There have been some big names to miss out on being shortlisted at the inaugural Global Triathlon Awards. It is never easy to put together a shortlist that will satisfy all fans. Nevertheless, there are some names that were perhaps a little controversial to omit.
Today we are imagining the Alternative Global Triathlon Awards. We will try to make use of the same criteria as the actual awards. The key difference will be that we have an additional criterion that the athlete cannot actually have been nominated for the corresponding award.
Instead, the plan is to flag a couple of athletes that are also worthy of recognition.
Female Athlete of the Year
It seemed like there was one big name missing from the women’s prize: Taylor Knibb.
Knibb has had a superlative year both in the short and long distance realms. In the WTCS, she won a bronze medal in Cagliari and a silver in Bermuda. A bike crash denied her another likely medal in Abu Dhabi. Despite dipping in and out of the Series, she was still able to finish third overall, beating an extremely competitive group of athletes.
Moreover, what the pure results don’t capture is the sheer dominance of Knibb’s cycling this season. In Cagliari, she single-handedly detonated the field on what was otherwise a rather flat and bland course. In Bermuda, she overcame a rough swim to essentially take on the bike solo. Despite being alone for much of the bike, Knibb managed to match the split of race winner Flora Duffy who had Maya Kingma for support.
Knibb has therefore developed a fearsome reputation on the bike. Although the award criteria do not emphasise style so much, her racing style is one to admire.
Knibb also excelled in the longer format of triathlon. In November, she won the 70.3 world championships. In doing so, she became the youngest ever woman to win the race.
Nor was the 70.3 world championships a flash in the pan. Knibb won the silver medal at the PTO US Open after leading for most of the race. While Ashleigh Gentle got the better of Knibb that day, there is an important point to make.
Knibb is the only athlete in the world, male or female, that was able to medal in top-level long and short distance events in 2022. Flora Duffy was only really able to win in the WTCS. The Norwegians, Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden, were able to accrue long distance wins but could not break into the top-5 of a WTCS race.
In that respect, Knibb stands alone. By medalling at the world level in both the short and long distance, she completed a unique achievement in 2022 and for that would be a deserving Female Athlete of the Year.
Male Athlete of the Year
Let’s address the elephant in room first. Leo Bergere should have been nominated for this award. We raised this point when reviewing the short-list for the award and noted there that as the 2022 World and European Champion it was peculiar for him to miss out.
After also winning the most WTCS medals of any man, Bergere certainly could have been in the conversation for this prize.
In the interests of not beating a dead cat, though, we will note another triathlete that has been overlooked and could be the Alternative Male Athlete of the Year award.
Jetze Plat of the Netherlands gets our nod. Plat won the PTWC World Championships in Abu Dhabi in 2022. In that race, he was utterly dominant and extended a winning streak he has maintained since 2015. To go with his world title, in 2022 Plat also won the European Championships and the World Para Series in Montreal.
In purely triathlon terms, then, Plat won as much as Bergere in 2022, notwithstanding that para-triathlon is currently not as deep as the WTCS.
More pertinently, no other athlete in the world of triathlon can make the same claim of superiority as Plat. His is a level of consistency matched only by the peak years of Gwen Jorgensen.
Beyond triathlon, Plat won the Road Race (H4) and Time Trial (H4) at the 2022 UCI World Para Cycling Championships. He also finished third at the New York Marathon in November, displaying a range beyond triathlon that few other triathletes can match.
When considering medals won and sustained dominance, Plat more than fits the bill.
Rookie of the Year
When reviewing the Male Athlete of the Year short-list, we suggested that Matthew Hauser may have been a better Rookie of the Year nominee.
That being said, we think there is another athlete that would pip him for this prize.
We very nearly chose Emma Lombardi. After winning the World U23 Championships in 2021, Lombardi entered 2022 with high expectations in what was her first full season in the senior ranks. On almost every front, she surpassed all expectations.
Early in the season, she finished a brilliant 4th place at WTCS Yokohama. In the summer, she won a bronze medal at the European Championships in Munich and then followed that up with a silver medal at WTCS Cagliari. Ultimately, she finished 11th in the WTCS overall and was the only woman born this century in the top-30.
After a brilliant season, it was tempting to name Lombardi as the Rookie of the Year.
However, the Alternative Rookie of the Year here is Jawad Abdelmoula.
From late 2021, Abdelmoula was a rookie in the truest sense of the word. He raced internationally in an African Cup for the first time in May 2021 and would race his second African Cup in September 2021. It was in October 2021 that he made his World Cup debut in Haeundae.
Only one week later, in his second World Cup race, Abdelmoula won in Tongyeong.
2022 followed a similar pattern of success. Abdelmoula made his WTCS debut in Leeds, where he finished 37th. Two weeks later, at his second WTCS race, he improved to 8th in Montreal. One week later, in his third WTCS race, he won a bronze medal in Hamburg.
In terms of surprising performances, Abdelmoula’s Hamburg bronze has to rank among the best of the season. Essentially, Abdelmoula went from novice to WTCS medallist in his debut season which is practically unheard of.
Later in the year, he won the African Championships and a World Cup bronze in Viña del Mar.
We have generally tried to ignore the ambassador point in the criteria for the Global Triathlon Awards as we do not want to judge who is or isn’t an ambassador, or what even constitutes an ambassador. With Abdelmoula, though, we want to flag that his success is important for the growth of the sport and he is one of the biggest talents to have emerged from North Africa.
In terms of growing the sport, Abdelmoula is blazing a trail for others to follow and it is important to recognise that.
Beyond that point, though, Abdelmoula certainly fits the bill for the Rookie of the Year by dint of his exceptional performances in his first year as an elite triathlete.
