From Taylor Knibb’s breakaway to Beth Potter’s outstanding win. From Matthew Hauser’s maiden triumph to Kenji Nener’s redemption. Wherever one looked at WTCS Montreal, there were plenty of narratives to follow.
Throughout the field, there were an array of fantastic performances that deserve their own mention. With so many stories to keep track of at WTCS Montreal, in this article you can find some of the highlights that you might have missed.
Maria Carolina Velasquez Soto
Although there will be a separate article to address the debutants in Montreal, Velasquez’s performance warranted attention in its own right.
In her first appearance in the Series, she claimed 10th place with a consummate performance. She was caught out a little in the water and emerged almost 40 seconds down on the swim leader, Vittoria Lopes. However, that put her beside Beth Potter and Jeanne Lehair, neither of whom are bad company to be alongside on the bike.
Velasquez was therefore able to ride into the main pack. That being said, it would be wrong to suggest she was carried by others through the bike. A superb cyclist in her own right, the white tri-suit of Colombia was often prominent at the front of the chase as Velasquez pulled a number of big turns.
At the recent Americas Cup in Chinchiná, Velasquez was dominant on the bike and her strength translated well in the WTCS.
She then capped her day with a 16:50 run split, the eighth fastest of the field. A top-10 on debut is a fairly rare occurrence so going forward the Colombian will be one to watch.
With a hat-trick of Americas Cup wins to her name already this year, plus a 9th place at the Huatulco World Cup, she is rapidly establishing herself as one of the leading lights in South America.
Katie Zaferes
Zaferes was a last minute addition to start list and so was the final woman onto the pontoon in Montreal. After a stirring display in Cagliari, though, she had good reason to be confident.
Yet even she may not have expected Montreal to go quite as well as it did. In a bravura showing, the former world champion finished 5th, putting herself in a WTCS top-10 (and top-5) for the first time since making her post-partum comeback. Zaferes was fast in the water (as she has been on numerous occasions this season). Her run also really fired as she clocked a 16:31 5km split and only three women managed to run faster than her.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of her result was that she beat all of her American rivals, save for Summer Rappaport.
With the race to the Paris Olympics likely to be incredibly close, Zaferes’ rise will likely be a cause for concern for several women. Indeed she is trending in the right direction to hit a top-8 finish at the Paris Test Event and book her place on the US Olympic team.
In addition Zaferes’ result sees her rise to 18th in the Series. At the same time, it should be noted that Taylor Spivey still leads the rankings and Summer Rappaport has moved up to 2nd following Montreal. Moreover two further Americans are ahead of Zaferes.
As such, while Zaferes put in a great display in Montreal, there is plenty of work ahead. As she continues her rise, she will no doubt relish the challenge.
Zsanett Bragmayer
By finishing 8th, Zsanett Bragmayer earned her best WTCS result since she placed 4th in Hamburg in 2021. In many respects, WTCS Montreal was among the finest all-round displays of her career.
One slight surprise was that the Hungarian athlete was not further up the standings in the swim. By her standards, her time of 9:04 was a little off where she often is. On average in 2022 and 2023, she has emerged in 7th place out of the water with a deficit of 12 seconds. In Montreal, she was a little behind that.
Nevertheless, Bragmayer produced a strong bike leg to haul herself into the main pack.
It was her T2, though, that really set her apart. If you blinked you would have missed her through transition. She was not just the fastest woman; she was 3 seconds better than the next quickest athlete. At the WTCS level, being so much better over such a rehearsed skill is fairly uncommon.
One cause of her sharpness may have been her volume of racing this year. Already the world aquathlon champion, Bragmayer has been everywhere. She took top-20 finishes at WTCS Yokohama and WTCS Cagliari. She popped up in the French Grand Prix. She delivered a barnstorming leg at Bundesliga Kraichgau.
All of that racing seemed to pay off in Montreal.
After her lightning T2, Bragmayer was also aggressive on the first lap of the run which set her her strong finish. Furthermore she showed plenty of heart at the end to hold off Taylor Spivey.
Over the rest of the summer, it will be exciting to see where her form will carry her.
Vasco Vilaca
For every athlete that came away with a big result, there inevitably had to be athletes that departed Montreal disappointed.
