The 2022 World Triathlon Championship Series was unique insofar that for the first time ever the Series took place over two years rather than one.
Following the uncertainty and postponements amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2021, the planned races in Hamburg and Abu Dhabi were rescheduled for September and November, after the Final in Edmonton and the conclusion of the 2021 season.
Such scheduling left the races in a strange place. They could not count for 2021 if the Final had already passed and to not assign them to any Series would render them rather meaningless. Adjoining them to the 2022 season therefore seemed the only solution, even if that was by no means perfect.
In essence, we had WTCS season that was close to 15 months long and included two trips to Hamburg and two trips to Abu Dhabi. With such odd circumstances, we wanted to see how, if at all, the different structure to the season affected the 2022 Series.
One minor point to acknowledge is how fragmented the season itself has been. After two races, the season paused for 6 months, and then after another 4 races it paused again for almost 3 months. The season was also rather Sprint-heavy at the start, with only one Olympic distance race in the first 6 events and then all of the last 3 being Olympic distance.
The real point we want to investigate, however, is how the presence of the 2021 Hamburg and Abu Dhabi races affected the final outcome of the 2022 rankings. By this, we mean whether the results of the races helped athletes in the top-10 of the final WTCS standings to improve their overall positions.
The first point to note is that in 2021, Hayden Wilde had never won a WTCS medal while Alex Yee did not appear at either Hamburg or Abu Dhabi. Straight away, it seems hard to make the case that either race was particularly significant on the surface.
Hamburg, in particular, was a curious event with numerous young athletes breaking through for personal best finishes as several big names missed the race.
Neither winner, Laura Lindemann and Tim Hellwig, respectively, achieved another WTCS medal in the season. Moreover, Leo Bergere was the only medallist that day to win another medal in 2022.
Of the top-5 men and women in the final 2022 WTCS rankings, Leo Bergere was the only athlete to actually race in Hamburg in 2021.
Bergere raises an interesting point. Without that bronze in Hamburg in 2021, he would not have become world champion. His next best result was actually a 4th in Hamburg in 2022 but even dropping that one place would have cost him the world title.
With regards to the top of the standings, it seems Hamburg 2021 was consequential for the men’s world title, but relatively unimportant for the women’s Series.
In Abu Dhabi, the situation was slightly different. The race wins were taken by Flora Duffy and Jelle Geens. Duffy’s win was especially significant in helping her towards a fourth world title. Indeed, after contracting COVID before Leeds and only managing 7th there, Duffy’s win in Abu Dhabi is what kept her WTCS season alive.
Georgia Taylor-Brown and Sophie Coldwell were the other medallists in Abu Dhabi in 2021. For Taylor-Brown, that silver medal did not ultimately count towards her final WTCS total, whereas for Coldwell her bronze was an important part of her final Series score.
Jelle Geens’ victory in Abu Dhabi in 2021, meanwhile, was an important stepping stone on his way to 4th in the WTCS. Second place that day went to Vincent Luis, which helped him towards 5th in the Series.
Bence Bicask, the bronze medallist in Abu Dhabi in 2021, would also likely not have finished 13th in the Series without his medal, although his finish did not really influence the top-10 of the WTCS.
When looking at the world champions, then, we can see that Hamburg 2021 was significant for the men’s Series and that Abu Dhabi mattered more in the women’s WTCS.
Of the men that finished in the top-10 overall in the WTCS in 2022, only five included scores from Abu Dhabi (Geens, Luis, Antonio Serrat Seoane, Vasco Vilaca and Pierre Le Corre) and only two included scores from Hamburg (Bergere and Serrat Seoane).
Of the women that finished in the top-10 overall in the WTCS, only Laura Lindemann raced in Hamburg, while only four women had scores from Abu Dhabi that counted towards their overall totals (Duffy, Coldwell, Taylor Knibb and Cassandre Beaugrand).
It is therefore hard to assess the relative importance of the 2021 on the 2022 season. On the men’s side, the two big beneficiaries were Bergere and Geens. Nonetheless, without Abu Dhabi Geens would probably have held onto 4th overall while Luis would have likely remained in 5th overall.
Meanwhile, on the women’s side, only Knibb and Duffy really benefited from Abu Dhabi. To a lesser degree, Coldwell was also a beneficiary of holding the races.
On balance, then, it seems fair to assess that the Hamburg and Abu Dhabi races were relevant in a small but significant way. By helping both world champions to their crowns, the races had relevance. However, the relative lack of assistance to the rest of the top-10 limits the importance of the two races.
Including the races made the best of a bad situation and hopefully won’t be repeated anytime soon.
