flat and technical. tokyo redux.

Women’s side I think is def going to be hard, if not harder. Beth, GTB, Sophie and Jess will earn enough points to qualify 3 athletes. Add to that the young guns we have coming through like Katie Waugh and Sean Rainsley and I think it will be one of the hardest teams to qualify for.

Men’s side Alex and Jonnie should qualify on points (rather than recent relay qual) but can they qualify the 3rd man? Sam Dicko is looking better each time he races but has got quite a lot of improvement to make on his run. Tom Bishop is possibly in his last ITU season. Ben Dijkstra is back racing (on the Holten start line tomorrow) so maybe he can get back to the top. Jack Willis is our next best at the moment but 2 years is a long time!

Think it is the hardest team to qualify for and has been for a few Olympic cycles, I'm not sure Non Stanford has called it a day at Oly distance yet either.

Wasn't LCB going to try and qualify? Any chance she's got I'm guessing has gone when she got injured.

The qualification window only opened a couple of weeks ago so she still has a chance. She would make a good 3rd athlete if they decided to go that route. I hope they don’t though.

Ben D had an excellent 4th place at Holten today, hopefully he will get a WTS start before the end of the season.

Charles is fully into her rehab but unclear whether she will be ready to compete this year. After her Leeds race she's only some decent transitions and some close/drafting cycling skills away from being FoP in any standard race.
Would need to race several short courses in spring 2023 to get into the top 140: perhaps that can be her focus, though she'll need to balance that with gaining KQ for Kona 2023.
I somehow can't see her being a trusted domestique for anyone, but perhaps the wish to be able to call herself an Olympian trumps that. I wonder whether GTB would have a say in the selection process (in the way Brownlee did for Hayes in 2012). I suspect a fit Learmonth would be a much more likely choice for such a role; or failing that: Coldwell.
But as others have said: it's two years away.

Yes, the GB women's team was very hard to qualify for Tokyo but the USA was even harder -- it left off the #3 ranked woman in the world (Taylor Spivey) and had 3 of the top 6 ranked women in the world (Knibb, Spivey and Zaferes). the top 2 GB women last year -- Caldwell (#5) and Stanford (#9) -- were left off the team to make room for Learmonth (#13), Holland (#19) and GTB (#22).

2016 was similar -- both countries were brutally hard to qualify for -- but USA was slightly harder with Gwen (#2) and True (#9) qualifying in 2015 and Zaferes (#4) barely making the team after sweating it out. That was a harder team to make than the one with Jenkins (#5), Simpson (#7) and Holland (#13).

There's going to be a few hard teams to make for Paris, from the looks of it. It's hard to speculate on people's intentions so early in the qualifying cycle. People like LCB have a long runway, because if you're capable of top placings on the WTCS, you can probably crack the top 140 in the olympic rankings with 1 to 2 strong results. Those who are not consistently at that level will need to string together many more (I believe LCB's top5 at Leeds had her in the picture for Tokyo).

This week is a busy week on the World Tri circuit, Montreal World Para Series on Friday (the bike and parts of the run are on the Montreal F1 Circuit), and WTCS Hamburg (individual sprint Saturday, MTR sunday). Pretty legit start lists for Hamburg, assuming people's bikes arrive from Montreal on time (or Denver in the case of Flora)...

LCB was never even considered for Tokyo her ranking points were after the Olympic qualification window had closed.

I don't actually believe that was true, because after Leeds there was Huatulco, which was the last chance for federations to earn points, and where Australia secured their 3rd slot...

I don't think she was seriously considered for a slot, but I believe she was ranked high enough that she could have been selected (originally it was supposed to close with Yokohama, but because of the shortage of races due to COVID, it was stretched out until Huatulco).

She wasn’t ranked high enough. I believe at that point the 3 selected females had already been submitted (and possibly confirmed) by GB Tri for Olympic selection along with a 4th athlete as travelling reserve.

That said, it is possible that if someone has top 5 potential at a WTCS level, or Podium potential at the World Cup level, 2-3 solid results could get them easily into the pool where they are eligible for selection. But in the countries with depth charts, that's usually not enough, unless you score an automatic qualification through some criterion (e.g. Rappaport and Knibb for the US, who both scored auto selections, which gave the committee the impossible task of picking between two of the top women in the world for the one discretionary pick).

It will also be worth watching who switches affiliations on the circuit. Murray is now racing for the Dutch, Jeanne Lehair is transitioning from France to Luxembourg. I wonder if it's a matter of time before Spivey gets French citizenship and switches to race for them.

