The second stop of the WTCS season is upon us as the action turns to Cagliari. After a spellbinding performance at the season opener in Yokohama, all the attention in the women’s race will be on Leonie Periault.
The French athlete was in marvellous form as she claimed a first ever WTCS win in Japan and the ease with which she dispatched the likes of Taylor Knibb, Emma Lombardi and more on the run will have sent a loud warning to the rest of the elite women’s field. Should Periault mimic her showing in Cagliari, she will be hard to beat.
At the same time, Cagliari will see the return of the Big Four. That is to say the four women that won WTCS races in 2023 will all be making their first Series starts of the year. Beth Potter, the reigning world champion, is the most obvious danger to another Periault win. Right now, Potter is on a four race medal streak in the Series and won her last two outings. Assuming her form is anywhere near her 2023 levels, she will be among the favourites for the win.
However, one potential saving grace for the field could be that Cagliari was the only WTCS race in 2023 at which Potter did not medal. That may suggest there is scope for an upset. Equally, the British athlete may have unfinished business with the event and will want to set the record straight with a win.
Whether or not Potter misses out, she is one of four gold medallists to return. Georgia Taylor-Brown won in Cagliari in 2023 (and in 2022) and has already shown encouraging form this season with a silver medal at the Lievin World Cup. Cassandre Beaugrand won two WTCS stops in 2023 (although neither were over the Olympic distance) and opened her 2024 season with a silver medal at the Quarteira European Cup. Finally Sophie Coldwell races again. Coldwell opted against defending her gold medal in Yokohama to focus entirely on Cagliari as it will form the final British Olympic selection race. With Olympic selection on the line, Taylor-Brown and Coldwell can each be expected to be at their best.
The key to Cagliari may be the swim. Last year, the small breakaway group blocked Potter and Beaugrand from the podium and handed the medals to Taylor-Brown, Emma Lombardi and Taylor Spivey. Lombardi and Spivey also finished 3rd and 4th in Yokohama so will likely threaten the podium again this weekend.
Any of Taylor-Brown, Potter, Beaugrand and Coldwell could make a breakaway this weekend, but they have also shown that they can sometimes miss such moves. This fallibility makes the race even more open than it already appears on paper. Moreover, while Periault managed to make the main pack in Yokohama, she has missed breakaway moves in the past.
If a larger front pack comes together, like in Yokohama, Periault should fight for the win. Alternatively, she could be caught out by a breakaway just like anyone else.
When it comes to the swim, it seems that the depth at the front of the women’s field has grown. Whereas at the opening three stops of the 2023 WTCS, small breakaway groups formed out of the water, the current indications are that larger packs will form. Beyond Potter, Beaurgand, Lombardi, Knibb, Spivey, Taylor-Brown and Coldwell (already seven contenders), the likes of Vittoria Lopes, Summer Rappaport, Flora Duffy, Jolien Vermeylen, Maya Kingma, Bianca Seregni and more can all make a breakaway.
On any given day, ten to fifteen women can make the front pack which mostly eliminates the small breakaways seen last season. Throw in other strong swimmers that do not always swim at the very front, like Laura Lindemann, Kate Waugh, Djenyfer Arnold and Katie Zaferes, and a front pack of twenty women could very easily form. In such a circumstance, the run would become more decisive than it would in a small breakaway situation.
On balance, then, it seems like the race may follow the pattern of Yokohama with twenty or so women arriving together in T2 with the rest of the field way out of contention. From there, the run will settle matters and, with limited results to go by, what happens then will be anyone’s guess, but Periault will certainly back herself to take down the Big Four.
TriStats Predictions
- Beth Potter
- Cassandre Beaugrand
- Leonie Periault
- Georgia Taylor-Brown
- Taylor Knibb
