In the absence of Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee, the past two men’s winners of WTCS Yokohama, this weekend’s race in Japan will see a different man step onto the top of the podium. Wilde and Yee opted to instead race at the French Grand Prix season opener in Fréjus, with Yee coming out on top.
When looking at the potential candidates to succeed the Yee-Wilde axis in Yokohama, the natural place to start is with the most recent winner of a WTCS race. The men’s world champion, Dorian Coninx, will be making his season bow in Yokohama and arrives on the back of a stunning victory in Pontevedra in September. To go with that, he is on a two-race medal streak, having also medalled at the Paris Test Event. Coninx was highly consistent throughout 2023 and four of his five WTCS scores came over the Olympic distance. As such, he can be expected to fare well again this weekend.
At the same time, Coninx’s teammates have a more urgent need to impress. Leo Bergere and Vincent Luis are on paper fighting for the final male place on the French Olympic team. Being less than three months out from Paris, Coninx’s form in Yokohama should not be too drastically different to that in Paris; we will be talking a couple of percent here and there. However Bergere and Luis have a sharper need to step up this weekend.
Luis won WTCS Bermuda in 2022 but then injury wiped out his 2023 season after a promising start. He has fought back from so many setbacks over the past four years and his recent form, including a medal at the Lievin World Cup, offers encouragement that he has managed to do so again.
Bergere, the 2022 world champion, was twice on the wrong side of a coin flip in 2023 when it came to Olympic qualification. Not having the final sprint in Paris and Pontevedra cost him when he could have nailed his place on the team. Indeed, he could have been in a position to take the world title from Coninx with a slightly different outcome in Pontevedra.
Given that Bergere’s sprint issue cost him higher finishes at Yokohama and Sunderland too, it appears to be something he should have addressed over the winter. If that vulnerability has been patched, it will be hard to see anyone getting past him given his Olympic incentive and all-round class.
Neither Luis nor Bergere are not afraid to go big, as their WTCS wins in 2022 demonstrated. Now, more than ever, the situation may call for them to go big or go home and both will likely back themselves to make a rare breakaway stick in Yokohama.
One athlete likely to assist in any breakaway is Matthew Hauser. Hauser was the top swimmer in Pontevedra and offers plenty of speed to the front of the race. Moreover, as a WTCS winner from 2023, he will hope to add another gold medal to his collection.
Across the board, Coninx, Bergere and Hauser have offered the best swim-run combinations over WTCS Olympic distance races in 2022 and 2023 (in terms of average performance). As such, they feel like the likeliest candidates to win. Being the youngest of that trio, Hauser is also the likeliest to have improved over the winter and could find an extra gear over his rivals.
Vasco Vilaca will also be in the mix. Having won four WTCS medals last year, the joint most of any man, Vilaca is coming off a breakout 2023. A year younger than Hauser, the Portuguese athlete is still maturing at the top level and will no doubt be pushing for a maiden win in the near future.
Vilaca and Hauser both medalled behind Wilde in Yokohama last season, getting the better of Bergere and Coninx on the blue carpet. Should the race come down to a sprint finish, a similar outcome could be on the cards. However, to rely on a sprint this weekend will certainly be risky.
Overall, these five candidates seem like the favourites to win the race and any of them could go on to win the world title. Four of them will be pushing for Olympic gold or at least an Olympic medal this summer and Yokohama provides a perfect opportunity to burnish their credentials.
Of course, rising stars like Csongor Lehmann and Miguel Hidalgo could figure. Moreover, Morgan Pearson led the run last year before coming unstuck and on his day could win the whole thing. In general, though, after the cancellation of WTCS Abu Dhabi, we have to rely on slightly older performances to project forwards and, based on that, the cluster of Coninx, Bergere, Luis, Hauser and Vilaca look to be a cut above the rest.
TriStats Predictions
- Leo Bergere
- Matthew Hauser
- Dorian Coninx
- Vasco Vilaca
- Vincent Luis
