Triathlon stars past, present and
future coming out for the 2023 Arena Games Finals London as two days of
qualifiers set up Saturday's decisive 10-deep Finals
Saturday evening in the London
Aquatic Centre will see the culmination of the 2023 Arena Games Triathlon
Series powered by Zwift and almost certainly the crowning of two brand new
World Champions in the unique hybrid racing format.
As always, the action will be
intense, with two sessions of qualifier heats and repechages boiling the 30
athletes on the men’s and women’s start lists down to the 10 who will go all in
for the prizes from 5.30pm Saturday.
But who has drawn who in the three
10-deep qualifiers, who are the favourites for golds and who stands to be
crowned World Champions?
READ: Who needs what to become the
2023 Arena Games World Champion.
Sereno draws Beaugrand, Bragmayer vs
Potter
Friday’s three heats of 10 athletes
will see the top two automatically into Saturday’s Finals, with positions 3-7
into the morning’s repechages plus the five fastest – meaning 20 in total head
into the play-offs.
For the two female athletes in pole
position for the title with wins under their belts already this year, Gina
Sereno (USA) and Zsanett Bragmayer (HUN), the instant qualification question
got a notch tougher with the arrivals of Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) and Beth
Potter (GBR) onto the start lists.
Beaugrand won here last year, Potter
took the overall title, both are in flying form and all four will want to go
through without worrying about a morning alarm for the repechage.
In Heat One, Potter and Bragmayer
will also face Australian star Emma Jackson and in-form Dutch talent Barbara De
Koning, while heat two sees Beaugrand and Sereno facing down Eva Daniels (LUX)
and Fanni Szalai, the 15-year-old Hungarian who was a revelation in Switzerland
last month.
In Heat Three, the likes of Kate
Waugh (GBR), Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS), Hanne De Vet (BEL) and Anabel Knoll
(GER) will make for a red-hot contest just to get through to the repechages.
Iden joins Stapley, Schoeman and
Abdelmoula in Group of Death
Of the three men’s heats going out on
Friday, it’s impossible not to be drawn to the names in Heat Two and the
intrigue of seeing Norway’s long-course world-conquerer Gustav Iden tackle the
shortest, sharpest format around.
His chances of an easy ride into the
finals were dealt a blow by being drawn with GB’s past Arena Games high-flyers
Daniel Dixon, Jack Stanton-Stock and Max Stapley, Sursee champion Henri
Schoeman (RSA) and Morocco's rising star Jawad Abdelmoula.
Of course, entry to the finals via
the repechage may not be the worst thing for the Norwegian as he gets used to
the format, but even that won’t be a foregone conclusion with Jamie Riddle
(RSA), Valentin Wernz and Lasse Nygaard Priester (GER) and Kyle Smith (NZL) set
to be shoulder-to-shoulder.
Men’s Heat One boasts the mighty
Frenchman Aurelian Raphael, Montreal champion Chase McQueen (USA) and the
Italian bullet Nicolo Strada, while Heat Three welcomes Bence Bicsak (HUN),
Maxim Hueber-Moosbrugger (FRA) and the format’s most successful athlete to
date, Germany’s Justus Nieschlag to the pool.
Arena Games: the drama is in the
details
The three qualifiers and two
repechages will be decided by a two-stage swim-bike-run contest, a pursuit
start to the second based on the time difference from stage one. In each
instance, the top two will progress to the Final
Saturday’s finals start at 5.30pm for
the women and 6.30pm for the men. The ten athletes in each will now face THREE
stages - swim-bike-run / run-bike-swim / swim-bike-run – with the final stage
pursuit start based off the cumulative time differences from the first two.
Tune in to TriathlonLive.tv on
Saturday from 5.15pm local time and let the Arena Games magic sink in as we
crown our 2023 World Champions.
Full start lists can be found 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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