In this next segment of the TriStats Top 30, we are entering the territory of the athletes that can push for WTCS medals and World Cup wins.
To put the ranking together, WTCS performances have generally taken priority. At the same time, results at World Cups and Continental Championships also feature and attempts have been made to strike a balance between the different levels of the sport. Moreover, we have tried to weigh the consistency of some athletes against the medal-winning exploits of others.
There will always be an element of subjectivity in these rankings so feel free to disagree with any names or suggest your own in the comments below.
18) Roberto Sanchez Mantecon ESP (2023: 18th)
At the end of 2022, Sanchez was ranked 20th in the WTCS. A year later, he stood in 18th place, speaking to a slight improvement over the subsequent season.
Although he did not match the high of his maiden WTCS medal, which he achieved with his bronze in Bermuda in November 2022, he nonetheless had a consistent season. Finishes of 7th in Abu Dhabi and 8th in Montreal were good while he added a 10th place at the Paris Test Event.
His WTCS medal largely separates him from the men that came before in the ranking; he also had a slightly better season that his compatriot Antonio Serrat Seoane which nudged him ahead.
As a former World U23 champion (from 2019), Sanchez should be entering his prime in the coming seasons. This year could be the year in which he converts his growing consistency within the top-10 at WTCS events into competing for more regular podiums. The competition at the top of the men’s field is steep, but Sanchez is close to putting himself back among the candidates for medals.
17) Tyler Mislawchuk CAN (2023: unranked)
Last season saw something close to a return to best form for the former WTCS medallist. While he did not quite match the high of winning the Olympic Test Event four years after his triumph in Tokyo (Mislawchuk finished 13th in Paris), there were plenty of positives to take away.
He earned two top-10 finishes in the WTCS by placing 9th in both Hamburg and Pontevedra. He also finished 12th in Abu Dhabi having served a penalty when in contention at the front.
Finishes of 15th in Yokohama and Montreal were his “worst” of the season which speaks to Mislawchuk’s consistency and he ended the Series ranked 12th overall.
On the World Cup front, he won a silver medal in Huatulco, confirming his love affair with the location having won there twice previously. Finishes of 4th in Miyazaki and 6th in Tongyeong were also near-misses for further medals.
After struggles with injury, Mislawchuk seems to have gotten things back on track and has started to string performances together across the whole season once more.
Being an Olympic year, one detail stands out from his racing history. Mislawchuk has finished 15th at two straight Olympic Games. Having built up some momentum over the past year, Paris may just prove third time lucky.
16) Kristian Blummenfelt NOR (2023: 10th)
Before we begin, it has to be acknowledged that 2023 was a developmental year for the Olympic champion. His coach publicly ruled out a world title attempt early on in the season and tried to moderate expectations.
A solid WTCS campaign then saw Blummenfelt finish 9th overall. However, on balance, the public pronouncement that he would not contend for a the world title was probably not required.
The Norwegian athlete has not yet won a WTCS medal since leaving short distance racing in the wake of his world title in 2021. In 2023, he came close as he finished 4th in Hamburg. He also finished 5th in Montreal. Upon closer inspection, though, one glaring detail jumps out from Blummenfelt’s most recent results.
Compared to his late 2022 form, Blummenfelt appears to have gone backwards in the last year. He ended 2022 with finishes of 6th at WTCS Bermuda and 8th at the WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi. Since then, his best Olympic distance WTCS finish is an 8th place from Yokohama last year. He also finished 9th in Paris, 15th in Cagliari and 18th in Pontevedra.
His Olympic distance form is thus not that of someone likely to contend for an Olympic medal let alone defend his gold.
More often than not, Blummenfelt’s swim has not been good enough in his recent WTCS performances and several of his rivals can punish him in the first discipline. At the other end of the race, while his fellow reigning Olympic medallists Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde tend not to make him suffer in the swim, they have shown themselves to be the faster runners.
It is not impossible for Blummenfelt to complete his circular route to the top. At this stage, though, with the number of rivals gathered around him, it feels safer to predict him missing the podium than winning Olympic or WTCS gold. For anyone else in the sport, he can be considered to have performed exceptionally. By his own elevated standards, however, something has not yet clicked for Blummenfelt.
