A return to normal. Its a phrase that has been oft-repeated over the past few years, one that has seeped into daily conversation. Just round the corner, there it is. A return to normal.
In many respects, 2023 will be the first normal season of recent times.
For those living under a rock, 2020 was cancelled at the last minute due to the pandemic with the Tokyo Olympics postponed. 2021 saw a shortened WTCS season take place with athletes coming out of the uncertainty of lockdown. New variants circled with the threat of the rescheduled Olympics being shut down at any minute. Ultimately the season was completed albeit in a reduced fashion with races such as Abu Dhabi and Hamburg postponed and the event at Bermuda quietly vanishing.
As the scent of normality grew stronger, the pendulum swung the other way in 2022. To a degree, it is possible to see how much of last year was a compensation from 2021 in hindsight. The delayed 2021 races were added to autumn 2021 to be included into the 2022 season, which itself took place in three chunks over the course of almost 15 months. As the sport tried to fit two seasons into one, 2022 gave little respite.
And now we come to 2023.
Might this be the year of normality? A year of no questions of quarantines and delays or uncertainty and confusion. Is that what lies ahead?
The last year that can be called normal was 2019. 2022 looked normal in many respects, but there was that ever-present noise and nagging in the background of doubts and risks that never quite settled.
In some respects, when looking at the broader picture little has changed from 2019 to 2023 save for the passage of time.
In 2019, Kristian Blummenfelt won his first WTCS gold in Lausanne; now he has three wins (and an Olympic crown).
Vincent Luis became world champion at the end of 2019; after his performances towards the end of 2022, he has shown that he is still a contender on his day.
The young promise displayed by Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde in 2019 has translated into success with more to come.
Medallists from that year like Mario Mola, Matthew McElroy and Jacob Birtwhistle are likewise still on the scene.
Moreover, the women’s Series has all the elements of familiarity. 2019 world champion Katie Zaferes will be returning to the 2023 circuit after childbirth, while Georgia Taylor-Brown has confirmed her enormous talent by stepping onto centre stage. Flora Duffy was a two-time world champion that lost much of 2019 to injury. Today she is a four-time world champion and remains the standard-setter.
With familiar venues like Hamburg and Yokohama also on the WTCS calendar in 2023, what is perhaps most striking about the prospect of year ahead is just how similar it looks to 2019. Or, to be more precise, just how similar it looks to the normality that came before.
The thing is, maybe things are not as normal as we think.
For some, the past three years represent a global, generational trauma. In very few of our collective lifetimes have we experienced such an uncertain existence. Whether it was being bound to our homes or being cognizant of a mortal threat to either ourselves or at the very least to loved ones, particularly those elderly and vulnerable, recent times have been more than a blip from which the course can simply be corrected.
Amidst it all, we sailed a sea of misinformation. Would it be wrong to say the world is a more confusing and confused place than it was in 2019?
In our small part of the world, the realm of triathlon, the pieces may look similar to four years ago, but somehow they come with a different texture.
For the athletes, having been stranded in a myriad of hotel rooms and forced through more hoops than a Corgi at a dog show, 2023 might be the first opportunity to breathe. The lives many of them have lived in pursuit of their careers and dreams have not been easy. There will always be someone in the world worse off, so there is no need to engage in whataboutery and compare the experiences of the athletes to others that may be deemed as having had a tougher time.
The combination of isolation, constant jeopardy to their dreams and uncertainty over their futures on top of the shock to the foundations of normal society that we all experienced mean that athletes have had a tough run.
As fans and commentators of the sport too, there will likely be countless among us that will one day look back and think how their lives were turned upside down, even if for a brief episode. Some may think this already; it may only occur to others in the decades to come.
Not everyone had the same experiences, not everyone felt the same weight. It is like we all heard the same song that resonated with us in different ways.
The central point of the article is this. Over the course of this year, we will be talking about triathlon and racing as if nothing happened, as if it is totally reasonable to expect a normal season and all that comes with it.
What none of us should forget yet, though, is that while this year will look normal what happens under the surface may take more time. Some might have been fine throughout and some might still be on their own way back. The paths we tread are unique after all.
As a result, much of what we see in 2023 might not conform to the logic of normality. Some athletes may have their performances affected, others might not. In the same vein of the “let-down effect“, with the pressure now lifting, now may be the time some people finally break down, now that subconsciously the world around them looks safer.
With that in mind, normal may be a word that could be a little big or blasé to some.
Therefore, to answer the question above, 2023 will be a bit of both. It will be back to normal and onwards to something completely different.
