Category: News

Bob Haller has been sharpening his fitness as the season gets underway. In a similar manner to Artūrs Liepa recently, Haller took on elite competition in both cross country and swimming. On 5th March, he raced in the Luxembourg Cross Country Championships. Over the 10.41km course, Haller finished 3rd in a time of 34:00. His time was only 23 seconds behind the winner and represented an opportunity to shake up the legs early in the season. A few days later, on 10th March, Haller raced in the pool as he took…

Read More

With Table Mountain towering above, there are worse places to start a cycling race. The Cape Town Cycling Tour describes itself as the most beautiful bike race in the world and the route lived up to its billing at the weekend. The Cycling Tour itself is a part of the UCI Golden Tour which consists of seven races and the Cape Town instalment is one of only two outside of Europe. Taking place around the the Cape Peninsula, the Tour covers 109km of coastal roads. At the weekend, though, triathlon fans…

Read More

At the weekend, two WTCS athletes took on the French Cross Country Championships in Carhaix. Leonie Periault and Jeanne Lehair both raced the 8.91km course in conditions radically different to what they would be used to in triathlon. A week of rain had left much of the circuit in boggy conditions and caked in thick mud in parts. Compared to the near-pristine surface of the Yas Marina Circuit at WTCS Abu Dhabi, it was quite the turnaround. The conditions, though, did little to slow either athlete. Periault was the first…

Read More

The next generation of French triathletes will be put through their paces this weekend as the French federation holds this year’s Junior and Youth testing. These tests form a critical component of selection for international competition. They will to a large degree determine the teams at the World Junior Championships in Hamburg in July, the European Junior Championships in Balikesir in August and the European Youth Championships in Banyoles in September. The selection tests cover male and female athletes born between 2004 and 2007. There are three separate criteria to…

Read More

The French team started the WTCS season well in Abu Dhabi. In the men’s race, the three French athletes Vincent Luis, Dorian Coninx and Leo Bergere finished 4th, 5th and 6th, respectively. Two of the French women, Cassandre Beaugrand and Emma Lombardi, also finished in the top-8 in the women’s race. As a result, much of the team could leave Abu Dhabi satisfied with their results. The bigger test, though, is yet to come. For France, the focal point of the season will be the Paris Olympic Test Event in…

Read More

One of the biggest stories at WTCS Abu Dhabi was that former world champion Katie Zaferes made her return to racing. Having taken a maternity break after the Tokyo Olympics, Zaferes took the first steps on her road towards the Paris Olympics in 2024. In Abu Dhabi, she had a solid swim and made the main pack on the bike. Thereafter, she held her own in the group and barely missed a beat. In T2, Zaferes lost a little bit of time as the effort began to show and her…

Read More

Artūrs Liepa has been a busy man. Recently, he ran the 3000m at the Latvian Indoor Athletics Championships. In what he described as a tactical race, he ran 8:46.52 which was good enough to take the bronze medal. His personal best remains 8:42.55, a time he ran in March 2022. As a point of comparison, world U23 silver medallist Gergely Kiss ran 8:23.85 indoors a couple of weeks ago. We noted Liepa as one of the five Junior men ageing up in 2023 to watch. This year he will be a…

Read More

World Triathlon have announced that applications for the 2023 World Triathlon Team are now open. The ASICS World Triathlon Team was created to provide a developmental pathway for athletes outside the traditional routes into elite triathlon. A more detailed background into the Team is available here. Two current Team members, Jawad Abdelmoula (MAR) and Diego Moya (CHI), are currently in line to qualify for the Paris Olympics Games through the individual Olympic qualification rankings. Indeed, Abdelmoula and Moya are two of the current success stories of the programme. Historic successes…

Read More

Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden have put Norway on the triathlon map to an unprecedented degree through their racing and training antics. Not to be ignored, a cohort of Norwegian triathletes recently took on the Barcelona half marathon. The half marathon represented an early opportunity in the year to test out running fitness before sharpening as the triathlon season proper takes hold. Solveig Løvseth was among those that took part. Løvseth made her WTCS debut in Yokohama in 2021. She finished 24th that day which remains her best finish at…

Read More

The defending world champion, Flora Duffy, has revealed that she is currently rehabilitating a knee injury that she sustained last year. In an Instagram post, she revealed the she is enjoying a slower start to the year. As part of that process, she will not be racing at WTCS Abu Dhabi. This approach explains why she was not on the start list while some of her rivals to the WTCS title were. The main information she shared, though, pertained to a knee injury that she suffered in 2022. At this…

Read More