How Do The Olympic Triathlon Universality Places Look?

At the Paris Olympic Games, two slots in the men’s and women’s triathlon races will be reserved for the Universality pathway. These are allocated by the Tripartite Commission and are open primarily to countries that have traditionally sent small delegations to the Games.

To receive a slot, an athlete’s federation must have applied for the berth and the athlete in question needs to make it into the top-180 of the world rankings. The Tripartite Commission will then finalise their consideration of the applications and distribute the slots.

Similarly to the New Flag qualification pathway, the Universality system is designed at expanding the reach of the sport. Whereas the New Flags are a little more particular to triathlon, the Universality system and Tripartite Commission are involved in over twenty sports. Note, the Universality slots in athletics and swimming are governed by the global federations in those sports and not by the Tripartite Commission.

As things stand, the two men’s Universality slots in triathlon are due to go to Tyler Smith of Bermuda and Eloi Adjavon of Togo. Both face an uphill challenge to qualify in their respective New Flag races – Smith is 30 places behind Matthew Wright in the Americas race while Adjavon is 59 places back in the African race – however the Universality route should cover them. Smith is currently ranked 91st in the world and Adjavon stands in 153rd. As such, both are safely inside the top-180 in the world rankings and will probably make it to the Games.

On the women’s side, it gets a little more interesting.

Erica Hawley of Bermuda and Manami Iijima of Guam are currently the leading candidates to secure the slots. The first thing that jumps out here is the slight question mark over whether Hawley receiving a Universality place is in the spirit of the system. Being from Bermuda, she comes from a National Olympic Committee (NOC) that is eligible to receive a Tripartite slot.

However, Bermuda will already be sending Flora Duffy to Paris. Moreover, the stated objective of the Universality pathway is to select athletes from such NOCs that have not been able to qualify. If Duffy, the reigning Olympic champion no less, has already qualified, Hawley’s selection would not align with the purpose of the system.

A World Cup medallist, Hawley has proven her form in recent times and would be a worthy candidate to go to the Games, so this is no comment on her. In addition, is may prove moot anyway as Hawley is due to qualify through the Olympic rankings right now. Nevertheless, as things stand, she is the first in line for a Universality slot and it strikes as a little odd.

For a country to get a Universality place when they have already qualified another athlete of the same gender does not entirely seem in keeping with the ethos. Indeed, it is a sign that the system is overly rigid and not fit for purpose.

To compound things, Iijima will also realistically not require her Universality slot for she will qualify through the Oceania New Flag pathway. Seeing as neither of the leading female candidates to take triathlon’s Universality slots, the value of the system feels somewhat limited.

Should Hawley and Iijima qualify by right elsewhere, there are other candidates that could take the slots. Edda Hannesdottir has moved up to 195th in the world rankings following her win at the Asia Cup in Pokhara. She has been nominated by Iceland and will be optimistic of getting back into the top-180 of the rankings to secure her spot.

The next eligible athlete would be Margot Garabedian of Cambodia. Garabedian, however, faces two problems.

The first is that she has a world ranking of 227. Her next race will be at the Samarkand World Cup and she will need a strong performance to accrue enough points to rise in the rankings. However, we then come to her second problem.

Garabedian won the African Cup win in Sharm El Sheikh in May 2023 and that performance stands as her highest cluster of points. Being from May 2023, though, it will expire into the “previous” period before the end of the Olympic qualification window and will be worth only 25% of its original points. As such, her ranking will be hit significantly.

In Samarkand, Garabedian will not simply be looking to add points. She will also have to recover the points she will lose as a consequence of time. Furthermore, after injury absences, she does not have a full quota of race results, putting her in a precarious position.

Short of a massive performance in Samarkand, then, Garabedian stands at risk of missing out on the Universality spot. In that scenario, the unclaimed slot would roll down to the Olympic rankings, just as an unclaimed New Flag place would.

Suddenly, the likes of Tereza Zimovjanova, Paulina Klimas and Zuzana Michalickova, who are currently on the outside looking in with respect to the Olympic rankings, would get a second chance. However, another potentially contradictory situation could arise.

In the circuitous event Michalickova jumps into the rolled-down Universality berth, it could create the same situation as the double Bermuda slot. This would rely upon Ivana Kuriackova claiming the European women’s New Flag slot and Michalickova getting the rolled-down Universality place. Slovakia would then send two women through different routes designed to expand the sport.

The whole point of the New Flag is for countries that have not qualified an athlete through the Olympic rankings (or the relay) but it could be the case that Slovakia gets the slot even having qualified someone through the Olympic rankings, albeit in a priority that comes below the New Flags (due to the roll down from the Universality places).

This situation might not transpire, but it once again highlights how the overlapping pathways of qualification in triathlon don’t actually make a lot of sense at times. Indeed, if the brainpower required to figure out triathlon’s Olympic qualification procedures were applied to different walks of life, we would probably have world peace by now.

Either way, as things stand, the men’s race seems a little more secure and we should see Smith and Adjavon at the Olympic Games. However the women’s Universality slots could get in half a dozen different directions.