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Finally, we come to the six best athletes in the women’s World Triathlon Championship Series. Each of the women here won at least two medals in the 2022 WTCS season. Likewise, each athlete will conceivably contend for a medal at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. 6) Sophie Coldwell GBR Coldwell’s first WTCS medal came in Leeds in 2021 when she was a part of the breakaway that essentially Flora Duffy’d Flora Duffy. On a tough bike course, Coldwell had the fastest split and marked herself out as one of…

At long last, we come to the big one: the six men we consider the best triathletes in the realm of World Triathlon right now. Each of these men have numerous WTCS medals to their names. Each medalled in the 2022 season. Indeed, all bar one won a WTCS race last season. Without further ado, let’s examine the top-6 male triathletes. 6) Morgan Pearson USA In the past couple of years, Pearson’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Having only made the step up into the international ranks in…

As was the case yesterday with the men ranked 12th to 7th, each of these women will be strong contenders to finish in the top-10 of the WTCS this year. Each, too, will be in with a shout of winning WTCS medals in 2023. 12) Miriam Casillas Garcia ESP Since achieving her first WTCS top-10 in Yokohama in 2021, Casillas has gone from strength to strength. Last season, she had five finishes of 10th or better in the WTCS which helped to 10th overall in the Series. Nowadays, she stands…

As we enter the top-12 of the TriStats top-30 rankings, the upcoming athletes could contend for a medal at virtually any WTCS race. Some do not have multiple medals to their name (yet) and some will favour certain courses over others. Each man, though, is capable of performing at rarefied levels. Moreover, at this point, the athletes listed here will have their sights set on a top-10 finish in the overall WTCS. 12) Jonathan Brownlee GBR We start with one of the biggest names in the sport. An individual Olympic…

We are drawing closer to the top-10 triathletes in the world and in this section there are some very big hitters. Any of the women listed below could nab a WTCS medal this season or finish in the top-10 of the overall Series. 18) Summer Rappaport USA Summer Rappaport has won numerous World Cups as well as a WTCS race (Edmonton 2016). Altogether, she has six WTCS medals which is the most of any woman in this section. In many respects, 2022 was a mixed season for Rappaport. It started…

18) Roberto Sanchez Mantecon ESP Roberto Sanchez Mantecon had a huge breakthrough performance at WTCS Bermuda. On the back of a lightning run split, he won the bronze medal. He had steadily built throughout the season towards that performance. In the direct run-up to Bermuda, he finished 9th at the Valencia World Cup and then 4th at the Karlovy Vary World Cup. He finished 20th in the overall WTCS last year and currently sits 22nd in the world rankings. We have him a tad higher in our rankings largely by…

We are continuing our series on the best triathletes in the world and today we looking at women ranked 24th through to 19th. 24) Kate Waugh GBR Kate Waugh won the World U23 Championships in style in 2022 with a swashbuckling breakaway on the bike. That win was enough to put her ahead of compatriot Sian Rainsley. Waugh, though, had a strong 2022 beyond that performance. She finished 12th at WTCS Hamburg and WTCS Cagliari and won a bronze medal at the World Cup in Bergen. To go with that,…

It’s now February which means elite triathlon racing is around the corner. With WTCS Abu Dhabi just over four weeks away, we are continuing with the TriStats Top 30 Triathletes of 2023. As we mentioned in the previous men’s post, this is not designed as a prediction for the season, but rather a more general assessment of where the field stands coming out of 2022. Some athletes are better single day racers while some are better over a season and we’ve tried to factor that into the rankings. Without further…

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…

Ahead of the 2023 season, we thought we would put together two rankings, one for men and one for women, of who we consider to be the top-30 triathletes in World Triathlon racing. This is 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 a season. To put the…

Last week we looked at who would qualify for the Paris Olympic Games if the slots were allocated now. That made us wonder: is there any benefit to being ranked higher in the qualification rankings or is there an advantage to chasing? More than anything, this is a question of psychology. The rankings are a crucial piece of the Olympic puzzle. They form an important part of the individual qualification process as well as informing particular national selection policies. Spain, for example, have criteria that are explicitly tied to the…