Tomorrow the inaugural Global Triathlon Awards will take place in Nice, France. The awards are a collaboration between World Triathlon and two private enterprises: Super League Triathlon and the PTO.
In this article we are surveying the athlete prizes on offer: Female Athlete of the Year, Male Athlete of the Year and Rookie of the Year.
The criteria for what earns an athlete the respective awards are a little vague in parts. It is also hard to tell whether WTCS racing, long distance racing or Super League events will take primacy. As much as the various events fall under the umbrella of triathlon, few of the events are directly comparable.
As an example, the 2022 WTCS champion Leo Bergere was not nominated for Male Athlete of the Year. Ostensibly, this would indicate that World Triathlon and short course events are not among the most important in that category. It might also be a consequence of the nature of the nomination system.
When considering the nominees here, then, we will assess who we think will win, rather than going down the rabbit hole of who we think should win.
Female Athlete of the Year
To start with the women’s category, the criteria shared by the Global Triathlon Awards are as follows:
- 50% – Entry requirement of a minimum of three podiums in one-year at a World Level Champion Event
- 50% – How the individual acts as an ambassador for the Triathlon sport
It is not overly clear what constitutes behaviour as an ambassador for the sport and that point is a little intangible. As such, we will focus on the performance criterion.
Flora Duffy is the obvious place to start. She won the 2022 WTCS, claiming her fourth world title. On her way to doing so, she recorded the two biggest winning margins of the 2022 WTCS season. To top it all off, she won Commonwealth Games gold in July, becoming the only triathlete to defend that title. By all measures, Duffy has had a career-defining season.
The second short-listed woman from the short distance world is Georgia Taylor-Brown. With three WTCS wins and three WTCS silvers in the season, Taylor-Brown had the remarkable achievement of medalling at every race she contested. She was only denied the world title by a superhuman performance from Duffy in Abu Dhabi and in other year Taylor-Brown would have made a deserved winner of the WTCS.
She also took Commonwealth silver behind Duffy. One thing we think will count heavily in Taylor-Brown’s favour is her exploits in Super League. Winning the overall Super League title could be treated as an important factor in her favour.
We then move on to the long distance world and here we start with a former short distance star. Ashleigh Gentle is former WTCS medallist and in 2022 won the first ever PTO US Open title. To go with that, she won the 2022 PTO Canadian Open and took silver at the Collins Cup.
Chelsea Sodaro had the impressive achievement of winning the Ironman world championships on her first attempt in Hawaii. Moreover it came just 18 months after giving birth. That win capped off a season in which she won bronze at the PTO Canadian Open and silver at Ironman Hamburg 2022, where she logged the second fastest debut of all time in 8:36.41.
Finally we come to Lucy Charles-Barclay. Charles-Barclay won silver at the Ironman world championships and won gold at World Triathlon’s Long Distance Championships. Alongside this she won bronze at the PTO US Open.
Assessing these performances will no doubt be tricky as there have been some tremendous showings.
Duffy has a strong candidacy although there could be an argument that she has actually had better seasons than 2022. As she also did not match her WTCS levels in non-WTCS racing (a harsh point, we know), she might not be ranked as highly by the judges if they seek to balance between the various areas of triathlon.
By contrast, we expect Taylor-Brown’s Super League performances to play well with the judges. For the volume of medals she won in the 2022 season, then, we expect the prize to go to Taylor-Brown.
Male Athlete of the Year
In a little bit of a drop-stitch, the 2022 World and European Champion Leo Bergere was not actually nominated for this award. Whether that was down to a lack of public support or judicial discretion, it does create a slightly awkward situation.
The criteria for the men are the same as the women’s prize:
- 50% – Entry requirement of a minimum of three podiums in one-year at a World Level Champion Event
- 50% – How the individual acts as an ambassador for the Triathlon sport
Again, we will not presume to rank the athletes by their ambassadorship and will focus on their podiums.
Hayden Wilde narrowly missed the world title in 2022 after winning two WTCS events and claiming two WTCS silvers. A penalty denied him Commonwealth Games gold and he won the overall Super League title.
Meanwhile, Alex Yee earned three WTCS wins and became the Commonwealth Games champion. However, he competed in only one Super League race, which was won by Wilde.
We then come to Matthew Hauser. Hauser had a breakthrough season in which he won one WTCS medal (a silver in Hamburg). For this reason, TriStats voters picked him as their breakout of the year. In addition, he had some strong Super League performances, including a 2nd place in London and a win in Munich.
Maybe Hauser should have actually been nominated for the Rookie of the Year. It is certainly hard to make the case for him having a better season than Bergere.
