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 will be comparing the ten best debuts of the past two years.
The Best of 2022
In 2022, the best debut by a male athlete was by Sergio Baxter Cabrera of Spain.
Back in July, Baxter Cabrera put the triathlon world on notice after winning the Pontevedra World Cup. Born in only 2000, his strength over the Olympic distance that day marked him out as one to watch.
A little over two months later, he had the chance to display his talents on the WTCS stage in Cagliari.
He did not disappoint and made the step up look relatively comfortable as he took 14th place. After a strong 15th place in Abu Dhabi, Baxter Cabrera ended up 49th in the Series.
Meanwhile, the best debut in the women’s field in 2022 was by Emma Lombardi of France.
In the first race of a breakout season, Lombardi came 4th at Yokohama and spent much of the run with the leaders, including Flora Duffy and Georgia Taylor-Brown. Later in the year, Lombardi took her first WTCS medal with a brilliant performance in Cagliari.
By the end of the season, she nabbed 11th in the WTCS and was the youngest woman in the top-20 in the world.
How Does 2022 Compare to 2021?
To start with, Emma Lombardi narrowly out-performed the best female debut of 2021 by one place (4th against 5th). At the same time, four women achieved a better finish on debut in 2021 than than second-best female debut of 2022 (which was Cathia Schär’s 14th place in Montreal).
The best male debuts of 2021 finished noticeably higher than the best of 2022. After Sergio Baxter Cabrera, the next best male debutant was Michele Sarzilla who took 20th in Yokohama. By contrast, 2021 saw two male debutants break into the top-4 in Hamburg. It is worth noting that the field at WTCS Hamburg was a little thinner in 2021 than some of the other WTCS races, primarily as a consequence of the 2021 WTCS season being over and athletes taking a post-Olympic break.
To a degree, this explains how two debutants were able to break into the top-4. Nevertheless, the results remain on the record. While Sarzilla was the second best male debutant of 2022, six male athletes in total had better first WTCS races in 2021.
As a result, when considering the top debutants of each year, it appears 2021 had slightly better performances in the men’s field too.
Looking further down the best debutants, the 10th best debutant in both the men’s and women’s fields in 2021 finished 25th. In 2022, the equivalent athletes finished 37th. Again, this would indicate that the 2021 debuts fared better than those in 2022.
One factor to consider regarding the 2021 debuts is the Tokyo Olympics. Only two of the best men’s debuts in 2021 came before the Olympics and both occurred in Leeds (by Sam Dickinson and Chase McQueen, respectively). With the Olympics on the minds of most athletes and federations, it may be fair to assume that it would have been harder to break through prior to the Games than after.
On the other hand, four of the top ten women’s debuts of 2021 came before the Tokyo Olympics, so it is hard to say how much the Games impacted the season.
There is one final aspect to note when discussing the debuts: medals. Paul Georgenthum of France had the rare distinction of medalling on his debut in Hamburg in 2021, a feat no other athlete matched in either year.
To take a slightly wider view, though, none of the 2021 debutants won a medal in 2022. In contrast to this, one man and one woman in 2022 went on to win medals after making their debut. As previously noted, Emma Lombardi improved upon her 4th from Yokohama to take 2nd in Cagliari. Perhaps even more dramatically, Jawad Abdelmoula improved from 37th place on debut to take bronze in Hamburg a month later.
Across 2021 and 2022, then, there were numerous strong debuts in the WTCS. On balance, it seems that the performances of newcomers in 2021 were slightly better than those in 2022, although by a fine margin.
