Debuts
There was only one debutant at WTCS Yokohama as World Cup winner Hugo Milner appeared for the first time. Milner had a solid swim, clocking 18:06 for the 1500m. That put him 28 seconds behind the swim leader, Márk Dévay, and ahead of several men that would go on to make the main pack, including Michele Sarzilla and Ricardo Batista.
However, Milner lost time on the bike and conceded over 3 minutes to the lead group. On the run, he rallied with the fourth fastest split in 29:30 and that saw him rise to 39th. The only other British man on the start list, Jonathan Brownlee, finished 38th. Thus Milner’s debut was a fairly solid first day out.
His running speed has become a well-known quantity of late, but it is his swim that caught the eye in Yokohama. With the gain a couple of seconds here and there in the water and a better bike split, he will likely be able to push into the top-10 in the near future.
Personal Bests
There were a lot of personal bests in the men’s race, led by first-time winner Morgan Pearson. Pearson’s previous best stood at 2nd place, a feat he most recently achieved at the WTCS Final in 2022. While Pearson took a first win in Yokohama, Luke Willian also made it onto the podium for the first time, improving on a previous best of 7th.
Charles Paquet and Kenji Nener each made deeper advances into the top-10 as the former took 5th and the latter took 7th. Crucially for Nener, he breached the top-8 which has rubber-stamped his ticket to the Paris Olympic Games this summer. Moreover, it follows a World Cup personal best after he finished 3rd in Hong Kong back in March.
The winner in Hong Kong, Alberto Gonzalez Garcia, likewise capped World Cup bests with a new WTCS best finish. He took 17th in Yokohama to make it into the top-20 for the first time and, in doing so, has kept Spain’s hopes of sending three men to the Olympic Games alive. Gonzalez now stands in 31st in the Olympic rankings and the gain of one more place will tick the third man box.
Martin Sobey and Darr Smith then made it two Canadian and American men on the personal best list, respectively. Sobey’s 20th place represented a two place improvement on before while Smith made a much larger leap forward as he entered the top-40 for the first time (in 25th).
There were four personal bests in the women’s race and three of them made it into the top-8. Leonie Periault matched the feat of Pearson in winning a race for the first time. Like her American counterpart, her previous best stood at 2nd place, a feat she had accomplished in each of 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons. As such, Periault has been knocking on the door of a first win for quite some time and can at last celebrate making it happen.
Anna Godoy Contreras made a massive leap forward as she converted her previous personal best of 22nd from WTCS Leeds in 2016 to a 6th place finish in Yokohama. From a little out of nowhere, she has put herself front and centre in the race to join Miriam Casillas Garcia on the Spanish Olympic team. Should she maintain her current form, it will be hard to argue against her.
Djenyfer Arnold made a slightly smaller jump forward one but it was nonetheless a big milestone. She improved her previous best of 9th by one place to break into the top-8 for the first time. Meanwhile, Cecilia Santamaria Surroca made it two Spanish women among the personal bests as she made a ten place improvement as she finished 33rd.
