Madrid will be the host of the first European Triathlon Championships of the year. With racing kicking off next month, the athletes will be taking on the Olympic distance.
Today we will be taking a first look at the start lists for the event.
One relevant point to highlight is that the race can be used as a scoring event towards an athlete’s WTCS points. As with all Olympic distance Continental Championships, the race can form one of an athlete’s four scoring events prior to the WTCS Final in Pontevedra. However, it should also be noted that Continental Championships are worth considerably less than a WTCS event.
Beyond the WTCS, though, the Championships are a prestigious event in their own right and often provide spectacular racing.
At last year’s iteration in Munich, the French swept the men’s podium. In addition Non Stanford memorably won the women’s race in a final hurrah before retirement.
Who’s there?
As hosts, Spain will be looking to make a big impact at this year’s championships. To that end, they have selected a rapid quintet that will be looking for a podium sweep of their own. WTCS medallists Antonio Serrat Seoane and Mario Mola lead the way. Meanwhile Sergio Baxter Cabrera, Alberto Gonzalez Garcia and Genis Grau could all vie for the podium.
Roberto Sanchez Mantecon and David Castro Fajardo were originally on the start lists but were swapped out in favour of Mola and Grau.
Neighbouring Portugal will also be sending a near-full strength men’s team with Vasco Vilaca, Joao Pereira and Ricardo Batista all on the start list. Manoel Mansos will also get his shot to race at the European Championships.
The Swiss men will be at full force. Adrien Briffod and Max Studer are perhaps the favourites to perform well. However with Sylvain Fridelance, Simon Westermann and Fabian Meeusen on the start list, Switzerland have a range of medal threats.
An Italian trio of Nicola Azzano, Alessio Crociani and Sergiy Polikarpenko will also be racing in Madrid. In Azzano and Crociani, they have two men that could push the pace in the swim. At the other end of the race, Polikarpenko has plenty of speed in the run and could challenge if the race unfolds as a large main pack.
Jonathan Brownlee is perhaps the biggest name on the start list. After a delayed start to the season due to illness, he should be up to full speed by June. Twelve years have passed since his last European Championships appearance. Back in 2011, he won a silver medal; that event was held in Pontevedra, Spain. Could Brownlee add another Spanish medal?
He will be joined by Ben Dijkstra, Jack Willis and Daniel Dixon.
On the German front, Lasse Lührs leads a strong team that also contains Jonas Schomburg and Lasse Nygaard Priester. With Johannes Vogel and Valentin Wernz also racing, Germany will be represented by one of the largest cohorts in Madrid.
At the other end of the scale several countries will be represented by one man.
Gabriel Sandör will take on Madrid having kick-started his season with a 10km PB and a duathlon win. He will the lone male starter for Sweden.
Similarly, Emil Holm, Rostislav Pevtsov, Radim Grebik, James Edgar and Felix Duchampt will be the sole male representatives of their country.
In the women’s race, Miriam Casillas leads the way for the hosts. She will be joined by Marta Pintanel, Noelia Juan, Anna Godoy and Cecilia Santamaria.
The Spanish, though, will be up against a formidable French team. Emma Lombardi is the most obvious danger to the medals of the list after her European bronze and WTCS silver last season. In Sandra Dodet, Mathilde Gautier and Audrey Merle, France will also be sending three World Cup medallists. Lea Coninx is also on the team and could be one to watch.
If there is one team that can rival the French, though, it is the German squad.
WTCS medallists Laura Lindemann and Lisa Tertsch will be prominent in the race. After winning a silver medal in Munich last year, it would be no surprise to see Lindemann go one better this year.
Anabel Knoll, Tanja Neubert and Annika Koch will be joining Lindemann and Tertsch.
Koch’s presence, in particular, is notable as she will finally get her chance to race after being forced to watch on for the opening few WTCS races of the season.
Furthermore the British women will be looking to match Non Stanford’s win last year. World U23 champion Kate Waugh will be racing, as will Sian Rainsley and Olivia Mathias. Sophie Alden and Daisy Davies will also be racing but it may be a little early in their careers to expect a Stanford-level performance.
Tilda Månsson will be the lone Swedish woman. Having already won a World Junior title and a World Cup in 2022, she is primed to leave the Junior ranks behind. This year may be too soon to expect any major results over the Olympic distance, although it is not out of the realms of possibility.
If Månsson is bringing the youth element to Madrid, Austria will be sending an experienced trio of Tanja Stroschneider, Lisa Perterer and Julia Hauser. Each have enjoyed some very good results in the past twelve months and could all challenge for the top-10 or better.
Who’s not there?
None of last year’s men’s podium will be racing. Leo Bergere, Pierre Le Corre and Dorian Coninx will all be absent leaving plenty of space for new faces to rise.
