Yesterday, we started a new series of articles ranking the top-30 male triathletes in the world. Today, we are kicking off the same for the women.
The criteria we have used are the same as for the men. WTCS performances are assessed alongside World Cup results and Continental Championships with a balance trying to be found between medals and consistency. As a subjective list, however, there will always be places where people can disagree.
Without much further ado, let’s start the women’s top-30.
30) Katie Zaferes USA
Katie Zaferes is the 2019 world champion and the defending Olympic bronze medallist. Those two facts alone make it a little peculiar that should would only just scrape into 30th place here.
Add in her 4th place finishes at WTCS Montreal and WTCS Edmonton towards the end of the 2021 season, and she looks undervalued here to say the least.
The reason she is not ranked higher is that Zaferes is currently returning to the sport from a pregnancy break.
Nicola Spirig provided the template for how elite female triathletes can take maternity breaks from the sport and return to the top. After giving birth to her first child in 2013, Spirig returned to win Olympic silver in 2016.
There is therefore no reason that Zaferes cannot return to her best form which would put her towards the front of most races. The hesitancy here comes from the simple fact that not everyone is the same. While Spirig was able to return to racing at the WTCS Final in Lausanne in 2019 a mere 12 weeks after giving birth, some athletes return more gradually.
2023 will likely be a building year for Zaferes. There is no need to expect too much yet and 2024 will be when she is really back. In reality, there is a low chance she will be ranked 30th this time next year.
Nevertheless, there will be small question mark until we actually see Zaferes race again. If the first WTCS race of the season was tomorrow (or even in four weeks as Abu Dhabi is), would you be certain that Zaferes would contend for the top-5 like her late 2021 form? It just feels too soon to assume she will be back at the top.
Given that, 30th feels like a fair representation although it comes with the proviso that Zaferes will probably string together a series of results that make us look silly.
29) Sandra Dodet FRA
Sandra Dodet makes the list on the back of a brilliant 2022 at the World Cup level. Much like Matthew McElroy in the men’s list, her World Cup form has catapulted her into the top-30.
Dodet won in both Arzachena and Viña del Mar. Alongside that she came third in Pontevedra. She also narrowly missed a medal in Tongyeong where she finished 4th.
Her only WTCS of the season was a 51st in Hamburg. As such, her inclusion does fly in the face of using the WTCS as a factor. That being said, she has previously finished 12th in Hamburg in 2019 so it would not be impossible for her to make the step up at the WTCS level.
Dodet’s primary issue, though, is her nationality. France is so laden with talent that she will have a tougher time of making start lists than other athletes from other countries.
On balance, winning eight World Cup medals since 2018 could not be overlooked and so Dodet made the cut.
28) Nina Eim GER
Nina Eim is another tricky athlete to place. She finished 9th at WTCS Hamburg last year with one of the best run splits. Her run of 16:20 was only three seconds behind Flora Duffy’s and was five seconds ahead of the third best woman. Moreover, she came 4th at the European Championships in Munich.
Eim’s run is a real strength. She’s also a young athlete and has a lot of room to grow. If she can bring her swim and her bike up to her running levels, she will be a very dangerous proposition.
Furthermore she has won a number of Continental Cups. We are not really setting too much weight behind those however they do suggest that she has the potential to win at a higher level.
In 2022, Eim was 30th in the WTCS but she was 23rd in the world rankings. While we are not trying not to simply replicate the rankings here, somewhere in between those two numbers feels like Eim’s current level.
27) Luisa Baptista BRA
The Americas champion from 2022, Baptista is another strong runner.
She ended 2022 in a rich vein of form that included a 9th place at WTCS Bermuda. She also won the South American Games over the Sprint distance.
In many respects, Baptista has a similar profile to Eim. While Eim is the younger athlete, we have put Baptista ahead for two reasons. The first was that she won a bronze medal at the Arzachena World Cup last May.
In addition, Baptista won a Continental Championship over the Olympic distance. Although the European Championships had more WTCS medallists starting, the Americas Championships contained a good field and Baptista produced a brilliant run to take the title.
26) Sian Rainsley GBR
Sian Rainsley finished 19th in the 2022 WTCS. However, she did not finish at the 2022 Final in Abu Dhabi. Her Series total therefore only included four scores; a solid finish in Abu Dhabi realistically would have solidified her top-15 ranking in 2022.
In 2021, she finished 5th at WTCS Hamburg. That remains her best WTCS finish after placing 13th in Montreal and 14th in Edmonton in the same year. In 2022, Rainlsey finished 8th at Hamburg to go with finishes of 15th in Leeds and 16th in Yokohama.
For a relatively young athlete, Rainsley has shown a lot of consistency.
Moreover, she won the bronze medal at the 2021 European Championships.
Age is also on Rainsley’s side. Like Eim, she could emerge from this winter at an even higher level. Notwithstanding her ankle injury, it is easy to see her improving further and in future years will almost certainly be ranked higher.
At this point, though, she does not yet have the medals or volume of high finishes to put ahead of some of the others yet to come.
25) Verena Steinhauser ITA
It feels like Steinhauser should be a little higher on this list. After all, she finished 15th in the 2022 WTCS after recording seven top-20 finishes.
In 2022, her best result was an 8th place in Bermuda while in in 2020 and 2021 she won bronze medals at the Arzachena World Cup.
There will be a couple of athletes ahead of Steinhauser in this list that have very similar profiles and a case could be made for putting her slightly higher. Indeed, towards the end of 2022, she seemed to find an extra running gear at events like Bermuda.
The issue is that Steinhauser tends to give away too much time in the swim. Previously we have written that, after the recent dominance of swim-bikers in the women’s WTCS, the runners might soon exert a little more influence. Such an outcome would aid Steinhauser.
The problem is that, right now, her swim puts a ceiling on her performances. As a result, even though she is a brilliant runner and is ranked 15th in the world, there are some athletes we could see leap-frogging her.