In line with @SheridanTris, all 3 women GB team members for Tokyo were announced on 4 Nov 2020. So activities in 2021 (eg Leeds or elsewhere) were not relevant.
https://www.britishtriathlon.org/...-olympic-games_14490
But this isn't really about the past, it's about the (im)practicality of Charles developing enough short course expertise to consummate her Olympic pipe dream. The strength/robustness of her hip will always be a consideration when deciding/designing the running element of any training programme, whether for a 10km or a marathon.
Whatever she is a SM force and positive ambassador for triathlon.

Spivey already has dual nationality Canadian.

French Nationality is only after 5 years of living in France. By marriage I think takes about 2 years.

If I were Spivey I would go with Canada if Zaferes comes back but seems she will go into MD. Despite of that, you have Knibb, Summer, Ackerlund, Kasper...does anyone know about the injury she has been carrying for so long?
About LCB, ...well I cannot see any scenario where she can qualify for Paris, but I´d love her to prove me wrong. In addition of having GTB, Coldwell, Potter, a healthy Learmonth, Rainsley (btw, does anyone know about Non Stanford??), she is injured, the comeback will be hard and she will have less than 1 year and a half besides she should focus 100% on ITU.

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

why would she go to canada and its train wreck of a program with poor funding, a horrific choice of coaches, no pipeline and a MTR that has no shot of medaling? canada's performance in montreal, as the host country, was a joke.

I'm pretty sure Spivey, Kasper, and Pearson all have Canadian citizenship. The top two Belgium Women have US citizenship/grew up in the states. Rider has Irish citizenship.
I know a few athletes who could race for 3 countries if they wanted.

Keep in mind, all these athletes know they could race elsewhere, and they don't. So I doubt we'll see anybody changing countries. That is usually reserved for people a bit further down the world rankings.

Non’s one and only focus this year is the Commonwealth Games in July in Birmingham. It is probably her last opportunity to race for Wales. She is back training but not racing yet which doesn’t really give her time to get race fit.

She is getting married in November. I think (but not certain) she has said she has no interest in going long so I can see this being her last year in ITU (but have nothing to back that up except gut instinct).

The commies are big for her. She started her Tri career at Birmingham University and it is 2 hours down the road from her family. She was injured for the games in Glasgow, so a 2nd bite of the cherry for a home games I would imagine is a huge incentive for her.

so, do we erase Non from the equation for Paris? I also dont know about Jess...but changing my mind, if LCB wants desperetely to qualify for Paris, she may do it. She just must contend Coldwell,Potter and Learmonth :D (2 spots 4 girls)one is for GTB.

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

2 years out you can’t say anyone is guaranteed a spot. Someone could be injured (GTB had a career threatening foot injury and missed 18 months not long ago). Coldwell recently joined a pro cycle team for a couple of races so who knows if she stays in Tri? Probably yes but nothing is certain.

LCB could earn a spot but that will mean missing Kona next year. Sian Rainsley and Katie Waugh have the potential to be up there.

Non may stay in ITU with it being a short Olympic cycle. Who knows?

What would Spivey's motivation be to choose to race for Canada? The idea she'd jump ship to France (if she ever qualified so to do) is fanciful. I think France are going to be just fine with strength in depth for Paris and beyond, without any parvenus.
Since it's difficult to envisage Charles being competitive in a super sprint - and two of the three GBR team will need to be for a leg of the MTR - she's actually chasing one spot, not two. So the only third woman role would be as a swim/ride domestique, and as I've opined ^^^, I don't think that fits her personality (even if she developed and demonstrated the T1 efficiency and criterium cycling expertise to persuade the GB selectors (imo no chance)).
Discarding the 'cunning plan' for short course and working towards gaining KQ (post rehab and back up to speed and endurance) and then Kona 2023 has to be the 15 month plan. Training to run at sub-16 minute 5k speed is likely not part of the recipe.

It was. Well done by him. Do you think the front group let him back in intentionally? I do not. I think had Blu or a Brownless been there HW would have finished off the podium. The group had no leader.


Taking nothing away from GTB, but my take away was that the US 100% made the right choice leaving Summer off the relay at the games. I cannot believe how bad she looked on the bike and in transition. Even when GTB caught her, she kept going out of the draft zone. There was even a stretch where it looked like she decided she was going to take a pull. Why did she possibly think she should do that?


He looked out of shape to me.


hard to believe but it has been 3 years since the Tokoyo test event. Mislawchuk hasn't been in the top tier since then. He needs to find it again.

To be fair, apparently due to the wind, the elastics on Summer's shoes snapped before her leg for the relay, not that I think that is why her mount was bad, since it was not the first time... McDowell looked fairly fit, but it may not have been the best idea of keeping him fresh for the MTR, since he did look rusty. It was still a feat for GTB to come back on someone with Summer's run ability on that leg, even if her T1 made the feat more achievable...

