Today we are continuing our look at who’s who on the World Junior Championships start lists. You can read part 1 for the men here.
Stepping onto the start line of a World Junior Championships is a big moment in any young athlete’s career and each man starting in Hamburg will be looking to put their best foot forward.
In this article, we will be looking at the men starting from the Americas and Africa. The Americas received 14 slots for Hamburg; one of those, however, has not been filled on the start list. The place in question belongs to Ecuador and it remains up in the air as to how it will be filled going forward.
Meanwhile Africa received 4 slots with two slots going to South Africa and two going to Tunisia.
Americas
Fabrizio Valentin Pavoni finished 18th at the Americas Junior Qualification Event in Punta Cana to seal Argentina’s only slot in Hamburg. Prior to that, he finished 6th at the South American Championships. At this point in his career, Pavoni’s running is a little more developed than his swimming and cycling and he could trouble a few athletes in the third discipline.
Born in 2005, Hamburg will be his first race outside of the Americas.
Brazil will also have one male athlete starting in Hamburg. Their slot will be taken by Caua Diniz. In contrast to Pavoni, Diniz is currently more of a swim-biker. He finished 5th at the South American Championships before taking 14th place in Punta Cana.
Last December, he also finished 11th at the Brazilian Championships against a strong Senior field. In Hamburg, Diniz should have little trouble making his way to the front of the field prior to T2. Indeed, if there is a breakaway at any point, expect him to feature within it. However, right now his run lacks a little of the firepower that would transform him from a top-10 contender to a medal candidate.
Given the talent he is up against, it seems likeliest that Diniz will impress for two-thirds of the race but will have to step aside when the big runners come out to play.
Speaking of the fast runners, the Canadian team is home to one of the fastest.
Mathis Beaulieu is a major threat for the gold. This season, he has already proven himself as a threat at the Senior level. A brilliant win at the Americas Cup in Sarasota opened his account and then he added a silver medal at the Americas Cup in Ixtapa. As if to remind his Junior rivals of the challenge he poses, he also won the Americas Qualification Event in Punta Cana.
Beaulieu is a fantastic all-round athlete with very few weaknesses. He will put himself towards the head of the race in the water and there are few that can live with him on the run. Given his form, he will be impossible to ignore.
The other two Canadian slots will be taken by Blake Harris and Leandre Binette. The younger of the two, Binette, won a silver medal at the North American Junior Championships and then finished 5th in Punta Cana. They represent his only two international starts and he has taken to the elite level like a duck to water.
At this stage he is good across the board but does not quite have the same cutting edge as someone like Beaulieu. As a younger athlete, though, that will likely come with time.
Harris finds himself in a similar boat. Finishes of 5th at the North American Junior Championships in Sarasota and 6th in Punta Cana demonstrated his potential. However, his swim often gives away just a little too much time to be completely safe. Moreover, while he is a quick runner, he has not quite got that final gear that Beaulieu currently possesses.
One thing that should stand in Harris’ stead, though, is that he has also been racing at the Senior level. This year, he has finished 18th at the Americas Cup in St. Peters as well as 39th in Ixtapa.
Ultimately Binette and Harris are worthy of mentions as potential medallists in own right yet they are also a little over-shadowed by their team mate’s outstanding form.
Chile might have the answer to the Beaulieu puzzle.
They will be led by Andree Buc, this year’s South American champion and the bronze medallist from Punta Cana. To go with that, Buc also won a bronze medal at the Americas Cup in Chinchiná and finished 6th at the Americas Cup in Pucón.
At the Junior level, Buc has shown himself to be an exceptional runner. However, his cycling ability might be the key point of separation for him. Having sharpened his skills against men considerably older, Buc will be ready for practically anything in Hamburg.
Furthermore he will be racing at the World Cup in Huatulco this weekend (as will Beaulieu). At this point in time, then, Buc and Beaulieu can probably be considered on the same level.
The second man on the Chilean team will be Andres Gras. Gras was the runner-up at the South American Junior Championships and took 8th place in Punta Cana. Like Buc, he has raced at the Senior level and recently finished 14th in Chinchiná.
The key point to note with Gras is that he has been improving throughout the season. At each race, he has fine-tuned a different aspect of his skillset. He will also get the chance to test himself in Huatulco this weekend.
However, Gras will likely play second fiddle to Buc. Buc was only 12 seconds faster than Gras in the swim in Chinchiná; it was on the bike, though, that the difference between the two surfaced. Whereas Gras remained in the main pack, Buc was a key part of a five-man attack from the main group and ended up in a select front pack.
Gras can therefore aim for a high finish in Hamburg – he has all the talent to do very well – but there is a high chance that his teammate gets the better of him.
Mexico earned three men’s slots in Hamburg. Leading the team will be Alfredo Miguel Rodríguez Figueroa after his 10th place in Punta Cana.
Rodríguez has not raced a lot internationally; at last year’s Americas Junior Championships he finished 27th and he then took 51st place at the Americas Cup in Long Beach. Along with Punta Cana this year, that represents the totality of his experience.
However, Punta Cana showed plenty of reasons to be optimistic about his chances. He is fast in the water and has a good engine on two wheels. On the note of his cycling, though, his race craft was a little undercooked in Punta Cana. For example, while he swam as fast as Beaulieu, he did not read the Canadian’s move on the bike and conceded some time.
