After the WTCS season got off to a false start in Abu Dhabi, the first event of the campaign will take place next month in Yokohama. The race has attracted a star-studded field as plenty of athletes look to kick-start their seasons. With the now-shortened WTCS season, one big performance in Yokohama could create an invaluable advantage in the race to the world title.
Moreover, with the race coming a little over two months before the Olympic Games, it will likely be one of the best indicators for who the frontrunners will be in Paris.
Who’s there?
The women’s world champion, Beth Potter, will naturally be one to watch. Potter carries a two race winning streak into the new WTCS season and will hope to add a third gold consecutive medal to her ledger. Her teammate Sophie Coldwell will look to repeat her superlative victory in Yokohama from a year ago while Kate Waugh and Olivia Mathias complete the British quartet.
Britain’s classic rivals, France, will have a similar yet also different look to their team. WTCS medallists Emma Lombardi and Leonie Periault will be starting as they continue their hunt for Olympic selection. At the same time, Audrey Merle and Mathilde Gautier will get rare opportunities to race.
Germany will be sending all three of their Olympic qualifiers: Laura Lindemann, Nina Eim and Lisa Tertsch. They will be joined by Annika Koch and Marlene Gomez-Göggel. Likewise, the American team will also consist of five starters. Taylor Knibb will look to defend her bronze medal from last year’s race and has already made the Olympic team. Should any of Taylor Spivey, Summer Rappaport, Kirsten Kasper and Gwen Jorgensen make the podium in Yokohama, they will also qualify for Paris.
The silver medallist from last year, Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal, will be another to keep an eye on. She will be accompanied on the Mexican team by the Pan American Games champion Lizeth Rueda Santos.
Miriam Casillas Garcia, Noelia Juan, Cecilia Santamaria Surroca and Anna Godoy Contreras will be starting for Spain while Bianca Seregni, Verena Steinhauser and Alice Betto comprise the Italian team. Australia will be represented by the trio of Natalie Van Coevorden, Charlotte McShane and Jaz Hedgeland.
Several teams will have two female starters in Yokohama. Included in this group are Netherlands (Maya Kingma and Rachel Klamer), New Zealand (Nicole Van Der Kaay and Ainsley Thorpe), Switzerland (Julie Derron and Cathia Schär), Brazil (Vittoria Lopes and Djenyfer Arnold), Belgium (Jolien Vermeylen and Claire Michel) and Canada (Emy Legault and Dominika Jamnicky).
For the Japanese team, Yuko Takahashi, Yuka Sato and Niina Kishimoto will look to impress on home turf.
Melanie Santos, Zuzana Michalickova, Tilda Månsson, Jeanne Lehair and Petra Kurikova stand as the only female representatives for their respective countries.
Meanwhile, the men’s world champion, Dorian Coninx, will be at the head of a full-strength French men’s team. Leo Bergere, Vincent Luis, Pierre Le Corre and Tom Richard will all be starting alongside Coninx.
Spain will also send five men to Yokohama as they continue their hunt for a third men’s slot at the Olympic Games. In addition to WTCS medallists, Antonio Serrat Seoane and Roberto Sanchez Mantecon, World Cup winners Alberto Gonzalez Garcia, David Castro Fajardo and Sergio Baxter Cabrera will be competing.
Germany and Hungary will send a quartet of contenders to Yokohama. The former will be represented by Simon Henseleit, Valentin Wernz, Jonas Schomburg and Lasse Nygaard Priester. Csongor Lehmann, Márk Dévay, Bence Bicsák and Gábor Faldum will be racing for the latter.
The 2022 winner, Alex Yee, will start alongside Barclay Izzard for Britain. Similarly, Vasco Vilaca and Matthew Hauser will look to repeat their medals from 2023. They will be joined by Ricardo Batista and Luke Willian, respectively, on the Portuguese and Australian teams.
Among the other national duos to watch are Belgium (Jelle Geens and Marten Van Riel), Norway (Kristian Blummenfelt and Vetle Bergsvik Thorn), Italy (Michele Sarzilla and Gianluca Pozzatti) and Switzerland (Max Studer and Adrien Briffod).
