With the Olympic Qualification period having restarted on 1 May and the 2021 calendar for the top-tier series set, the new-look 2021 World Triathlon Championship Series remains the pinnacle of the sport as the very best once again begin the chase to be crowned the World Triathlon Champion in a season like no other.
This year’s series will begin in Yokohama and take place in five iconic locations over Standard and Sprint distances and a brand-new, two-day qualification format. Each race of the Series on the way to the annual Championship Finals - plus the Olympic Games - will award up to 1000 ranking points.
With the World Triathlon Championship Finals Edmonton worth 25% more points, the five best results of a possible six will be taken to decide who are the 2021 World Triathlon Champions.
Points from the second half of the year’s re-scheduled WTCS Bermuda and WTCS Abu Dhabi will all count towards the 2022 rankings.
The new-look and name isn’t the only major news for 2021.This year will see the brand-new qualifier format taking place in Montreal and Bermuda, while Hamburg celebrates two decades of welcoming the world’s greatest triathletes, having made its debut as host on the circuit at the top level in 2002.
“After the past twelve months we are ready, the athletes are ready and our host cities are ready to once again put on the greatest show in the triathlon world in the form of the new-look World Triathlon Championship Series,” said World Triathlon President Marisol Casado.
“The biggest names in the world deserve these great stages to compete on and the addition of a new format will make for an incredibly exciting Championship Series, with the race to become the 2021 World Champions coming to a spectacular conclusion in Edmonton.”
WTCS Yokohama returns to host the circuit for the eleventh time, the first of two standard-distance WTCS events within the Olympic qualification period, with June seeing the world’s best head to a new-look WTCS Leeds course that now begins and ends at Roundhay Park and both weekends hosting the first World Triathlon Para Series action of the year.
The ever-popular World Triathlon Championship Series Hamburg is due to return to its famous sprint-distance, city-centre venue in July, before the action pauses for the eagerly anticipated Tokyo Olympic Games at the end of the month.
Focus then switches to Canada in August, when WTCS Montreal will see the first introduction of the exciting qualification format across two days. Two 30-athlete super-sprint races will each qualify 10 through to the final, the remaining 40 going into a repechage from which the top ten will also progress. The next day’s finals are then held across three super-sprint stages, with the final ten eliminated at the end of stages one and two, the third stage deciding the winners.
The World Triathlon Championship Finals Edmonton will then see the men’s and women’s world champions crowned over the standard distance course in Hawrelak Park, and the city whose rich World Triathlon history reaches back more than 20 years.
WTCS Bermuda hosts the first standalone World Triathlon Sprint Championships for Age-Group and the Mixed Relay World Championships in October. The same qualification format as in Montreal will decide the elite racing, with the standalone Mixed Relay World Championships taking place outside of Hamburg for the first time since 2013.
With WTCS Abu Dhabi set to round out the season in style with the postponed sprint-distance race from March and Mixed Relay, all points earned in Bermuda and Abu Dhabi will now count towards the 2022 rankings.
Here’s how this year’s World Triathlon Championship Series calendar looks:
15 May
World Triathlon Championship Series Yokohama
5-6 June
AJ Bell World Triathlon Championship Series Leeds
10-11 July
World Triathlon Championship Series Hamburg
14-15 August
Groupe Copley World Triathlon Championship Series Montreal
21-22 August
World Triathlon Championship Finals Edmonton
16-17 Oct
World Triathlon Sprint & Relay Championships Bermuda
5-6 Nov
World Triathlon Championship Series Abu Dhabi
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