Few athletes in triathlon have had a year like Anu Francis. After a perfect season in which she won every race she attended, the Australian signed off in the best way by claiming a maiden world title in Wollongong in one of the fiercest showdowns of the championships.
“I think it's been a long time coming, being world champion,” said Francis. “I made my international debut (in the PTS2 class) in 2022 and then came 3rd (at worlds) that year and then 2nd the next year. Last year, after not getting the result I wanted of being on the podium at Paris, I was so keen for the World Championships to get a bit of a comeback. Then, unfortunately, I ended up getting sick the day before and ended up in hospital and couldn't race.”
“I was so keen for that 3-2-1 trajectory. So I've had to wait a whole year for that. My physio literally said to me last year when I was in a hospital, ‘I reckon next year in Wollongong is your year’. And I was like, ‘right, bring it on’.”
“Being able to get that first title that I've worked so many years for and being able to do that with my coach there, who was able to come to his first World Champs, and being able to do it on home soil with all that crowd support was just absolutely like a dream. It was amazing.”
Much as it looks on paper that Francis’ season was a cakewalk with victory following victory, Wollongong was anything but. Indeed, she was not necessarily the favourite for gold as she lined up against Paralympic champion Hailey Danz (USA) and the 2024 world champion Allysa Seely (USA). What unfolded was to prove a real highlight of the week.
“I had to work so hard on the bike,” said Francis. “I think I came out of the swim something like a minute back, which honestly isn't the worst swim for me. I've definitely worked really hard on my swim and I think I did show that by coming out with Allysa (Seely), who's a very good swimmer. I'm still the newest swimmer out of everyone in the PTS2 class, so I think I've bridged that gap a bit. I used to be like four minutes down after the swim, so I think coming out about a minute behind Hailey was honestly not bad for me.”
Then came Francis’ chance to turn the tables. On a hilly, windy bike course that sapped the legs of all that attempted it, from the juniors to the elites in the WTCS Final, the PTS2 star made her move.
“It was such a fun bike course. It's definitely the most challenging bike course we've ever got on the Para circuit since I've been in it. Often, we're restricted to such flat and non-technical courses. So I think actually having those hills and a few sharp turns was so exciting. As a kind of cycling specialist I was stoked.”
“I really used the challenging bits and then I was just telling myself, ‘come on, you’re experienced with this. You trained through this. They're probably going to be struggling and showing up the hill so you can't do that. You need to be breaching the gap’.”
“And I remember coming into the last lap of the bike, I'd overtaken everyone except for Hailey, and my coach was on the downhill at the start of the lap and said, ‘You’ve got 40 seconds to Danz now. You need to work up the hill.' And then by the time I went around the corner, he was halfway down the hill. He screamed at me to go.”
A crushing effort finally brought her up to Danz’s wheel. Cognizant of how strong the American typically is in the final discipline, Francis did not want to start the run beside her and therefore pushed to gain what seconds she could. She was forthright when describing how it felt: “I killed myself on the last bike lap.”
A good T2 saw her set out onto the run with a slight lead. And then the bike course had its moment of payback.
“We came out and I started running and I was just like, ‘oh, no’. I went so hard on the bike and normally I try to recover a bit in that last bit, but there was no time. That was my one moment of doubt in the race. I was very process-driven and in my flow state for the whole race, apart from that first bit of the run. There I was like, ‘this is a disaster’.”
While Francis felt like a ship slowly taking on water, Danz drew alongside her. Of the pair, one had a history of closing out championships. That same athlete was perhaps the faster runner on paper too. But Francis would not throw in the towel. She locked onto Danz, refusing to cede an inch. And gradually, it dawned on her. She realised she could match the American’s pace.
“I could hear that, breathing-wise, she was struggling a fair bit, and I was actually managing to recover from the bike at that pace. She's such a gutsy racer and she put in so many surges because I was happy to stick with her. I was like, ‘look, if it comes to a Richelle Hill moment, I've practised my sprinting. I will take you down in a sprint. I'm confident that I can do that’. And I think she knew that.”