I don't know that Spivey will change nationalities this olympic cycle, despite her frustration with USAT. If she was going to swtich to race for Canada, she would have been racing under the World Tri flag this year. I suspect if she switches, it will be to France, but she'll need to get hitched to Vincent Luis to speed that process along, and it's likely too late for Paris (and to be clear I wasn't suggesting that she was switching because the french need her, more that she was pissed at not getting selected for Tokyo by the US). The Canadian federation is coming out of the mess at the end of the olympic cycle and is in the process of replacing many key roles, so once people are up and running, hopefully things will be improved (on the plus side, we're seeing more Canadians racing internationally (i.e. WTCS, World Cup, and Conti cups) than we have for many years, which should help with building more depth in the program than in recent years).

Kasper's form looks to be coming back, but according to the broadcast from Montreal, she missed day 2 of the eliminator and the MTR due to a positive COVID test, which with the rules in Quebec means 5 day quarantine. Tyler Mislawchuk hasn't been MIA since the Tokyo test event. He won Huatulco last year, but then got injured in Tokyo. He still managed a 6th at Abu Dhabi last year, and just missed the win at Huatulco a few weeks back, so he has been there or thereabouts. He was definitely off form in Montreal, but apparently picked up a stomach bug after the race in Huatulco. We'll get a better sense of his form against a top field on Saturday in Hamburg.

As others have suggested, it's a bit early to speculate for the Olympics, since a lot can happen in the next two years. That said, the rankings are pretty wide open. for the Men's side for Tokyo, if memory serves people needed at least 4 races to achieve a score that would get them over the eligibility bar for selection. And those looking to earn auto spots for their countries were closer to 6 or 7 races (the max was 9 (4 and 5 from the two windows). On the women's side, with 2 really strong results you could crack the eligibility barrier, but for most it was at least 2-4 races to hit that bar, and then 5 races or more to earn a spot for your federation. All this to say, even if people aren't racing a lot now, it doesn't mean they are out of the realm of possibility for gaining OG selection. That is more a matter of how each federation lays out their process, and how much is auto-qualification, vs. discretionary selection from anyone meeting the minimum bar.

I suspect there will be some drama in a few NFs, like US, GB, France (because of their depth), NZ, SUI (because of their politics)... I also suspect that some federations may change their nomination processes from the last cycle to try and resolve any ickiness from last time (but there's the eternal battle between complete transparency through auto selection, vs. better flexibility to field your best team (i.e. more discretionary selections), as the more flexible approach tends to be ickier, and result in more appeals of selections).

Definitely excited for the Hamburg races, so many world tri athletes/world tri accounts have been inundating us with videos of people being waterboarded with Erdinger (it would be a good way to go, if they weren't using the 0.0 on the podiums), that I'm ready just to see the racing... Hopefully nobody drinks from their shoe this time...

My guess is the us takes Spivey over Summer 10 times out of 10 with a discretionary pick. I think summer only got her spot in a sprint race (test event?). She was just really unlucky last time. Her odds of making the US team are very high.

Regarding Mislawchuk - there was a triathlon live video 3 years back about him, wilde and yee being the young gun up-and-comers. It is only by that impossible standard (comparing him to those two) that id argue he hasn’t performed well.

well, no. in the almost 3 years since the tokyo test event, which resulted in him being a medal (and gold) favorite, his results in WTS races (WCs are not the same thing with much weaker fields) are:

*2019 Lausanne Grand Final -- DNF
*2021 Tokyo -- 15th
*2021 Abu Dhabi (sprint) -- 6th
*2022 Yokohama -- DNF
*2022 Montreal (sprint) -- 25th

So in the last 3 years, he has finished a grand total of 1 WTS olympic distance race and finished 15th, DNFed in the other 2 WTS olympic distance races he started, and finished 6th and 25th in the 2 WTS sprints he started. That is not exactly killing it -- particular when canada went all in backing him for the gold. also of note is that he bizarrely decided to race long beach last year, a lowly americas cup race, a mere 8 days before tokyo. that was beyond idiotic and a clear sign of how screwed up canada was at the time.

 
That is more than a little harsh in my view. He tore his Achilles in the Tokyo race and he said on an interview after Montreal a few weeks ago that he'd picked up a bug in Huatulco (where he finished 2nd having won the race in 2021).

I'm not saying he's a world beater - the Tokyo test event that he won was missing a few stellar names - but I do think when he's 100% fit he'd be in my top 10 and capable of a few podiums on his day.