If Hauser is nominated primarily for his Super League performances, what does that mean for Wilde’s chances given he won the overall title? It also suggests an emphasis on the Super League rankings which reinforces our prediction that the women’s award will be given to Taylor-Brown over Duffy.
However, the Bergere conundrum raises his head again with regards to Yee and Wilde. Yes, Bergere won only one race in the WTCS. However it is was the biggest race of the year and he did so with panache. He also won the most WTCS medals of any man in the 2022 season which speaks to his consistency.
Ultimately, though, the biggest problem with excluding Bergere but nominating Yee and Wilde is that Yee and Wilde lost when it counted. It therefore feels a little hollow to give the award to Yee or Wilde given they both fell at the last. In football, the best team is rarely the one that played well at the start of the season; it is the one that won the title.
Likewise, to use the analogy of horse racing, Yee and Wilde led the race early on and looked great, but they both fell at the last hurdle. Does that not mean that, although they were very good, they were by definition not the best?
We then come to the long distance nominees.
Gustav Iden won the 2022 Ironman world championships as well as the Challenge Family The Championship 2022 and the PTO Canadian Open. Meanwhile, Kristian Blummenfelt won the 70.3 world championships in 2022, earned silver at the PTO US Open and came third at the Ironman world championships in Kona. Blummenfelt also won the 2021 Ironman world championship (held in May 2022 and outside of its traditional Hawaii location).
Iden and Blummenfelt flattered to deceive in their return to WTCS racing. Both were left behind by breakaways and neither managed a top-5 finish in their two WTCS appearances. World titles are always impressive, although it feels a little like they did not beat as deep fields as seen in the WTCS. Notably, they did not confront Jan Frodeno at the peak of the 2022 season due to his injury.
One important question to ask is what separates Iden and Blummenfelt from one another? Both are cementing their status as legends in long distance and have traded major victories. Blummenfelt has had the more illustrious short course career while Iden has perhaps a little more success to his name in long distance.
But can anyone actually distinguish one from the other in terms of one being definitively the best?
They have exchanged Ironman and 70.3 wins without one appearing objectively better than the other. As they are so evenly matched, it is hard to call either the best triathlete in the world.
On balance, we would expect the award to be a tight call between Yee, Blummenfelt and Iden. Three WTCS wins across three distances plus a Commonwealth Games title means we think it will probably go to Yee, but it will be close.
Rookie of the Year
Finally, we come to the Rookie of the Year. As per the Global Triathlon Awards website, there are two criteria:
- 50% – Most surprising and/or outstanding performance
- 50% – How the individual acts as an ambassador for the Triathlon sport
Before we look at the athletes, it is important to clarify one small issue with this award.
In a conventional sense, a rookie refers to a newcomer, or someone in their first season. Some of the athletes that have been short-listed are not rookies. Some have close to a decade of experience and are seasoned professionals. Of course, this is a semantic point, however it is important to flag to avoid confusion.
Based on the criteria, perhaps the Rookie of the Year should actually be Surprise of the Year.
Katie Crowhurst is a visually impaired para-triathlete in the PTVI B3 category and she won gold at the Commonwealth Games. To go with that, she won a silver in the World Para Series race in Swansea.
Sam Laidlow finished 2nd at the Ironman world championships in 2022, splitting the vaunted Iden-Blummenfelt duo.
Chelsea Sodaro is short-listed again here. Given that she won the Ironman world championships, she seems to trump Laidlow. While she has half a dozen years as a professional triathlete to her name, she had not raced in Hawaii before and only made her debut over the distance in 2022.
Connor Bentley won the U23 world championships in 2022 in a true breakout performance. Given he was not on a lot of people’s radar going into the race, his brilliant showing in Abu Dhabi would constitute a surprising as well as outstanding performance.
The final athlete is Kenji Nener. The 2021 Asian Champion scored his first WTCS top-10 in Abu Dhabi (2021). As that race was part of the 2022 WTCS, we count that towards his 2022 claim. He also recorded a best Super League race finish of 3rd. In the 2022 Super League, he finished 6th overall. However, he finished 8th overall in the 2021 iteration.
As a result, we do not feel like Nener’s 2022 was massively surprising. Instead it had the hallmarks of the moving forward of a developing athlete. Nor are we quite sure he can be called a rookie given he finished 14th at the Tokyo Olympics.
On balance, we think Sodaro will win this one. Winning the Ironman world championships at the first attempt is impressive and constitutes the most surprising performance. Her winning this category also balances out the short distance wins in the Male and Female Athletes of the Year awards.