America and Canada will each send three men; Matthew McElory, Darr Smith and Morgan Pearson will be in Yokohama for the former and Tyler Mislawchuk, Martin Sobey and Charles Paquet will race for the latter.
Kenji Nener, Makoto Odakura, Takumi Hojo, Ren Sato and Aoba Yasumatsu will then start for the home team. A handful of athletes are also in line to be the only men to race for their country. Contained in this group are Henri Schoeman, Aram Michell Peñaflor Moysen, Ayan Beisenbayev, Felix Duchampt and Richard Murray.
Who’s not there?
Cassandre Beaugrand was originally on the start list but has dropped out, enabling Gautier to start. With her eyes on the Olympics, Beaugrand likely opted against the long journey to Yokohama more than anything. Similarly, Hayden Wilde has been substituted out, bringing Tayler Reid onto the start list.
Flora Duffy is still on her road back to full fitness. The 2022 world champion has resumed running training but is not yet in shape to race at the WTCS level. Duffy’s predecessors as world champion, Georgia Taylor-Brown (2020) and Katie Zaferes (2019), are also not starting. Zaferes does not have a high enough world ranking with respect to the American team to have been named among the five US starters. Taylor-Brown, meanwhile, appears to be conserving her energies for WTCS Cagliari.
Germany’s two male Olympic qualifiers, Tim Hellwig and Lasse Lührs, are also opting to keep their powder dry. Zsanett Kuttor-Bragmayer is another name to decide against taking on Yokohama.
Main talking points
French opportunities
It is unusual for the French women’s team to contain anyone beyond their core trio of Beaugrand, Periault and Lombardi. However, in Yokohama, Audrey Merle and Mathilde Gautier will get rare chances to race in the Series.
Merle, a World Cup winner, and Gautier, the 2023 European Super Sprint champion, could even sneak into the Olympic conversation with a top-6 finish. At the two qualifying opportunities in 2023, France opted to only select Beaugrand, Periault and Lombardi. One interpretation could thus be that the French federation had to offer at least one chance to additional athletes to qualify for the Olympic Games.
Taking a longer-term view, Merle and Gautier will hope a high finish in Yokohama secures them the right to start at further WTCS races in 2024 and beyond. Both have a shot to consolidate their right to race and they cannot pass it up.
Olympic dreams
Yokohama can often be a graveyard for Olympic hopes as much as it can be a place where they come true. For some athletes, such as those on the American team, it will represent the final chance to lock in selection for Paris before discretionary picks come into play. (The non-qualified Americans will have to finish on the podium to qualify).
An entire Olympic cycle of work will come down to one last shot to earn qualification for some. In contrast to most WTCS races, the difference between 3rd and 4th or 8th and 9th might be agonisingly large.
Who is in shape?
Given the delay to the WTCS season, we have not actually seen several of the top contenders race. We therefore have no real clue as to what kind of condition the likes of Yee, Coninx, Bergere, Le Corre, Vilaca, Spivey and more are in. The group of athletes just named will not make their first individual start of the year until Yokohama, leaving their condition shrouded in mystery.
The likes of Lombardi, Coldwell and Hauser have also not yet raced but will start their seasons prior to Yokohama. Without much time to race beforehand, though, Yokohama will be the first actual insight into who looks good this year.
How will the racing look?
Beyond the question of individual form, it will also be interesting to see how the races unfold. Last year, the women’s race was electrified by a successful breakaway. By contrast, the men’s race devolved into a fairly quiet running race.
At the past two WTCS Finals, the French men’s team found great success with the breakaway strategy. Indeed, it has proven the only way to defang the likes of Wilde and Yee. It therefore remains to be seen whether they will show their hands with the same strategy in Yokohama or if they will keep it up their sleeve.
Given how much is on the line with respect to Olympic qualification, some athletes in the women’s race may also choose to play it safe and wait for the run. However, some may be best served in hunting a breakaway. In more ways than one, then, the bigger picture may exert a considerable influence on how the day progresses in Yokohama.
You can view the full start lists here.