15) Morgan Pearson USA (2023: 6th)
Pearson perhaps encapsulates the theme of this section in the men’s ranking more than any other athlete. He is another former WTCS medallist that did not make the podium in 2023. Indeed, for much of the season, he was a shadow of his former self.
Then, a little out of nowhere, he dropped two very impressive performances.
He finished 6th at the Paris Test Event, securing his slot on the American Olympic team having not made the original start list. Although he did not have the legs to fight for a medal at the end, Pearson showed enough of a throwback to his WTCS medal winning form on the run to suggest he might soon return to such levels.
A monstrous win at the Karlovy Vary World Cup then made it seem weird that he had not already made it happen in the WTCS. Where had the Pearson of Karlovy Vary been for the rest of the season?
He otherwise did not record a top-30 finish in 2023. Furthermore, after an injury-plagued 2022, his only high finish that year was a 2nd place at the WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi. Based on recent history, then, Pearson has swerved between spectacular and anonymous. The American athlete has multiple WTCS medals to his name and can be counted upon to rip at least one or two major performances this year. Whether he will string together an entire season and fight for the world title remains another question altogether.
To be hyper-critical, Pearson developed a habit of flying to the front of the field on the run and then seizing up (for instance, it happened at WTCS Yokohama and WTCS Pontevedra). Assuming he irons out this wrinkle, he will likely be in the mix for a medal on a regular basis. With his speed, a high overall WTCS finish should not be out of the question.
While his lack of 2023 medals has hurt his current ranking, then, he cannot be overlooked in the coming season.
14) Lasse Lührs GER (2023: 7th)
Lührs finds himself in essentially the same boat as Pearson (and Sanchez, and Mislawchuk, and Blummenfelt). In 2022, he became a WTCS medallist for the first time, finishing 3rd in Leeds. He also added a 4th place in Cagliari and a 7th place in Bermuda to confirm his arrival on the world stage.
However, injury at the start of 2023 put him on the back foot last year. After a delayed start to the season, he came back with a 10th place in Cagliari. Thereafter, he added a 15th place in Hamburg. In general, though, he was a little off the pace during the summer.
Just as it seemed 2023 had been lost, Lührs stepped up at WTCS Pontevedra to rip a major finish to his season. He finished 5th in his best showing of the year and booked his place on the Olympic team. In many respects, his Pontevedra outing aped the experience of Pearson in Paris.
Like Pearson, Lührs is a proven medal threat in the Series. With a consistent run of form, he could even contend for the overall podium.
On the Olympic front, Lührs is also a dark horse for an individual medal (like Pearson). Assuming he has no recurrence of injury, the German athlete could remind a lot of people of just how good he is this season.
13) Miguel Hidalgo BRA (2023: 23rd)
Hidalgo is the exception in this section in multiple ways. On the one hand he is not a WTCS medallist but, on the other, he is the youngest man seen so far. In fact, Hidalgo is the only man born in the 21st century to make this ranking.
Last season was his best year in the WTCS as he ended up in 11th place overall. Most notably, finishes of 6th in Pontevedra and 8th in Paris showed a growing affinity with the Olympic distance – a former weakness of his – and a knack for clicking at the biggest races.
He also finished 7th in Hamburg to log a hat-trick of top-8 finishes in the Series. Only Blummenfelt otherwise matched that achievement in this section and Hidalgo out-performed the Olympic champion at the two biggest races of the year.
In addition, the Brazilian athlete won the Pan American Games title and the Brasilia World Cup. For different reasons, both events came with a fair amount of pressure yet Hidalgo did not falter. He then concluded his season with a silver medal at the World Cup in Vina del Mar.
In contrast to a couple of the athletes ranked behind him that are trying to reclaim previous highs, the best is yet to come with Hidalgo. He has the fastest swim of this section – particularly over the Sprint distance – and he has the run to fight for medals. At his age, there simply needs to be patience to allow him to deliver on his immense promise.
After losing time to injury in 2022, Hidalgo put together several mature performances last year. While 2024 may be a touch too early for him to fully realise his potential, it could be a year in which he delivers major results.
More than any other man in the WTCS, he could be this year’s Hayden Wilde insofar that he could win an individual Olympic medal before even winning a first WTCS medal. If things go his way, it would no surprise to see Hidalgo manage to medal in both competitions.
