The start lists for the third round of the 2023 World Triathlon Championship Series are available and there are a number of prominent names racing as well as a few conspicuous absences.
Cagliari will be the second of two Olympic distance races in the regular WTCS season; also note that the Paris Test Event will stand as a possible third Olympic distance race to count towards an athlete’s score prior to the Final in Pontevedra.
At 1000 points, the race in Cagliari is therefore among the most valuable on the WTCS calendar.
Who’s there?
The winner of the WTCS opener in Abu Dhabi, Beth Potter, will be racing. After skipping WTCS Yokohama, she will be looking to add more hardware to her medal collection and potentially return to the top of the standings (once she loses her status in Yokohama).
Potter will be joined by compatriots Georgia Taylor-Brown and Kate Waugh.
A full strength French women’s team will be racing with Cassandre Beaugrand, Leonie Periault and Emma Lombardi all due to start.
Lena Meißner headlines the German team after a recent bout of tonsilitis forced her home from a training camp in Girona. With back to back top-5 finishes in Abu Dhabi, Meißner will be looking to solidify her newfound status at the top of the triathlon tree. She will be joined by WTCS medallists Lisa Tertsch and Laura Lindemann, while Nina Eim and Marlene Gomez-Goggel will also race.
Both Ivana Kuriackova and Barbara De Koning are rewarded with starting slots after their fine form earlier this season. Kuriackova already earned her way into WTCS Yokohama on the back of a string of races. For De Koning, Cagliari will be a first WTCS start of 2023.
She will arrive in Cagliari having already won three African Cups this year.
Joining De Koning from the Dutch team will be Maya Kingma and Rachel Klamer.
A large chunk of the women’s field will be wearing the colours of either America or Australia. On the American side, Taylor Spivey, Kirsten Kasper, Taylor Knibb, Summer Rappaport and Erika Ackerlund will all be racing. They will be accompanied by four Australian women.
Emma Jackson will be racing after her win at the Melilla European Cup. Natalie Van Coevorden, Emma Jeffcoat and Kira Hedgeland will no doubt keep her on her toes in the race to be the first Australian.
Alberte Kjaer Pedersen and Miriam Casillas Garcia will look to capitalise on a fast, mostly flat run. Likewise, Julie Derron could benefit from the course.
Meanwhile Bianca Seregni and Vittoria Lopes can be counted upon to push the pace in the swim. Seregni will have Verena Steinhauser and Ilaria Zane to join her as home athletes. Steinhauser, in particular, could be the leader of the Italian hopes after opening her year with a 9th place in Abu Dhabi.
On the men’s side, all four of the main contenders for this year’s world title will be racing. Cagliari therefore promises the first showdown between Wilde, Bergere, Blummenfelt and Yee of 2023.
Hayden Wilde will be the sole representative from New Zealand in either the men’s or women’s races. By contrast Bergere will be joined by a stacked French team of Dorian Coninx, Vincent Luis, Tom Richard and Pierre Le Corre. Team support could come into play at the race although it should not be forgotten that the French men will have personal agendas to pursue.
All aside from Bergere will need a top-5 finish (if they haven’t done so already in Yokohama) and so will likely have to prioritise their own interests.
Kristian Blummenfelt will be joined by the winner of the Quarteira European Cup, Vetle Bergsvik Thorn. After his recent showing, Thorn might just be the Norwegian to watch although Blummenfelt will no doubt come in with a point to prove.
On the British front, Alex Yee will have Jonathan Brownlee and Barclay Izzard for company. As the winner of WTCS Abu Dhabi, Yee is the de facto form athlete and will be the early favourite.
In a deep field, though, the medallists could come from a number of places.
Jelle Geens and Marten Van Riel are obvious candidates while Manoel Messias and Antonio Bravo Neto are another double act that could threaten the podium.
Moreover there will be a balance in Cagliari between countries sending one man or a large cohort.
Diego Moya, Vasco Vilaca, Jawad Abdelmoula, Brandon Copeland and Richard Murray are the soloists. They will be in Cagliari as they only male representatives of their countries. Murray showed his form with a win at the Swakopmund African Cup while Vilaca medalled at WTCS Abu Dhabi.
When it comes to larger national parties, a large Swiss group will arrive in Sardinia. Max Studer, Adrien Briffod, Sylvain Fridelance and Simon Westermann will all be racing. With three Swiss men in the WTCS top-20 right now, they are a collective on the rise.
Spain, Germany, Hungary and America are also sending large teams, each with a WTCS medallist among their ranks.
For the Spanish, Roberto Sanchez Mantecon, Antonio Serrat Seoane, David Castro Fajardo and Sergio Baxter Cabrera will be starting. Both Castro and Baxter performed well in Cagliari last year so could be ones to watch.
Jonas Schomburg, Lasse Nygaard Priester, Johannes Vogel and Lasse Lührs will head up the German charge.
Márk Dévay will look to lead the way for the Hungarians in the swim. He will be joined by Csongor Lehmann, Gábor Faldum, and Bence Bicsák, each of whom will likely influence the later stages of the race.
Then there is the five man American contingent. Morgan Pearson and Matthew Mcelroy are the leaders of the group and will be joined by Seth Rider, Kevin Mcdowell and Chase McQueen.
Michele Sarzilla and Gianluca Pozzatti will be flying the flag for the Italian men.
Who’s not there?
