The penultimate stop on the 2022
World Triathlon Championship Series tour lands in Bermuda this weekend, with
the island’s greatest sporting legend Flora Duffy looking to use Sunday’s race
to take another step towards a record fourth world title. On the men's race,
This will be only the third edition
of Series action on the island, the first since 2019 and the first time that
the Bermudians will get to see their one and only Olympic Champion in action
since her incredible Tokyo 2020 title-winning performance. The locals are ready
to bring the carnival to WTCS once more, lining every possible stretch of this
tough Olympic-distance course.
It all begins with a two-lap swim,
the first of 700m, the second 800m as the athletes veer to the left after the
final buoy and head towards transition. Out of the water it’s a short run up
into T1 and out onto the 40km bike, the course undulating before becoming truly
steep up the tight and winding Flora Duffy Hill.
Ten gruelling laps on two wheels then
transition into a flat, 10km run, the fourth lap taking the athletes to the
tape. It’s a mighty challenge for the athletes to conquer, and you can watch it
all play out on TriathlonLive.tv from 11am local time.
Women's Race Preview
It was here that Flora Duffy won the
inaugural 2018 edition in style, crossing the line almost two minutes ahead of
nearest challenger Vicky Holland and sending the crowds wild. Injury would then
derail not only her 2018 season but much of 2019, forcing her out of the second
edition but the rest, as we know, is history. Duffy has since underlined her
credentials as the best the sport has ever seen and knows that victory here and
again in Abu Dhabi at the end of the month will see her World Champion for an
unprecedented fourth time.
She returns home after missing out on
WTCS Cagliari to focus on preparations for last weekend’s 70.3 World
Championships in St George. Only time will tell if that fifth-placed finish on
a cold day in Utah will have provided the preparation she would have wanted for
the Bermuda challenge as she hunts a first WTCS gold since July in Hamburg.
But this isn’t just the Flora Duffy
show and the women’s field is deep with talent looking to put their own markers
down as the season nears its apex. With no Georgia Taylor-Brown or Cassandre
Beaugrand in action, Beth Potter will hope she can maintain the consistency
that has already landed her first Series podiums – in Montreal and Hamburg –
and catapulted her into contention for an overall Series medal.
The Brit hadn’t even made her Series
debut the last time Bermuda was contested, while another rival for the Series
medals, USA’s Taylor Spivey, has two top-ten finishes here and knows the course
as well as anyone. Always efficient, fearless and rarely off the front, Spivey
has narrowly missed out on the medals by finishing 4th three times in 2022. A
podium here would be exactly the momentum she needs heading to the Finals.
Another challenger and a podium
regular who finally found the golden touch this season is Germany’s Laura
Lindemann, while Sophie Coldwell makes her Bermuda debut as she looks to
improve on two third-place finishes so far in 2021 and realistically stay in the
fight for third in the overall standings.
Taylor Knibb could also still make
that move as the only athlete in contention to have raced just three times in
the Series this season, finishing 5th, 6th and 3rd. The rising American star
scooped the 70.3 world title by a huge 5-minute margin less than a week ago and
her bike prowess is second to none. Even Flora? Well, far from being
intimidated by the hill that bears her rival’s name, she is likely to see each
of the ten climbs as a huge opportunity to siphon off her rivals.
Netherland’s Maya Kingma has
registered back-to-back top tens as she continues her journey back to full
fitness, while reigning U23 World Champion Emma Lombardi was in flying form at
WTCS Cagliari as she ran her way into silver and onto a debut Series podium.
France’s next generation looks in good hands already and there will be plenty
waiting to see if she can follow up that result this weekend.
Brazil’s Luisa Baptista and Vittoria
Lopes arrive off the back of a highly successful Americas Championships
finishing first and second respectively and both will be looking to end the
year on a high.
Top ten finishers here in 2019, Lisa
Perterer (AUT), Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS) and Julia Hauser (AUT) will line up
again looking to recapture that level of form, emerging talent Bianca Seregni
(ITA) will be following up on her Series debut in Cagliari, and Yuko Takahashi
starts as the top-ranked Japanese athlete in Bermuda.
Women’s WTCS Bermuda
Sunday 6 November
2pm local time
Full start list click here.
Men's Preview
After three excellent golds from his
three Series finishes so far this season, Alex Yee‘s mission for Sunday’s 2022
World Triathlon Championship Series Bermuda is crystal clear: finish on the
podium, and first place in the Maurice Lacroix Rankings will be his, before
this year’s men’s World Champion is ultimately decided at the Championship
Finals in Abu Dhabi.
