A number of countries already have their Olympic selection policies formalised and published. One thing that has stood out among them is the importance of the Olympic Test Event in Paris this August and the WTCS Final in Pontevedra in September.
Germany has not yet published its qualification criteria. However, its new head coach, Thomas Moeller, confirmed that both Paris and Pontevedra will be key for any athlete that hopes to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Any German man or woman can lock up their Olympic qualification by finishing in the top-8 at either race.
It appears that if multiple athletes achieve a top-8, they will each earn their Olympic selection, although this will need to be confirmed with the full selection policy.
How any remaining slots will be allocated will also be determined in the policy.
Who are the front runners to qualify?
On the men’s side, there are a number of athletes that could take advantage of this policy.
Lasse Lührs is possibly the favourite. Having won a bronze medal at WTCS Leeds last summer, he is the most recent medallist of the German men. He also finished 4th at WTCS Cagliari, which crucially was over the Olympic distance.
Tim Hellwig won WTCS Hamburg in 2021, although that was over the Sprint distance and his 2022 did not quite match the same heights.
Jonas Schomburg, meanwhile, could be another contender having been a regular on the WTCS circuit. However, he has surprisingly never finished in the top-8 of a WTCS race; his best finishes have been 10th at WTCS Leeds and WTCS Yokohama. Hitting a top-8 finish may therefore be a challenge for Schomburg based on his prior results.
Lasse Nygaard-Priester finished 4th at WTCS Hamburg in 2021 and 5th at WTCS Leeds in 2022 so on paper could be an option. However, injuries have been a common problem for him. His last three individual races in 2022 all resulted in DNFs.
On balance, then, Lührs is probably the favourite of the men to achieve a top-8 at Paris or Pontevedra.
The battle on the women’s side might be even trickier to predict.
Laura Lindemann has been the leading German woman for years. She was a two-time World Junior champion and won the world U23 title in 2016. The 2022 season might have been her best yet.
Having kicked off the WTCS season with a win in Hamburg, Lindemann added a silver medal at the European Championships in Munich and then finished 4th at WTCS Bermuda. Having generally been better at the Sprint distance early on in her career, she has become increasingly adept over the Olympic distance. From a consistency standpoint, she is the likeliest German women to be in the top-8 in Paris or Pontevedra.
Lena Meißner is probably the form athlete on the women’s side. In November, she produced her best WTCS finish of 11th. That result in Bermuda actually matched her previous best showing from the prior WTCS event in Cagliari in October. Three weeks after Bermuda, she went on to achieve her first WTCS podium by finishing 3rd at the Abu Dhabi Final.
The combination of momentum and a big performance at a WTCS Final means that Meißner could be the favourite.
Lisa Tertsch is also a WTCS medallist, though, and has shown her strength over the Olympic distance, most recently with a silver medal at the Pontevedra World Cup. As she has already performed well on the course at Pontevedra, she will likely be in contention at this year’s WTCS Final.
While she might not be a WTCS medallist, Anabel Knoll displayed a lot of consistency in 2022. She finished 7th at WTCS Yokohama, 8th at WTCS Leeds and then 6th at WTCS Hamburg. Although injury and illness derailed the second half of her season, Knoll has demonstrated enough consistency to be a reliable candidate for the top-8.
Any of the four women listed here could finish in the top-8 in Paris or Pontevedra. There is even a case to be made that all four could achieve the criterion across the two events.
To a degree, that reinforces just how deep the German women’s team is right now and why the German head coach is prioritising the individual race going forward.
