Three athletes round the final corner onto Pont Alexandre III nipping at one another’s heels. The crowd blurs. Two of the racers have won individual world titles before. They know all about crossing the line first. Beth Potter and Taylor Knibb drive for glory. But it is Laura Lindemann that has the unanswerable, devastating final burst. Twice in the past two years, Lindemann has anchored Germany to the world title in the relay event. No one will touch her now.

The roars from Paris still echo and Germany still remembers the golden glow of that victory on the Seine. Yet time never stands still. A new chapter is ready to begin. Henry Graf was part of the German team that defended their world title in 2024 and now, on the dawn of a new Olympic cycle, he will look to go from young outsider to lynchpin of the team.

We start with the obvious. What has made Germany so good in the Mixed Team Relay in recent times?  “To be honest, I was wondering about that myself,” confessed Graf. “I know in the individual races we have a lot of Germans and good athletes, but you could still say, in the individual, there are probably still some nations ahead of the Germans.” More often than not, though, the German team has combined to be more than the sum of its parts.

“You have the French team that sometimes doesn't race in the relay seriously, which is kind of sad.” (For instance, France did not attend the 2023 or 2024 World Championships). “I think in a world championship you want to have all the big nations there. I think we, as a German team, always said before the Olympics that every relay was an opportunity to see how tactics can work or how well athletes go in the order. And I think, in the end, the relay also has a lot of changes and can be quite dramatic, so you also always need the right amount of luck.”

The interplay between luck and preparation can be nebulous. Equally, there may be a meaningful connection between the two. France entered the Games relay with an Olympic champion, an Olympic bronze medallist and two individual 4^th place finishers. However a crash in the opening leg saw them come home in 4^th place.

“It's a bad thing to happen in such a big race and it can always happen even if you do every relay before,” said Graf. “But I think if you really want to win the big one, you want to gain as much experience as you can.” It may also be worth mentioning that Germany won the Olympic Mixed Team Relay Test Event a year earlier. France finished 4^th that day too.

What happened in 2024 is confined to the past now, though. When it comes to the German team, Graf is shaping up to be the future. Last season, he turned a corner by taking three Continental Cup wins, a best ever World Cup result (4^th place in Rome), and 5^th place finishes at the European Championships and World U23 Championships.

“I moved to Freiburg in the south of Germany where we have a good group. The two years before – in 2022 and 2023 – I had a lot of issues with injuries so I missed quite a lot of bigger races. At the end of the 2023 season I had to drop out of the World U23 Championships in Pontevedra because of an injury in my foot. I think I wasn't running even at the end of January 2024 so we decided to be really careful with my running last year. In training I am doing three runs a week and I wasn't doing more than 35 to 40 kilometres in total and this worked surprisingly well for me.”

“After some months, I could notice the more consistent running training was paying off, but I didn't think it would go that well with those level of kilometres because that you always see the other guys on Instagram or Strava and they really made really big sessions and you are like, ‘how am I going to keep up with those guys running half of what they are doing’. What I learned was to focus on your own journey or where you are and to sometimes step back and then you can go forward again.”

One of the highlights of his season came in Hamburg where, alongside being part of the world title-winning German relay, he made his WTCS debut, finishing a creditable 15^th.

“My debut was really special for me, and then to get a chance to go into the relay and then even win the world title was an amazing weekend for me. In the WTCS, every discipline was just like another level. I mainly raced Continental Cups before in the last year and I think especially on the bike was just like a really, really tough place from start to finish. Everyone has the watts and is also willing to push on the bike. I think maybe in the European Cup, there are also a lot of people who are more nervous of pushing hard on the bike because they worry about their run.”

Graf also acknowledged that he did not have his best swim in Hamburg. “It’s also different when the whole field is swimming faster and it’s all closer together.” Across the board, he sees room for improvement as he eyes climbing further up the pecking order.

At the same time, as things stand, the situation is promising. Following an injury-free winter, he will be making his second Series appearance in Abu Dhabi in the coming weeks where he will look to gain more experience. Intriguingly, Abu Dhabi will also host a World Mixed Relay Series event, giving the sport a potential first look at the Olympic champions.

“The (German) federation will concentrate more on the younger generation to build them up for LA (in 2028) but I would like to give it another shot and be out there.” Moreover, with the new Olympic cycle the relay order will change, with the men taking the last leg. Graf, though, laughed away the notion of replicating Lindemann’s relay heroics from 2023 and 2024 anytime soon. “In a few years, it might be different.”

“We also have Tim Hellwig who is great at the end and there will be other guys.” Nevertheless, since his junior days Graf has been highly prized within the circles of German triathlon and, as he delivers on his promise, he may prove a key cog in the relay before long. The roars of Paris might be fading, but Germany’s new generation are coming. And they have no plans to relinquish their relay supremacy.