With the second round of the WTCS season complete, there have been plenty of changes in the Series rankings.
The biggest rise of any athlete came from the winner of the men’s race in Yokohama, Hayden Wilde. With his victory, Wilde rose 40 places in the Series rankings to now sit in 6th place. With a win at WTCS Yokohama being worth 1000 points, Wilde made a big statement. If he can produce a similar performance at WTCS Cagliari next week, he will seize control of the Series.
It’s funny what not having a mechanical can do for an athlete’s rankings.
Jelle Geens was the next biggest riser as he jumped 29 places to break into the top-10. Geens now sits in 8th place and can be expected to rise further over the course of the year.
Jonas Schomburg, meanwhile, climbed 21 places to 26th overall.
Two athletes made improvements of 14 places. Matthew Hauser’s silver medal saw him rise from 18th to 4th in the standings. Similarly, Vetle Bergsvik Thorn rose from 32nd to 18th courtesy of his 12th place.
Bence Bicsák moved up 11 places into 32nd while Kenji Nener improved by 9 spots and now finds himself in 10th.
The two biggest new entries went to Kristian Blummenfelt and Csongor Lehmann. The former now sits in 14th in the rankings while the latter is now in 17th after making their first starts of the WTCS season in Yokohama.
There is also one slightly odd case. Technically Seth Rider climbed 28 places into 25th. Because he was did not start in Abu Dhabi after a last minute withdrawal, he raced for the first time in Yokohama. As he was classified as a DNS rather than removed from the Abu Dhabi results, though, he was not listed as a new entry in the rankings.
As a result, Rider was somewhere in between being a high riser and a new entry.
You can view the full men’s rankings here.
On the women’s side, the silver medallist, Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal, moved up to 3rd in the standings, a gain of 13 places. However, she was not the biggest riser.
That honour went to Kate Waugh. After her best ever WTCS finish, Waugh climbed 23 places to enter the top-10 overall. After Yokohama, she now sits in 9th place.
Yuka Sato moved up 17 places into 41st overall while Kirsten Kasper gained 14 places and now finds herself in 11th. In addition Zsanett Bragmayer improved her ranking by 9 places. The world aquathlon champion is now ranked 29th.
As an interesting aside, Summer Rappaport was the only athlete in either ranking not to move. After all the action in Yokohama, she left in the exact same position in which she arrived: 4th place.
Of the new entries in the women’s Series, Taylor Knibb is the highest ranked addition in 8th place. Close behind is Maya Kingma who inserted herself in 12th. Erica Ackerlund narrowly missed joining the top-20 too with her new entry. She managed to slot into 22nd place.
You can view the full women’s rankings here.
