Triathlons are notoriously difficult to compare. From different courses, profiles, and occasionally idiosyncratic measurements, there are plenty of factors that converge to make any comparison rather limited. Throw in the variance in participants and it very quickly looks like a futile pursuit.
However, there is nonetheless a way to compare the relative strength of a field against another.
Borrowing from the index system of the French federation, every race can be assigned a score based on the world rankings of those starting. Namely, the rankings of those in the top-8 on the start list are combined with a mean taken to generate the index. An explanation of the index system can be found here. Simply put, though, the lower the score, the stronger the field.
A score of 4.5 is as strong as a field could be and indicates that all of the top-8 athletes in the world are in attendance.
Of course, the index is only one measurement and only covers the top-end strength of the race. The use of it here is not to say that it is a perfect means of comparing races. Still, it is certainly one way to cut through the variety in races and stands as a very handy metric.
In this article, then, we will use the indices as a means to compare the relative strength of the start lists of the races of 2023 and determine which races had the best fields of the year.
WTCS
The average score of the men’s WTCS events was 6.4. In the women’s Series, the average index rating stood at 7.7. Across the Series, then, the men’s Series can be considered “deeper” with more top talent racing.
On the men’s side, three events received a perfect score of 4.5. The season opener in Abu Dhabi had a full-strength field while the Paris Test Event and WTCS Pontevedra likewise saw the whole top-8 in the world rankings race.
Cagliari (5.5), Hamburg (6.1) and Yokohama (6.8) also saw strong fields participate. Elsewhere, Sunderland (9.0) and Montreal (10.3) were not as well-attended and were therefore slightly weaker.
Reflecting on the season that has passed, Alex Yee won three of the four deepest races (Abu Dhabi, Cagliari and Paris). Yet he also suffered his worst result in two years in Pontevedra. Hayden Wilde was the other man to win two WTCS races and his wins came in Hamburg and Yokohama. Each race has its own story (for example, Wilde had misfortune in Abu Dhabi, Paris and Pontevedra) although it appears that Yee had more joy than his closest rival as the races became tougher.
New WTCS winners Matthew Hauser and Pierre Le Corre took their wins in Sunderland and Montreal, indicating that they benefited from the absence of some higher-ranked athletes.
On the women’s side, the strongest event of the year was the Paris Test Event, which had an index of 5.4. Pontevedra was next in line with a score of 6.0. In a twist from the men’s Series, Montreal also had a score of 6.0 in the women”s Series.
Like the men’s Series, there were two races that were slightly less attended by the top athletes. Hamburg scored 9.5 while Sunderland was the weakest WTCS race of the year with a score of 13.1.
In between, Cagliari (6.6), Yokohama (7.1) and Abu Dhabi (7.5) scored well but each were a little behind the men’s fields. An important point to note with regards to Abu Dhabi is that Flora Duffy did not race due to injury. At that point she was still at the top of the women’s world rankings so while the men scored perfectly her absence hurt the women’s index.
One takeaway from 2023 is that Beth Potter won the three toughest WTCS events of the year while her closest rival, Cassandre Beaugrand, won the two lowest-scoring events of the year.
At the same time, the differences between the WTCS indices were fairly slim, certainly in comparison to other levels in the sport. As such, none of the events can be called “soft” in any way. Rather, there simply needs to be an acknowledgement that some races had an additional layer degree of difficulty, as shown in the lower index scores.
World Cup
As with the WTCS, the men’s field was comparatively deeper than the women’s at the World Cup level. The average men’s index was 33.8 while the average women’s was 40.5.
Across the fourteen race season, six of the men’s events scored under 30 whereas only one women’s race did so. On the surface, then, the early indications are that the men’s field was a little stronger at the World Cup level in 2023.
The deepest men’s field came in Rome; with a score of 15.1, the race almost approached WTCS-strength. Rome was also the strongest women’s field, scoring 22.0. In both cases, the Rome events far out-stripped the rest of the circuit. The timing of the event after WTCS Pontevedra may have helped. The attraction of the city itself may have played a role too. This stands in contrast to some other races with lower scores at the WTCS and World Cup levels which suffered in terms of timing and location.
Among the men’s races, events like Tangier (27.4), Chengdu (28.1), Brasilia (28.8), Tongyeong (24.3), and Miyazaki (24.8) caught the eye. Notably, all of those came after the WTCS season. This suggests that plenty of WTCS athletes continued to race in search of Olympic qualification points after the WTCS season had ended.
At the start of the season, New Plymouth scored 30.6. The presence of Wilde at his home race in New Plymouth certainly helped the index. Had it been only slightly lower, half of the men’s World Cups would have scored under 30.
At the other end of the spectrum, three of the men’s World Cup races had index scores of over 40.
On the women’s side, the highlights were Valencia (31.4), Karlovy Vary (32.5), Tangier (30.1), Brasilia (32.0), and Miyazaki (34.6). Several events thus came close to breaking under a score of 30. Most of the strongest events came in the autumn, although not all of them came after the conclusion of the WTCS season.
Meanwhile, eight of the fourteen women’s races had an index of over 40, with some exceeding 50. While there were definitely strong races at the women’s World Cups, there were a number of events that lagged behind the depth of the men’s field.
European Cup
At the European Cup level, the story flips. The women had the better index at seven events while the men only had the lower score at four races.
The most fascinating race to discuss is Quarteira. In Portugal, the women’s race had a score of 32.1. Led by the race-winning Beaugrand, the women’s Quarteira European Cup was deeper than ten of the women’s World Cup events in 2023. It made for a fantastic race and was a real outlier at the European Cup level.
By contrast, the men’s race in Quarteira had a score of 73.3. It was therefore beaten by all fourteen World Cup events; as a European Cup race, though, this makes sense.
The European Cup in Caorle had the next best scores. The women’s field (80.8) once again beat the men’s (83.1) albeit by a smaller extent than in Quarteira. The women’s race in Kitzbühel was then the only other under European Cup to score under 100. It had an index of 95.0.
A clear lesson to be taken away from the indices of 2023 is the sizeable jump in strength between the different levels of the sport. Taking out the outlier events like the men’s Rome World Cup and the women’s Quarteira European Cup, the gaps in scores were substantial. Given the structure of the sport, these shifts in depth are logical and reflect how the various levels are supposed to operate.
