When the WTCS started last year, the triathlon world was a simpler place. Cassandre Beaugrand reigned supreme over the sport and her presence on a WTCS start line all but guaranteed a French gold medal. How things have changed.
We enter a 2026 campaign in which Beaugrand is no longer at the top, with Lisa Tertsch the new world champion. Moreover, Beaugrand’s primacy among her own national team came under threat last year as Leonie Periault first beat her to the gold in Hamburg and then took 2nd place overall in the Series. Beaugrand, however, was still one of three women to win two WTCS gold medals in 2025, the other two being Tertsch and 2023 world champion Beth Potter.
Entering the 2026 season, then, we do not have the same certainty we thought we had previously. But in its place we have the promise of something far more unpredictable and explosive. Before it all kicks off, find out which of the top names in women’s triathlon will tackle the season opener at the brand-new stop in Samarkand below.
Who’s there?
Lisa Tertsch (GER) is back and on the one hand she has nothing to prove. She is the world champion, a title that sits on her mantlepiece alongside the relay gold medal she won at Paris 2024. She has done what anyone sets out to do in the sport.
On the other hand, Tertsch has everything to prove. Racing as the world champion, with all the pressure and attention that entails, will be a very different proposition to anything she has faced hitherto. And as everyone in the music industry knows, making a great second album is always harder than a first. We will soon find out what kind of music Tertsch is bringing to this year’s Series.
She will be joined on the German team by WTCS medallists Tanja Neubert, Nina Eim – fresh off her win at the Lanzarote World Cup - and Annika Koch. Moreover, Samarkand will mark the WTCS return of Laura Lindemann. With World Cup medallist Franka Rust and former World U23 champion Selina Klamt also on the start list, this is a German team overflowing with talent. Perhaps they may even sweep the podium as they did at last year’s season opener.
Nevertheless, the German contingent will have to find a way past the likes of Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) and Leonie Periault (FRA). As already mentioned, for those that may have forgotten Beaugrand was Tertsch’s predecessor as world champion. And she won the individual Olympic gold in 2024. So, you know, she’s quite good at this triathlon business.
But for a bad day out at the 2025 WTCS Final, Beaugrand may have won last year’s world title too, in which case we would not enter the new campaign with anywhere near the same sense of upheaval.
Periault, similarly, will be worth keeping an eye on after logging a sensational time of 1:09:25 at the Berlin half marathon.
Beth Potter (GBR), the 2023 world champion, heads up a large British team with multiple potential race winners. Potter was back to her best in 2025, triumphing at WTCS races for the first time since her world title-winning campaign. Like Beaugrand, she also had the chance to claim the world title and one sub-optimal day cannot cloud what was otherwise a brilliant year.
Also starting will be WTCS medallists Olivia Mathias (GBR) and Kate Waugh (GBR), as well as World Cup winners Sian Rainsley (GBR) and Tilly Anema (GBR) and World Cup medallist Jess Fullagar (GBR).
Anema and Fullagar raced at the Samarkand World Cup last year, engineering a breakaway. Although incidents on the bike denied them medals, that experience could come in handy. Both also finished well at the 2025 WTCS Final, while Fullagar recently won a silver medal on her T100 debut. As such, their stocks are definitely rising.
One major plot point, meanwhile, is the return for Georgia Taylor-Brown (GBR) to the Series. Her last standard distance WTCS race was the 2024 Series Final but the Olympic medallist has signalled that she is ready to dive back fully into the Series. A recent medal in Lanzarote was a promising step forward on her road back.
The American women’s team will be five-strong. Taylor Spivey leads the way, fresh off her overall 4th place finish last year, and will be joined by Gwen Jorgensen, Danielle Orie, Erica Ackerlund and Kirsten Kapser. With Olympic qualification for LA 2028 opening in less than two months, the intra-American race will rapidly acquire a new dimension.
Last year’s double WTCS medallist Bianca Seregni (ITA) will also be starting in Samarkand. Seregni gave the field a shock to the system by dropping a monstrous swim split to open WTCS Abu Dhabi last time round. If she is on song, we will be able to count on one hand the number of women to arrive with her into T1. Italy will also send Ilaria Zane and Verena Steinhauser to the season opener.
World Winter Triathlon medallist Zuzana Michalickova and World Junior Championships medallist Diana Dunajska make up two-thirds of the Slovakian team set to start in Samarkand. They will be joined by Romana Gajdošová. A Dutch trio of Robin Dreijling, Barbara De Koning and Babette Rosman will likewise be racing.
South Korea has one of the larger cohorts on the start list. Newly crowned Asian U23 champion Gayeon Park heads up the team of four, with JI Yeon Kim, Hye Rang Kim and Hye Rim Jeong hoping to impress.
World Cup winners Valentina Riasova (AIN) and Diana Isakova (AIN) will be in Samarkand. Isakova notably won the Samarkand World Cup last year and comes into this race on the back of a win at the Haikou World Cup.
Spain have selected Miriam Casillas Garcia and Marta Pintanel Raymundo, who ended 2025 sharing a World Cup podium in Florianopolis; Japan will send Mako Hiraizumi Kanae Takenaka; and Tereza Zimovjanova and Heidi Juránková will be racing under Czech colours.
Among the solo acts, WTCS Yokohama winner Jeanne Lehair (LUX) is the standout name. Another Yokohama medallist, Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal (MEX), will also be racing. One interesting point to note is that Tapia is now training with Beaugrand in the PTC group. Having tested herself day in, day out against the Olympic champion, she could be on the cusp of her next breakthrough.
World Cup winners Jolien Vermeylen (BEL), Maria Carolina Velasquez Soto (COL) and Tilda Månsson (SWE) will be the lone athletes representing their countries, as will Márta Kropkó (HUN) who made the breakaway with Anema and Fullagar in Samarkand last year.
Maria Tomé (POR), Vittoria Lopes (BRA), Barbara Riveros (CHI), Therese Feuersinger (AUT), Erica Hawley (BER) and Grete Maria Savitsch (EST) complete the start list.
Who’s not there?
WTCS medallist Emma Lombardi (FRA) will not be starting in Samarkand while two other women from last year’s overall top-20 will open their season elsewhere; they are Anna Godoy Contreras (ESP), who finished 12th overall, and Djenyfer Arnold (BRA), who finished 19th. Their absences are balanced out, however, by the returns of Taylor-Brown, Lindemann and T100 world champion Waugh.
All the WTCS action in Samarkand will be broadcast live on TriathlonLive on Saturday 25th April, and with the surfeit of talent on the men’s and women’s start lists, you will not want to miss a moment. View the full start lists here.