Vasco Vilaca is the only one of the four European medallists from this year’s WTCS season opener in Abu Dhabi to be racing. None of Alex Yee, Beth Potter or Sophie Coldwell will be in Madrid. Moreover several blue-chip names will be missing, including Vincent Luis, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Cassandre Beaugrand and Leonie Periault.
Bence Bicsak is missing from an otherwise strong Hungarian team while Jelle Geens and Marten Van Riel have passed up on representing Belgium this time round.
Lena Meißner, Michele Sarzilla and Gianluca Pozzatti also have opted against racing in Madrid.
Main talking points
Handling the Cagliari-Madrid double
A number of athletes will be racing at WTCS Cagliari the week prior which goes a long way to explaining the absences of some others. Indeed, most of the absent names listed above will be racing in Cagliari and so elected against tackling the double.
Taking on Olympic distance races on consecutive weekends will not be for the faint of heart. Some athletes, though, will be embracing the challenge.
On the women’s side, both Emma Lombardi and Laura Lindemann have European medals to defend from last year’s championship and will be looking to medal at both races. Meanwhile Lasse Lührs and Jonathan Brownlee will be attempting the same double.
Recovery between the two races will therefore be of the utmost importance. Given the toll WTCS racing can take, it would be no surprise to see some athletes have great races in Cagliari only to pay for it in Madrid. The opposite could also be true with athletes rebounding from any potential disappointment in Cagliari.
For an athlete to have success at both, they will have to ensure they get every aspect of their preparation right. Once they get to the finish line in Sardinia, the clock will start ticking.
Xisca Tous returns to Spain
Until February 2022, Xisca Tous raced internationally for Spain. Since February of this year, though, she has been racing for Turkey after spending a year racing under the ITU colours.
To date, she has three Continental Cup medals to her name this season with bronzes in Dexing and La Habana to go with a silver in La Guaira. All three of those medals have come over the Olympic distance and that seems to be a format that suits Tous.
Following her medal haul, she has jumped to 53rd in the World Rankings and the only Spanish woman ranked ahead of her is Miriam Casillas. In Madrid, then, Tous will be looking to continue her run of form and potentially rise even higher.
If she produces a big performance at the European Championships, there might be a few rueful smiles within the Spanish federation.
Two world champions drop out
In 2022 Leo Bergere won the European Championships in Munich in style. Later in the year, with his win at the WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi, Bergere established his credentials as a big stage performer.
After originally being on the start list, Bergere has since withdrawn from Madrid.
In addition Kristian Blummenfelt has withdrawn from the race. The current Olympic champion last raced at the European Championships back in 2016. One year prior, Blummenfelt won the bronze medal at the Championships in Geneva.
As a bronze medallist at the European Junior Championships back in 2012, he has enjoyed some success at the European level.
Although he has not won a WTCS medal since 2021, Blummenfelt has been feeling his way back into the short course style of racing. A win in Madrid might have been the perfect injection of impetus for his season.
Slovakia gathering momentum
Richard Varga will be the sole representative for Slovakia on the men’s side. With all due respect, there is no real mystery left around him at this stage in his career. He will be near the front in the water and a commanding presence in any breakaway on the bike.
The Slovakian women’s team, though, is on the rise.
Romana Gajdošová has been at the vanguard of the team for a couple of years. Already this year she has two African Cup medals to her name. Moreover Ivana Kuriackova has had a good year thus far, enjoying a couple of visits to various podiums.
Slovakia will also be sending two younger female athletes to Madrid to race alongside Gajdošová and Kuriackova. Margareta Bicanova is a developing talent and won the Asia Cup in Pokhara recently.
Zuzana Michalickova is a year younger than Bicanova but is similarly on the rise.
With young tyro Margareta Vrablova also coming through, the depth of the Slovakian team is growing at pace. It may take a few more years yet but Slovakia could be a coming force in the sport.
A chance for France’s next male generation
For Paul Georgenthum, Yanis Seguin and Valentin Morlec, Madrid provides an ideal opportunity to mark themselves out as the future of French triathlon. With Bergere and Le Corre withdrawing, they will be the three French representatives in he men’s race.
After the Paris Olympics, it is possible to see the short distance careers of Vincent Luis and Pierre Le Corre draw towards their conclusion. Bergere and Coninx should still be around but there will be spaces opening up in the French team.
As such, Madrid could stand as an early audition for who could lead the next generation of French men.
Georgenthum is still trying to find his feet after his stunning WTCS silver in Hamburg in 2021. Since his Junior days he has been a highly promising athlete and it should be a question of when, rather than if, he steps up to the WTCS elite.
Seguin will arrive in Madrid in promising form. After winning back to back silvers at European Cups last autumn, he recently finished 4th at the European Cup in Quarteira. Morlec is a similarly exciting talent. He recently won the Triathlon Di Andora in Italy, beating Georgenthum.
Madrid won’t make or break their careers but it does represent a very valuable opportunity to push their names forward. If any of the trio can take their chance, it might go a very long way in vaulting them up the French pecking order.
View the full start lists here.
