Category: WTCS

Breakaways on the bike The last two WTCS races of 2022, in Bermuda and Abu Dhabi, saw ambitious breakaways in both the men’s and women’s fields. At each race, the winner came from those breakaways and we are hoping to see more of this in 2023. We have already anticipated that breakaways may be a little more common next season (you can read more about that here). Breakaways will require a tactical or philosophical shift for several athletes, primarily the ones that do not have the run speed of the…

There can be times in which the structure of elite triathlon can be a little confusing. The World Triathlon Championship Series represents the sharp end of the sport, with the World Cup being a run below and the Continental Cups a step below that. When people outside of triathlon hear the term “World Cup”, though, they can often be forgiven for mistaking that as the premier level of the sport. Part of the issue here lies in the history of triathlon. In the 1990s, when the sport was starting to…

Stepping up to the WTCS is no small task. As the pinnacle of the sport, the World Triathlon Championship Series represents a new level to athletes. Fields are deeper, races are that bit faster and the attention is greater. Some athletes have races to forget on their debuts. Sometimes misfortune strikes and they are forced to DNF. On some occasions, though, athletes break through on their first dance and surprise everyone. Both 2021 and 2022 saw a number of strong debuts in the WTCS so, without further ado, today we…

As we recently presented with the women’s field, the character of elite triathlon racing grows and changes over time. The same is true on the men’s side as much as it is on the women’s. A decade ago, the norm was similar to what we have recently seen in the women’s race. World-class swim-bikers like Alistair Brownlee, Javier Gomez Noya, Richard Varga and Jonathan Brownlee formed small breakaway groups out of T1 and attacked the bike. As Gomez and the Brownlees also possessed world-class runs, there was rarely hope for…

Like all things in life, racing at the elite level of triathlon changes and evolves as new athletes emerge and others decline towards the end of their careers. Like artists competing over the same canvas, each athlete can paint in a style unique to them in the moment afforded by their athletic talents, leaving a vivid array of colours, styles and crafts over the years as athlete after athlete leaves their mark. Like any revolution, there will be clues ahead of time for how these changes will look. We will…

As a product, triathlon is built around two fundamentals. For the sport to grow and thrive, it needs its stars (the athletes) and a stage for them to perform upon. Everything else is largely tangential. For years now, short distance athletes have torn up the WTCS and produced sensational performances, not least in the most recent WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi. Their stage, though, is something that will require careful planning and consideration in the coming years. There are races on the WTCS circuit, such as Hamburg and Yokohama, that…

As highlighted in our article on the WTCS selection policies of some of the elite triathlon nations, discretionary selection clauses are rife in the sport. The use of such discretionary picks in the spot, however, creates as many problems as it solves. Discretionary selections have two traditional benefits. They help to re-introduce athletes that have suffered injury and hardship into the sport and they open a route into the elite end of the sport for prodigious talents with little by way of performance profile. To a degree, there is a…

The phrase “money makes the world go round” was attributed to the author Paul van der Merwe and the world of elite triathlon is no exception. For the sport to function, particularly on a global level, it is highly dependent on external sponsorship. By itself World Triathlon does not have the funding or means to foot the bill for the WTCS. As a result, it has entered into a series of sponsorship arrangements for its flagship product. The question is: who actually sponsors the Series and who is putting money…