Aggressive swimming
When considering what we would like to see in the WTCS in 2024, it is perhaps best to start with the most recent instalment of the Series. At WTCS Pontevedra, the two men’s favourites to win the world title, Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde, lost time in the swim and found themselves on the back foot as they headed into T1.
This changed the dynamic of the race and laid the foundations for a dramatic upset. Looking ahead to next year, it is clear that a swim-centric strategy may be the best way to take down the running prowess of the likes of Yee and Wilde.
On the women’s side, using the swim may also be the best way of taking down some of the superior runners in the field.
Plenty of athletes have shown the ability to break up races in the first discipline. Throughout 2023, there were a number of exceptional swims and the talent is there to crack races open.
Going forward, the challenge is for athletes to take more risks earlier in the race that may pay off later on.
A solution to swim behaviour
On the note of the swim, there is a separate point to address. Swim behaviour remains a source of misery for some athletes and confusion for some fans. The disqualification of Alistair Brownlee for unsportsmanlike conduct in the swim at WTCS Leeds in 2021 remains one of the most notorious instances of policing the swim in recent years. All too often, though, consistency in such punishments have been lacking.
In the WTCS alone, there have been a couple of multiple offenders of underhand swim behaviour, some of whom have earned more than one penalty for the offence. In 2023, WTCS Hamburg was particularly notorious in terms of behaviour.
One option is to police the swim even more. Further penalties, and even disqualifications, would incentivise athletes to clean up affairs. On the other hand, excessive penalties would create a new problem, risking an overly litigious racing environment which itself can blight the sport.
Rather than a focus on punishment, to solve this element of the race the focus should be on the guiding philosophy behind the swim in triathlon races. In essence, a decision needs to be made as to whether the swim is a non-contact environment or not.
If a clean race is the goal, then harsher punishments for fighting in the water will be required. Equally, perhaps there may need to be an acceptance that a bit of fighting is par for the course.
One of the pivotal moments in the swim is the turn around the buoys. If the swim is deemed to be a non-contact event, athletes will have to take wider lines around the buoy to avoid collisions, or else they will risk a penalty. Alternatively, if contact is allowed then the buoys can remain a free-for-all.
Either way, a decision and then subsequent enforcement on the nature of contact in the swim will have one key outcome. It will reward speed.
The faster swimmer will be able to earn the better inside line around buoys while the slower swimmer will have to swim a wider route to avoid contact. As a result, the faster swimmers will actually earn something for their advantage.
Alternatively, if contact is permitted, there will be an incentive for the faster swimmers to use their speed and stay out of trouble. Starting the race and deploying front end speed is a skill in and of itself and should be encouraged, particularly as it feeds into the hope of swims becoming faster in general.
Right now, with too many athletes getting away with cheeky contact in the water, the status quo only favours slower swimmers who get away with what they can. With a change in approach to swim behaviour, the pendulum can swing to assisting those that are actually trying to gain an advantage as opposed to those that are quite literally holding others back.
Maybe the swim needs a bit of contact for an element of jeopardy (and some may be unavoidable given the size of the fields). However, no one wants the athletes to be in any danger. As things stand, the fighting exists and not enough of it is effectively policed.
The nature of the swim, then, is a question that may need to be answered in the near future.
Separate the Olympics
The Olympic Games are the star that guides the sport of triathlon. The two years leading up to it are carved out as the qualifying window for the Games while much of the sport is conceived of as a ladder rising towards the Olympic plane.
The Olympics itself are absolutely vital for the sport. One need only look at World Triathlon’s finances to see how the Olympic Games is basically the source of revenue that keeps the lights on.
However, other areas of the sport still need to flourish for it to be able to sustain itself in the long term. In particular, the WTCS (or however the world championships are formulated) must take centre stage.
The 2021 season was a weird one due to the pandemic. To accommodate the odd circumstances, the Tokyo Olympics counted towards that year’s WTCS. On a competition level, it was unfair to athletes that could not race due to country quotas. For example, WTCS medallists Sophie Coldwell and Taylor Spivey spring to mind as athletes that could not race and so suffered in the WTCS.
In the bigger picture, the Olympics need to be separated in the minds of the fans and the athletes. A key stepping stone in this will be to keep the racing at the Games away from the WTCS. They need to be independent entities, with each possessing their own value.
As big of a deal as the Games are, they cannot be allowed to deflate the rest of the season. The WTCS and world title needs to stand on its own feet and not just be a consolation prize.
This season will therefore be a test for the WTCS. If it can stand alongside the Olympics as an item of value in triathlon, it stands a chance of surviving in the long term. If it becomes an add-on once more, though, questions will have to be asked about the future of the Series.
Flora Duffy racing
Flora Duffy has not raced since winning the 2022 world title at WTCS Abu Dhabi over a year ago. A brief flirtation with racing at the Paris Test Event this year ended with a last minute withdrawal and persistent injury problems have plagued her year.
Prior to her absence, she had won two consecutive world titles and Olympic gold. As such, she would be among the favourites to claim world and Olympic gold in 2024. Yet her prolonged absence casts a long shadow over her ambitions.
It is one thing to hope for Duffy’s return. It is quite another to hope that she will instantly return to the levels of 2021 and 2022. New challengers like Beth Potter and Cassandre Beaugrand have shown elevated performance levels this year and will be major dangers to Duffy next season. Her most recent rival, Georgia Taylor-Brown likewise remains a threat.
When Duffy returns, then, several questions will be open. What will her level be? Will she focus solely on becoming the first woman to defend an Olympic title? Perhaps most interestingly, will she go on to claim a record-equaling fifth WTCS title?
The return of Flora Duffy will no doubt boost the women’s field. How her comeback unfolds, though, will be one of the leading plot lines of the year.
A prize money boost
In real terms, athletes are paid less in the WTCS than they were a decade ago (thanks inflation). In an ideal world, this is a significant point to address in 2024.
Obviously the money would have to come from somewhere and there are no easy choices in how World Triathlon allocates its budget. Still, it would create a welcome boost to morale in the ranks of the sport.
The prize money point also ties back to the importance of maintaining the WTCS beyond the Olympics. The levels of reward will be a key mechanism in maintaining athlete interest and attendance in the Series. The last thing the WTCS needs is for it to become simply a qualifying route to the Olympics that is forgotten about for half of each four year cycle as athletes chase cash elsewhere.
A smart decision, then, could be to offer a bumper rise in prize money for 2024 and 2025 to lock in athlete support during the post-Olympic window. Not only is there an element of justice in compensating the performers upon whom the sport is so reliant, but it also makes strategic sense in fending of the financial temptations of long distance triathlon and more.