One such athlete was Vasco Vilaca. A solid swim opened up his race well and he quickly made his way into the lead pack. However, once promisingly placed, his wheel slipped out from under him and he went skidding along the tarmac around a corner on the fifth lap. The crash saw him fall from the group and forced him to chase alone for the final lap.
Having been in such good form this season, it was a cruel blow to Vilaca. At WTCS Abu Dhabi and WTCS Yokohama, he had been well-matched against Matthew Hauser and Manoel Messias, the gold and silver medallists in Montreal, so it is no leap of the imagination to suggest that he had a very good chance of winning the race.
The silver lining for the young Portuguese is that he assumed leadership of the Series rankings. His determination to finish the race despite his bad luck (and eventually take 30th) therefore had some pay-off.
While Montreal did not go to plan for the new Series leader, he will be back to make a statement at the next event.
Tim Hellwig
Last year was a weird year for Tim Hellwig.
The young German had ended 2021 with such a bang, including his win at WTCS Hamburg and a silver medal at the World U23 Championships, that he entered 2022 with high hopes. However, he seemed to fall off the map a little.
Prior to Montreal, he had not raced in the WTCS since Hamburg last July. Moreover a recent bout of COVID had left his form up in the air. When Hellwig stepped onto the start line, then, it was hard to know what to expect.
Of course, there were some clues to his form. He had won successive African Cups in M’Diq and Sharm El Sheikh, beating the likes of Jawad Abdelmoula at the former. His wins, though, did not quite set the stage for the resounding statement he made in Montreal.
The fourth fastest man in the water, Hellwig launched a series of ballsy moves on the bike, daring his fellow members of the front pack to chase him. He entered the last lap of the bike alone and with the best part of thirty men chasing to testify to his confidence.
Nor did his efforts on the bike affect his run as he came away with a fantastic 4th place.
It is too soon to declare that Hellwig will be a contender every time going forward; he is still a young athlete after all. Nevertheless, all the excitement surrounding him in 2021 has essentially come rushing back in one swoop. If he can deliver such performances on a regular basis, Hellwig will become a big threat in the WTCS.
Jacob Birtwhistle
While the talk of the men’s race centred on the winner, Matthew Hauser, and justifiably so, another Australian was enjoying a remarkable day.
For a while now, it is fair to say that Birtwhistle has been in the international wilderness when it comes to the WTCS. He has not performed badly, per se. Yet when you consider his multiple race wins from before 2020, it is hard to get excited about some of his most recent offerings.
Hints emerged, though, earlier in the season that the Australian was on the road back to form. Foremost among a series of classy showings in Oceania was his win at the Oceania Sprint Championships in Devonport.
In Montreal, Birtwhistle took another step up as he finished 11th in what was his best WTCS finish since Montreal in 2021. Indeed, his result was one of only two WTCS top-12 finishes he has enjoyed since winning in Hamburg in 2019.
He lost some time in the swim but that has pretty much always been the case with Birtwhistle. This time, though, he looked a little stronger on the bike and then his running showed glimpses of nearing its former levels.
A Birtwhistle in top form should be a boon for Australia and a cause for alarm elsewhere. More specifically, a relay containing Hauser and Birtwhistle at their best is a match for any other country.
While he still has a way to go to get back onto the podium, Birtwhistle is in a very promising position.
Charles Paquet
The home fans in Montreal did not have to look far for an athlete to root for. After quietly going about his business during the swim and bike, Charles Paquet suddenly appeared in the lead group on the run, rubbing shoulders will a truly select group.
A win at the Americas Cup in St. Peters seemed to indicate that Paquet had a big year in store. His performance that day was simply too assured and comprehensive to ignore.
So it ultimately proved as he earned a fantastic 7th place in Montreal. That matched his best ever WTCS finish from Hamburg in 2021. Aside from that, Paquet had only finished in a WTCS top-20 once (when he finished 19th in Montreal last year).
He also logged the fifth fastest run of the day in Montreal. He clearly has the speed to be among the best and with further appearances at the front of races he will be able to hone his final kick to move into higher positions still.
Going forward, his challenge will be to maintain this level of performance. With a Super Sprint race coming up in Hamburg, the site of his former best result, Paquet should be able to carry his momentum through the summer.