Flora Duffy is the most notable absence. She has not yet made an appearance in the WTCS this year and with each passing race her hopes of defending her world title recede a little further.
Sophie Coldwell is another name to miss out. She will have already taken on Abu Dhabi and Yokohama so will likely have the points in the bank to sit Cagliari out. After her stunning form in Abu Dhabi, her decision to opt out is nonetheless a slight surprise. So too is the non-attendance of Nicole Van der Kaay given her early season form.
Anabel Knoll has not yet surfaced at the world level in 2023 and is on the road back to full fitness. Her decision to skip Cagliari likely comes with a full-on summer in mind.
Jolien Vermeylen is also not on the start list. With Claire Michel and Valerie Barthelemy both racing, there is a chance she cedes ground to her direct competition for the Belgian Olympic team next year.
On the men’s side, Gustav Iden is a notable absence. With a world ranking outside the top-50, it could be the case that he is on the reserve list for the race and did not have the points to gain access straight off the bat. Alternatively, he may have simply chosen to skip Cagliari and focus on the events to come in the summer.
A trio of Portuguese men will also be sitting Cagliari out. Joao Silva, Joao Pereira and Ricardo Batista all could have been expected to race but have decided against it.
Jacob Birtwhistle and Tyler Mislawchuk are two further men that could have stood to benefit from the course but will not be racing.
Main talking points
All 2022 Cagliari medallists return
Yee, Brownlee and Messias all return to Cagliari after medalling in October. Taylor-Brown, Lombardi and Knibb likewise will be racing after winning medals last time out.
With Yee and Messias already having won medals in Abu Dhabi, both will be heavily favoured to perform in Cagliari. Yee looked imperious on the run in the season opener. Furthermore Messias seems to be getting better with every appearance and has an awful lot of momentum. He could well upgrade his bronze medal to silver or even gold.
The women’s medallists have an air of uncertainty around them. Taylor-Brown is a known star of the sport. After her slightly underwhelming showing in Abu Dhabi, though, she will need to bounce back before she is confirmed as a sure-fire medallist. Lombardi was a little stronger in Abu Dhabi but as a young athlete realistically cannot yet be expected to compete for medals at every race.
Then there is Knibb. WTCS Cagliari 2022 was a clinic on just how destructive her cycling can be last year. However a stress fracture over the winter may have slowed her. It therefore remains to be seen what kind of shape she will be in early in the year.
There is also a question over how the race will unfold. Both Brownlee and the women’s medallists benefited from breakaways to different degrees. The question is, will lightning strike twice?
Brownlee’s WTCS season opener
On the subject of Brownlee, he will be making his first start of the WTCS season. He was swapped out of WTCS Yokohama for Barclay Izzard after initially being slated to race.
Aside from an appearance at the European Cup in Quarteira, we have not seen too much of him yet in 2023. Last year, he opened his season in Sardinia on the same weekend that WTCS Cagliari is scheduled to take place by winning the Arzachena World Cup. Brownlee can be trusted to produce a similar high level at the end of May.
However, after some issues with sickness, he might not yet be at full tilt. In addition a WTCS field will provide stiffer competition than a World Cup. As a result Cagliari could be a little too soon for him, although he has made a knack of proving people wrong throughout his career.
German women’s depth on show
The same quintet of German women racing at WTCS Yokohama will be tackling WTCS Cagliari.
While Knoll is absent again, it is telling that world U23 silver medallist Annika Koch cannot get a start. Both of her fellow medallists from Abu Dhabi, Kate Waugh and Bianca Seregni, are slated to race at both Yokohama and Cagliari. Such is Germany’s depth, though, Koch cannot buy a start at this point.
With such depth the challenge for the German women will be to push one another into the medals on a regular basis. All five German women racing have a top-8 WTCS finish to their name since the start of the 2022 season and have all been regulars among the top-15.
At some point, one of them will emerge from the pack as the leader. The only question is who will it be?
Slim chance of Zaferes or Jorgensen racing
It is a similar story of depth with the American women.
Knibb is one of the best athletes in the Series when at full capacity while Spivey and Rappaport each displayed their abilities on their way to 3rd and 4th at WTCS Abu Dhabi.
With athlete as talented as Gina Sereno currently looking in from the outside, there is a surfeit of quality within the American ranks.
As a consequence is unlikely that either Katie Zaferes or Gwen Jorgensen will be subbed in. With the season gathering momentum, the chances of athletes offering up their slots (for reasons other than injury) will dwindle. The greater likelihood is that Zaferes and Jorgensen will have to focus on accruing points at the World Cup level to earn their way into the Series by right.
A substitution could happen but right now would not be wise for anyone to hold their breath.
No return for Jumpei Furuya
Last year Furuya illuminated WTCS Cagliari with a daring breakaway on the bike. With turbocharged legs, he enlivened the race and shook up what otherwise threatened to be a somewhat casual bike.
Brownlee was the shrewdest of the main pack and bridged to Furuya. Working in tandem, the Furuya-Brownlee break went a long way to securing the Brit’s silver medal.
This year, Furuya is not one of the five Japanese men racing. Instead Kenji Nener, Takumi Hojo, Ren Sato, Aoba Yasumatsu and Makoto Odakura will be starting.
The onus will therefore fall elsewhere and someone else will have to take up Furuya’s mantle of bringing a bit of flair to the race.
View the men’s start list here.
View the women’s start list here.
