Two incredible individual triathlon races down, one spectacular team relay to come. The stage is set for Tokyo 2020 to witness arguably the greatest team competition of the Olympic Games: four world-class athletes, two women, two men, each tackling all three disciplines and with all the grit and grind of triathlon fizzing across the super-sprint format. It may be its Olympic debut in Tokyo, but wherever you are watching, it is the hottest ticket in town.
The Odaiba Bay venue is the same as
the individual, the course more compact. Each leg will start with a 300m swim,
transitioning into a 6.8km (two lap) bike and finishing with a 2km (two lap)
run. This will be full gas from the start, the leaders will chop and change,
the handovers will be spectacular, the tension will reach boiling point and the
team that eventually takes the tape and wins those first ever Triathlon Mixed
Relay Olympic gold medals will be forever written into the sport’s history.
Saturday 07:30am local time and 00:30
CEST (Friday 11:30pm BST and 6:30pm Eastern).
There will be 17 teams taking to the
pontoon start, South Africa sadly having to withdraw after Henri Schoeman
suffered a stress fracture in his foot on Monday. For the remainder, the squads
are officially submitted at Thursday’s briefing and the final line-ups
confirmed two hours before the start of the race. Late changes and team tactics
are all part of the beautifully unpredictable format.
Unlike the individual race, however,
the start lists are drawn from the world rankings, meaning Team France – World
Champions the past three years in a row – will wear the number ones. Leonie
Periault and Cassandre Beaugrand could well go out first and third just as they
did in the team’s 2018 and 2020 title wins, while two of Vincent Luis, Leo
Bergere and Dorian Coninx will race legs two and four. There will be massive
extra incentive for the talented squad to leave Tokyo with a medal, and a good
start will be vital to settle the nerves.
Second-ranked Australia were the only
nation to have qualified the maximum three men and three women for Tokyo 2020,
bringing both the added bonus of a wider pool of talent to choose from and the
agony of choice for the selectors. The line ups have varied in recent years,
but the team last topped the podium in Abu Dhabi two years ago, with Ashleigh
Gentle on the opening leg, Emma Jeffcoat and Jacob Birtwhistle on three and
four. Birtwhistle is widely considered to have one of the strongest final legs
in the business.
The USA wear the number three, with
Olympic bronze medalist Katie Zaferes, Summer Rappaport and Taylor Knibb to
choose between for the two women’s legs. Perennial podium finishers in recent
years, you have to go back to Nottingham 2018 for their last team gold, but
Morgan Pearson will want to put in a massive leg after a disappointing
individual result by his recent standards, while Kevin McDowell will still be
riding high despite the exertions of his sixth place finish just a few days
ago.
Wearing number four will be Team GB,
and with four Olympic medalists to call upon from a possible five squad
members: Alex Yee and Georgia Taylor-Brown, Jonathan Brownlee and Vicky
Holland. Jessica Learmonth also has a very strong case for selection and
provided a brilliant opening leg at the Tokyo Test Event, while Brownlee was
involved in all three of Great Britain’s World title winning teams in 2011,
2012 and 2014.
New Zealand will wear the five, a
young team but with great experience already having raced together multiple
times and most recently won the U23/Junior World Championships in Lausanne back
in 2019. Hayden Wilde and Tayler Reid both had outstanding individual races,
23-year-old Wilde winning Olympic bronze, Ainsley Thorpe will want to bounce
back from bad luck early on the bike while Nicole Van Der Kaay, the oldest of
the team at 25, finished a strong 29th on Tuesday.
Team Belgium – aka The Belgian
Hammers – can really hit their groove when the quartet of Claire Michel, Jelle
Geens, Valerie Barthelemy and Marten Van Riel line up together. Bronze at the
European Championships, winners of the qualification event in Lisbon, Geens was
sadly missing from the individual races on Monday and touched down in Tokyo
fresh, hungry and determined to help the team to the podium. As long as Claire
Michel’s calf injury is not as bad as first feared, the Hammers will be big
contenders.
Team Germany’s selection criteria for
the Olympic Games made their priorities clear: they held a qualification event
over the super-sprint format that saw Anabel Knoll and Justus Nieschlag
confirmed alongside Laura Lindemann and Jonas Schomburg for the team. The
Netherlands left their two men off the individual start and keep them fresh for
Saturday morning, while Rachel Klamer delivered a majestic fourth-place finish
and Maya Kingma recovered from a difficult start to finish 11th and will be
ready to help power the Dutch into contention.
Switzerland were the first ever World
Champions back in 2009 and will have the combined talents of Nicola Spirig,
Jolanda Annen, Max Studer and Andrea Salvisberg lining up, all capable of
delivering the magic required to scoop that Olympic medal.
Spain will have Mario Mola and
Fernando Alarza teaming up with Miriam Casillas Garcia and Anna Godoy
Contreras, Italy count on Angelica Olmo, Verena Steinhauser, Gianluca Pozzatti
and Delian Stateff and Canada will be backing themselves with Joanna Brown and
Amelie Kretz joining forces with Tyler Mislawchuk and Matthew Sharpe.
Hosts Japan have men’s individual
race top 20 finishers Kenji Nener and Makoto Odakura lining up with Niina
Kishimoto and Yuko Takahashi, while Team Austria will see Lukas Hollaus and
Alois Knabl join forces with Lisa Perterer and Julia Hauser.
Bence Bicsak stormed to 7th place on
Monday and he, Tamas Toth, Zsanett Bragmayer and Zsofia Kovacs will line up for
Team Hungary, the Polyanskiy brothers Dmitry and Igor, Anastasia Gorbunova and
Alexandra Razarenova go for the ROC and Irving Perez, Crisanto Grajales,
Cecilia Perez and Claudia Rivas are set to go for Team Mexico.
Full start lists will be available
here two hours before the race https://triathlon.org/events/start_list/2020_tokyo_olympic_games/501766?mc_cid=0386c5731b&mc_eid=6139649918
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.
Michael Phelps Teaches Swimming
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