As Danz’s attacks lost their punch, Francis’ confidence grew. Confidence became belief and belief became an attack and suddenly, on the uphill section, she was away. For a moment, she thought Danz had come back at her. Going up the hill, she could scarcely believe how strong the American had abruptly become. “It turns out it was a guy from another class!”
Francis had broken the Paralympic champion, a legend of the PTS2 class, and now the gold would be hers.
“It was nice to have the blue carpet to myself and to be able to really soak that up. So often, especially in PTS2, we are time-trialing, because our disabilities are that more severe and some of us are more advantaged on the swim, bike or run and more disadvantaged than others in different parts. Obviously my bike was definitely that kind of effort, but I think the run was the first time I've actually raced with someone. Hailey even came up after and was like, ‘that was such a fun run’. And it felt like racing. It felt exciting.”
Francis has come a long way from her first moves into triathlon. She only started to swim in 2020 as a talent identification search brought her into the sport from rowing. “I think it's only honestly started to click this year,” was her assessment of the first discipline. Nevertheless, it has been a long journey to the top.
“I've had the same coach the whole way through, but I think we've just refined the way that we work together. He's a licensed physiologist, which is awesome because he works with people with disabilities every day. But he obviously never worked with anyone with my condition (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Dopa-Responsive Dystonia) because it's like a one in a million. And I've only been diagnosed since my classification which was where I actually found out that I had this other diagnosis.”
“So we've kind of learned together because there's no guidelines on how someone with my condition should actually train and what our capacity is and what works and what doesn't. We've had to trial-and-error everything, kind of science-based and sometimes with just absolute wild guesses. Refining that has been really, really cool and things have started clicking. Getting my medication right has been huge too.”
“Another big thing is the support from AusTri. We've got such an athlete-centred team. They work with us, they'll fight for us, they'll let us push back on their decisions and listen to what we have to say. And it's so collaborative. As a result of that, we had a team carer come with us for the first time as the Para team to actually do things like help me to travel, because I was really struggling to travel independently. That’s been a huge help. The stress has been taken off of me having to try and manage everything single-handedly and getting injured all the time.”
The product of these advances behind the scenes has been clear to see on the race course. In addition to her Wollongong triumph, Francis went unbeaten in 2025, taking home gold at the Oceania Championships as well as multiple World Para Series wins. In retrospect, each win seemed like a stepping stone for her grand finale.
Take the Oceania Championships. Location changes, a late downpour and wretched conditions meant the race became a duathlon. “We ended up in, I think it was, 40 degrees (Celsius) and 100% humidity doing a duathlon… So that was when our season started and I think it was quite nice to just go, right, if we can get through that, we can actually get through anything.”
A win at the World Para Series in Devonport followed. Her next victory, at the World Para Series in Yokohama, however, could hardly have been more different. In torrential weather in Japan, Francis nonetheless emerged on top once more.
“I think that was a good way to reflect on how far I come racing in the rain. From crashing at Devonport a couple of years ago and getting concussion and breaking my bike in my first DNF, the confidence that I had racing in Japan in the wet was a pretty good check-in point. I knew I could handle a duathlon, I could handle the heat, I could handle the rain.”
Gold in Montreal represented her final outing before Wollongong. “That was just such a cool course. It was the first time I led the swim! I made a bit of a mistake going around the buoys and followed someone, and then I had to go back out. I lost the pack, but I managed to stick with the leaders to halfway and, for me, that was amazing. And then I managed to stay only like 30 seconds behind them. So I think that kind of really solidified my confidence. That was a good way to go, ‘right, cool, I can now handle the swim.”
“Going into worlds, a lot of people here were kind of saying how I was undefeated so far this season, but I didn't let myself believe that I'd go fully undefeated. I raced Allysa in Montreal and I knew I could be up at her level. With Danz we had no idea. She hadn’t raced since Paris and last season she was incredible; in Paris her form was just insane.”
At the end of the day, however, it was Francis that made it over the line first. Both Americans will no doubt be ready to hunt her down in 2026. But as Francis looked to next year, she considered the upcoming campaign with relish.
“Bring it on.”
