It feels like we are in a golden era when it comes to the running speeds seen in the men’s WTCS. The last couple of years have stood witness to some of the most spectacular run splits in WTCS history and the boundaries of what is possible in the sport are being redrawn.
Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde are at the forefront of this bright new future. Between them, they logged the two quickest WTCS run splits ever over the Olympic distance in Cagliari last year. Further behind, the previously vaunted 30 minute barrier has become child’s play for a lot of the field. The sport is getting quicker and it remains to be seen just how far this generation of athletes can take it.
As fast as the likes of Yee, Wilde and plenty of others are in the WTCS, perhaps a more interesting question concerns how fast they are capable of running without a swim and bike beforehand. To that end, in this article we will survey the best running times of the fastest runners in the Series. All times are taken from World Athletics and offer an insight into what it takes to be the best in the triathlon business.
We will start with Yee, the newly-minted fastest man over 10km in triathlon.
Yee’s personal best over the 1500m remains a 3:51.66 from 2015. The rest of his best times are much more recent. In 2020, he clocked 7:45.81 in the 3000m while his 5000m best of 13:29.18 and 10,000m best of 27:51.94 were set in 2019 and 2018, respectively. The 10,000m time is particularly blistering.
His arch-rival, Wilde, has some similarly tremendous best times.
Wilde’s top 1500m performance came fairly recently, in 2020, as he produced a 3:50.62. The following year, he would clock 7:55.87 for the 3000m and 13:29.47 for the 5000m. Although Wilde has no 10,000m results on the track, even a brief survey of his results reveals just how evenly-matched with Yee he is in the other distances. Over the 5000m, for example, there is nothing between them in terms of best time.
The reigning world champion, Dorian Coninx, cannot be ignored from this discussion. In 2021, he delivered a lightning 3:45.74 over the 1500m. While that comfortably beats the bests of Yee and Wilde, Coninx’s 3000m best of 8:00.43 (set indoors in 2020) lags a little behind.
A 5000m personal best of 13:40.11 from 2020 also puts Coninx in a similar bracket as Yee and Wilde. Like his New Zealander counterpart, Coninx does not have a 10,000m track time. Still, he powered to a 29:11 10km on the road in 2016.
Morgan Pearson, a multiple WTCS medallist and the runner-up at the 2022 WTCS Final, likewise has a collection of enviable track times. In his pre-triathlon days in 2015, he nailed a 3:43.31 1500m, a 13:36.22 5000m and a 10,000m best of 29:41.84. In 2017, he went on to record a 7:49.46 for the 3000m (indoors) as well.
The stand out time of Pearson’s career arguably does not come on the track, though. In 2021, he dropped a half marathon time of 1:01:47. Should his 3000m speed and his half marathon strength click together in the same triathlon race, a tall ask admittedly, he could produce a monstrous performance.
Pearson’s American teammate Matthew McElroy also entered triathlon from a track background. McElroy’s 1500m best is a 3:53.51 from 2014 while his 3000m best is a 8:11.97 from 2013. It was over the 5000m and 10,000m, though, that he truly thrived.
In the former, McElroy popped a time of 13:51.30 in 2015 and in the latter he crushed a time of 28:36.53 in the same year. While he was a little slower than Pearson over the shorter distances, McElroy realistically would have had his number over the 10,000m. Indeed, based on pure track times, McElroy has the second best men’s 10,000m in the WTCS after Yee.
Matthew Hauser, the winner of WTCS Montreal last year, is also no slouch on the track.
In 2020, he claimed a 1500m personal best in 3:46.82. In the same year, he also recorded a perfectly round 8:00.00 in the 3000m. Hauser’s 5000m best of 14:25.12 comes from 2016 and so is a little out of date. His 10,000m best stands at 29:41.29 from 2020.
One man that Hauser beat to win his maiden WTCS medal (a silver in Hamburg in 2022) was Jawad Abdelmoula. The Moroccan athlete claimed the bronze medal that day in Hamburg, which itself was his first medal in the Series. Abdelmoula came into triathlon from a track background like Pearson and McElroy and has some impressive times to call upon.
His 1500m best comes from 2016 when he hit a time of 3:50.98. More recently, in 2021, he logged an 8:02.43 in the 3000m. Abdelmoula’s best in the 5000m remains a 14:44.95, which is a little behind his triathlon contemporaries. However, he ripped a 28:39 10km on the road in December 2019.
Another name to watch is Hugo Milner. The British athlete won the Miyazaki World Cup at the end of 2023 and also raced at the European Cross Country Championships (separately, he and Pearson also qualified for the 2024 World Cross Country Championships).
All of Milner’s best times on the track come from 2021. In the 1500m he produced a time of 3:48.55, in the 3000m he hit a time of 8:00.39 and in the 5000m he stopped the clock at 13:44.46. Perhaps most intriguingly, he also recorded a 10,000m best of 28:36.95 in the summer of 2021. Should he continue to develop as a triathlete, Milner could become a WTCS medal threat in the near future.
It is also worth noting that not all leading male triathletes have extensive track backgrounds.
The 2022 world champion, Leo Bergere, has no real track background, nor do some of his French teammates. Vincent Luis ran a 14:19.09 5000m in 2015 while Pierre Le Corre logged a 29:18 10km on the road in 2016. Neither were prolific on the track, though.
Triple WTCS medallist Manoel Messias also hit a 10km time of 29:32 on the road in 2017 but has not been a major presence on the track.
Interestingly, Kristian Blummenfelt recorded a 10,000m best time of 29:42.71 in 2020. That was only a year before he won Olympic triathlon gold in Tokyo. For reference, his run split in Tokyo was a 29:34.
The lesson from the above is clear. The likes of Yee, Wilde, Coninx, Pearson and more are turbo-charging the running speeds in the WTCS. Notwithstanding the heat and humidity experienced in Tokyo, it seems almost impossible that a 29:34 10km will be enough to win at the Paris Olympics and Blummenfelt’s prognostications of multiple men being under the 29 minute barrier feels accurate.
The Olympics aside, if you want to be elite in the men’s WTCS the speed requirements are fairly clear. A 5000m time in 13-mid territory and sub-29 minute 10km times are becoming the new normal and those that can’t make the pace might just get left behind.