With current leader Hayden Wilde not
on the Bermuda start line, instead preferring to fix his attentions on the big
finale in the UAE capital on 26 November, Yee will know that opportunity knocks
this weekend in a race that also sees the return of Kristian Blummenfelt and
Gustav Iden in a location that they know well. It was here back in 2018 that
they followed Casper Stornes over the line to complete the first ever sweep of
a men’s podium by one nation, and to here that you can arguably trace back the
Norwegian era as a triathlon superpower.
So while Blummenfelt and Iden are
back on the blue carpet after their own incredible years over longer distances,
in the context of this year’s World Championship title, all eyes will be on
Britain’s Alex Yee.
Still chasing current leader Wilde
after missing out on points in Leeds and Hamburg, Yee’s three finishes to date
this season have all brought him the maximum 1000. Golds in WTCS Yokohama, WTCS
Montreal and most recently WTCS Cagliari set him on course for a potential
first world title, and the Brit knows that a medal of any colour in Bermuda
will see him leapfrog Wilde into top spot before their decisive showdown.
Cramps on the run in that last outing
were a cause for concern as the 24-year-old battled through the pain for nearly
5km, and no doubt there will have been plenty of team analysis since to
determine exactly what occurred and why, in order to give him every chance of a
trouble-free medal hunt on Sunday.
Wearing the number one and also in
the chase for a debut Series podium is Belgium’s Jelle Geens. Beset by bad luck
for much of a 2021 that saw him miss out on Tokyo 2020, the 29-year-old swooped
to gold in Abu Dhabi last year and has since grabbed top 10s in Leeds, Montreal
and Hamburg to sit third in the Maurice Lacroix Rankings. Always a fast
finisher, Geens will need an equally impressive swim if he is to realise his
podium potential here.
Back to the Norwegian pair of Iden
and Blummenfelt, hugely impressive Ironman and 70.3 World Championship titles
in recent weeks have clearly been the main focuses of their respective years,
but the attentions now begin to switch to Paris 2024. Iden’s two previous
bronze medals here and Olympic Champion Blummenfelt’s silver should make this
far more than a see-where-the-form-is for both athletes as they seek
performances on which to build their next Olympic campaigns.
Vincent Luis starts for the first
time since Hamburg after another tough year battling to get back to the
big-race fitness and gold medal-harvesting prowess he showed in 2019 and 2020.
Bermuda will be another almighty test of just where his race level is at as he
readies for another massive two years into Paris.
Morocco’s Jawad Abdelmoula will face
one of the most demanding courses yet in his short but impressive WTCS career
to date. Having burst onto the scene with Tongyeong World Cup gold in late 2021
and a first Series medal in Hamburg, it will be interesting to see how the 2022
Africa Triathlon Champion copes with Bermuda’s unique challenges.
He may have left the Americas
Championship frustrated after pulling up on the run with illness, but Brazil’s
Miguel Hidalgo continues his return to full fitness after injury cut short the
middle of his promising season, while the USA have a strong line up spearheaded
by the resurgent Kevin McDowell and Matthew McElroy.
Jamie Riddle (RSA) brings his own
fearless brand of attacking racing back to the triathlon front line, and
Canada’s Tyler Mislawchuk will want a good showing and to put a marker down
after a season punctured by bad luck.
Spain’s Mario Mola and Antonio Serrat
Seoane, Hungarian duo Csongor Lehmann and Bence Bicsak and Germany’s Lasse
Luhrs could all have a major impact too on what looks set to be one of the most
unpredictable races of an already rollercoaster season.
Men’s WTCS Bermuda
Sunday 6 November
11am local time
Full start list click here.
ABOUT WORLD TRIATHLON
World Triathlon is the international
governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of triathlon and all
related multisport disciplines around the world, including duathlon, aquathlon,
cross triathlon and winter triathlon. Triathlon made its Olympic debut in
Sydney 2000, with a third medal event, the Mixed Team Relay, added to the
programme at Tokyo 2020, while para triathlon was first added to the Paralympic
programme at Rio 2016. World Triathlon is proudly committed to the development
of the sport worldwide, with inclusion, equality, sustainability and
transparency at our core as we seek to help triathletes at all levels of the
sport to be extraordinary.
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