCS Final, she was really only a penalty away from medal. One thing Tertsch needs to be wary of is correcting her swim behaviour as has been caught out for that offence prior to Pontevedra.
She therefore ended the season ranked 7th overall in the WTCS and stood as the best German athlete of either gender.
To go with that, she won the Tangier World Cup and finished 2nd at the European Championships. Heading into 2024, she is ranked 5th in the world rankings and can justifiably seen as a potential star.
One harsh reason to not move her forward from her ranking of 13th is that she did not win a WTCS medal; Tertsch won a maiden bronze in Hamburg in 2022. However, the reason to keep her in place is a little deeper.
Tertsch’s racing style can perhaps best be described as a bulldozer. She gets on a roll and squashes those around her. Although Bundesliga results have not factored into this ranking (nor have French Grand Prix performances), she has bulldozed everyone in the German competition. Likewise, she has often bulldozed her way through World Cup races, as her wins and medals can attest.
However, at the WTCS level, she has not grabbed races in the same way.
Pontevedra was really the first time she seized the race and tackled it as if it was any other and it nearly reaped a medal. To continue to rise through the sport, she cannot afford to be as tentative as she has sometimes been. If she can bring her bullying best to the WTCS level on a regular basis, she won’t spend this year flitting around the top-10. She will be fighting for multiple medals – just as long as she keeps the fighting figurative.
