Yesterday, we explored which countries would qualify in the Mixed Team Relay at the Paris Olympics if qualifying ended now. Due to the nature of the qualification system in triathlon, the relay informs almost half of the start list in each of the men’s and women’s races. The processes are therefore inherently linked.
For some athletes, the relay will be their ticket to Paris. For others, their individual qualification will be their ticket into the relay.
In this article, we will investigate the prospective start lists for the men’s race at the Olympic Games if the slots were finalised today. A slight wrinkle here is that several countries have already nominated athletes to their teams. For the most part, though, these selections correlate with the individuals that would be picked based on the national qualification procedures.
Who would qualify?
As mentioned above, the first slots are dictated by the qualifiers for the relay. To allocate these slots, we will simply assign them to the highest ranked athletes in the Olympic Qualification rankings for the relevant countries.
We start with France. As hosts, France automatically qualify a relay, giving them two men’s slots. These places would go to Leo Bergere and Dorian Coninx based on the current rankings; as it happens, they are the 2022 and 2023 world champions, respectively. Whereas Coninx has essentially secured his spot on the Olympic team, though, Bergere’s place is still up in the air.
As the best ranked non-qualified team from the Mixed Team Relay World Championships in 2022, Britain received the next two places. Their slots would go to Alex Yee and Barclay Izzard based on the current rankings. At the end of last year, Izzard overtook Jonathan Brownlee and the pair will battle to join the already-qualified Yee.
As the 2023 Mixed Team Relay world champions, Germany are the final automatic qualifiers. They would send Lasse Lührs and Tim Hellwig based on the rankings. Both men have already been selected by the German federation anyway.
The next six teams are those currently in line to qualify via the Olympic Mixed Team Relay rankings.
New Zealand would send Hayden Wilde and Dylan McCullough while Switzerland would send Adrien Briffod and Max Studer. Technically, the two American slots would be assigned to Matthew McElroy and Seth Rider. However, Morgan Pearson has actually booked his place on the team which means Rider and McElroy will compete for the second slot.
Australia would send Matthew Hauser Brandon Copeland while Antonio Serrat Seoane and Roberto Sanchez Mantecon would represent Spain. Finally, the Norwegian duo would be Kristian Blummenfelt and Vetle Bergsvik Thorn.
A final two teams will be added based on the results of the 2024 Mixed Team Relay Qualification Event. As the next highest ranked country, Italy are simulated to finish first place at the Qualification Event here and would select Michele Sarzilla Gianluca Pozzatti. Belgium would then receive the last slot and accordingly would select Jelle Geens and Marten Van Riel.
All told, twenty-two of the fifty-five available slots will have been designated through the relay. A further two slots will be Olympic Universality places, leaving thirty-one to fill.
Of the remaining places, twenty-six will be allocated via the individual Olympic qualification rankings.
If we turn at the Olympic qualification rankings as they currently stand, the top-3 ranked men (Bergere, Wilde, Yee) would all qualify via the relay. The first man to qualify would thus be Vasco Vilaca. Vilaca is ranked 4th in the Olympic rankings but as Portugal is not simulated as qualifying a relay, he would be the first man to qualify individually.
Hauser, Geens and Coninx all follow Vilaca in the Olympic rankings yet each are simulated to have qualified through the relay. The next slot would therefore go to Csongor Lehmann (ranked 8th).
The full list of individual qualifiers (accounting for the relay), with their nationality and current Olympic qualification ranking noted, is as follows:
- Vasco Vilaca POR 4th
- Csongor Lehmann HUN 8th
- Pierre Le Corre FRA 9th
- Miguel Hidalgo BRA 10th
- Manoel Messias BRA 12th
- Jonas Schomburg GER 17th
- Tyler Mislawchuk CAN 18th
- Kenji Nener JPN 19th
- Bence Bicsák HUN 24th
- Márk Dévay HUN 26th
- Jawad Abdelmoula MAR 28th
- Sergio Baxter Cabrera ESP 30th
- Ricardo Batista POR 34th
- Makoto Odakura JPN 37th
- Aram Michell Peñaflor Moysen MEX 39th
- Diego Moya CHI 41st
- Charles Paquet CAN 43rd
- Rostislav Pevtsov AZE 45th
- Shachar Sagiv ISR 48th
- Henri Schoeman RSA 52nd
- Richard Murray NED 53rd
- Alois Knabl AUT 56th
- Crisanto Grajales MEX 65th
- Jamie Riddle RSA 68th
- Emil Holm DEN 73rd
- Tjebbe Kaindl AUT 75th
France, Germany, Hungary and Spain are the four countries currently forecasted to qualify three men to the Paris Olympics. Due to the number of athletes ruled out by national quota limits, it currently will take a top-75 ranking (plus the right nationality) to make the Olympic Games start list.
The final five slots are then assigned to the New Flags. Here, the slots are determined by world ranking as opposed to an athlete’s Olympic ranking.
The African New Flag would be taken by Jean Gael Laurent L`Entete of Mauritius. He is ranked 141st in the world. Americas Sprint champion Matthew Wright (Barbados, 49th in the world) would get the Americas slot while Jason Tai Long Ng (Hong Kong, 45th) would take the Asian New Flag.
Europe’s New Flag would go to Felix Duchampt (Romania, 69th). However, Oceania does not have an eligible man as things stand (the situation is complicated by the Olympic status of Tahiti, for whom Benjamin Zorgnotti races). As a result, the New Flag rolls down to the next eligible athlete in the Olympic rankings, irrespective of their continent. Right now that would be Gaspar Riveros of Chile (ranked 80th in the Olympic rankings).
You can compare the prospective qualifiers with this time last year here.
Who would be the favourites?
In terms of the leading names, little has changed in the last year. The likes of Yee, Wilde and Bergere will be among the favourites (assuming the latter pair confirm their Olympic places in the coming months). Meanwhile, as the defending world champion, Coninx cannot be ignored and the defending Olympic champion will be in the mix. WTCS gold medallists Hauser and Le Corre will also be ones to watch.
The greatest shifts in the prospective qualifiers have occurred further down the rankings. On balance, though, it is too soon to say how influential this might be as we would need to see the form of the athletes in 2024.
Due to national quota restrictions, the field will likely be a tad weaker than the one seen at the Paris Olympic Test Event. For example, France will not be able to put a four or five man team on the start line while some of the depth of Spain, Germany, Hungary and more will be lost. This will inevitably affect the race.
Moreover, the Olympic field will be smaller. While fifty-five men are slated to start at the Olympics, sixty-five men raced at the Test Event. Those extra ten bodies will have played a role in bringing the field back together on the bike which means a breakaway may yet happen at the Games.
While the results of the Paris Test Event would suggest a running race is on the cards, the different start list dynamics could offer up something else. Indeed, we may be lucky enough to get a rollercoaster akin to WTCS Pontevedra. Yee and Wilde would be the favourites in a running race but in a smaller, thinner field, perhaps the home French team will be the ones to take control.