Having gotten rid of any rust in Punta Cana, Rodríguez should be sharper in Hamburg.
Obed Rivas Quiroz is the next man on the Mexican team. He finished 12th in Punta Cana on his international debut. One thing that stood out in Punta Cana was how quickly he ran. He out-split Rodríguez by almost 40 seconds and produced a time that would not have looked out of place in the top-5.
The key with Rivas will be the bike. He lost time during the second discipline in Punta Cana and he cannot afford to do the same in Hamburg.
Osvaldo Darell Zuñiga Fierro did not finish in Punta Cana however he took a creditable 19th place at the World Junior Championships in Montreal last year.
Punta Cana was also Zuñiga’s only start of the season so far, although he raced at a couple of Americas Cups in 2022. On balance, he is a similar type of athlete to Rivas and is armed with a swift run. Based on his result in Montreal, it would be fair to expect a good showing from Zuñiga, even if it would be easier to predict that with more evidence from this season.
The final male slots for the Americas belong to the Americans. And they have every base covered.
To start with the swim, they can call upon Carter Stuhlmacher who is realistically the fastest swimmer in the field. At the North American Junior Championships, he detonated the field in the water. As if to make a point, he then did it again at the Americas Cup in Chinchiná against a Senior field.
In between the two, he crushed the swim in Punta Cana to give himself the perfect launchpad for the rest of the race. Stuhlmacher is a fantastic cyclist and he used that to his advantage in Punta Cana. Although he was eventually out-ran by several of his rivals, he had established such a big lead that he was able to hold on for the silver medal.
To attack from the start will be Stuhlmacher’s best chance of a medal in Hamburg so expect another monstrous split. His current running level does make him vulnerable to being caught but once the gun goes off there is a chance that no one in the field sees him again.
If America have the best swimmer in the field, they have similar claims to possessing the best cyclist and runner.
In contrast to Stuhlmacher, Sullivan Middaugh generally leaks a fair amount of time in the water. No matter: he then comes roaring back on the bike. A huge bike split saw him win bronze in Sarasota while a field-leading split in Punta Cana was enough to see him rise to 7th.
The likes of Buc and Beaulieu are similarly credentialed on the bike and often do not have as much time to make up after the swim. Nevertheless, Middaugh is a real powerhouse that can dig himself out of pretty much any hole.
Then, when it comes to the run, we get to Luke Anthony, the reigning North American Junior champion.
There is an argument to be made that Anthony won his title in Sarasota because Beaulieu was busy beating the Senior men in the Americas Cup. On the other hand, Anthony was spectacular on his way to victory. While Stuhlmacher established a big lead in the swim, Anthony promptly erased it on the bike.
He was then untouchable on the run, as befits one of the few Junior triathletes in the world with a sub-15 minute 5000m hidden up their sleeve.
Anthony came away with 4th place in Punta Cana after being out-run by Beaulieu and Buc. On his day, though, he absolutely has the speed to trouble anyone and he could bring home the gold for the USA.
Africa
Shaun Wolfaardt earned the first of South Africa’s two slots for Hamburg en route to winning the African Junior Championships last September. Although he lost a lot of time in the water at the championship race in Agadir, he made up for it with the best bike and run splits in the field.
This season, Wolfaardt has added wins at the African Junior Cups in Nelson Mandela Bay and Troutbeck. Given the relative thinness of the African Junior Cups, it is hard to say how well that will have prepared him for Hamburg. If winning is a habit, though, Wolfaardt will have reason to be confident.
He also finished 13th in African Cup in Maselspoort, taking on a solid Senior field.
Joining Wolfaardt will be Kyle Erskine who qualified by dint of his 4th place at the African Junior Championships last year. Like Wolfaardt, Erskine has African Junior Cup wins to his name this year (in Swakopmund and Sharm El Sheikh). Again, the fields were fairly small at both events so they might not necessarily compare to some of the deeper events of the Americas and Europe.
Ealier this year, Erskine took the silver medal behind Wolfaardt at this year’s South African Junior Championships. One reason for him to be optimistic, though, is that he is a better swimmer than his team mate. As good as Wolfaardt is on the bike, the larger field in Hamburg could reward a fast swim and getting into a group further up the standings.
The other two African slots were won by Tunisia.
Leading the way for the Tunisian team will be Dawser Rezgui, the bronze medallist from the African Junior Championships in Agadir. Rezgui is a slightly quicker swimmer than his South African rivals, which should serve him well. He also won the African Junior Cup in Yasmine Hammamet recently. As noted with Wolfaardt and Erskine, while that might not compare directly to some other performances, it should have nonetheless sharpened him ahead of Hamburg.
Zakaria Chtioui won a silver in Yasmine Hammamet behind Rezgui. However, last year he beat his compatriot on his way to a bronze medal at the Senior Pan-Arab Championships. Of all the representatives for Africa starting, Chtioui also has a claim to being the quickest runner.
With only one international result to his name this year, it is hard to gauge where Chtioui’s form is at. Still, he is a very promising young athlete and has a good turn of speed in the water. If he can find his way into one of the leading groups, he could emerge as Africa’s best finisher at the World Junior Championships.
