Starting in the World Triathlon Championship Series is a high point in the careers of many triathletes. Excluding the Paris Olympic Games, 122 men and 104 women took to the start line in the Series this year, putting those that did so in a select club. However, making it onto a WTCS podium is another matter altogether.
Only ten men and seven women went on to win a medal in the Series this season. Of that group, there were a mere four men and four women to win more than one WTCS medal. Moreover, the medals were concentrated into the hands of a few national federations. In the women’s Series, four national federations ended the year with medals to tout. On the men’s side, only eight federations saw one of their athletes make the podium.
To cast the net even further, over the past three years only six national federations have come away with women’s medals. Meanwhile, since the start of 2022, twelve countries have managed to win medals in the men’s Series. Read on to find out which countries have sat at the top of the pile for the past few seasons and what nuggets of information can be extracted from the numbers.
The 2024 WTCS medallists:
As a reminder, let’s start by recounting the most recent batch of medallists.
Women
- Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) 3 golds
- Lisa Tertsch (GER) 1 gold 2 silvers
- Leonie Periault (FRA) 1 gold
- Beth Potter (GBR) 2 silvers 2 bronzes
- Taylor Knibb (USA) 1 silver
- Emma Lombardi (FRA) 2 bronzes
- Georgia Taylor-Brown (GBR) 1 bronze
To a large degree, 2024 was a season of stasis in the women’s Series with no new names making it onto the podium. Tertsch and Periault were the only first-time winners of the group as the general trend was previous medallists utilising their experience to sweep up the available medals. One exception came from outside the Series as Julie Derron (SUI) claimed Olympic silver despite never having won a medal in the WTCS.
Men
- Alex Yee (GBR) 2 golds 1 bronze
- Matthew Hauser (AUS) 1 gold 1 silver
- Hayden Wilde (NZL) 1 gold 1 silver
- Morgan Pearson (USA) 1 gold
- Léo Bergere (FRA) 2 silvers
- Vasco Vilaca (POR) 1 silver
- Luke Willian (AUS) 1 bronze
- Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) 1 bronze
- Csongor Lehmann (HUN) 1 bronze
- Pierre Le Corre (FRA) 1 bronze
On the men’s side, there were both more medallists and more maiden medallists. Willian, Hidalgo and Lehmann represented the three new faces on the podium. Willian’s medal in Yokohama made him part of the only instance in which a country won two medals in the same men’s race; Australia also took the silver medal that day through Hauser. In the women’s Series, the stops in Yokohama (Periault and Lombardi), Weihai (Potter and Taylor-Brown) and Torremolinos (Beaugrand and Lombardi) saw two women of the same national federation make the podium together. The men’s Series also saw a new victor through Pearson.
WTCS medals won 2022 to 2024 by National Federation:
If we cast our eye further back, new details come to life. In particular, we see two very different medal trends on the national level between the men’s and women’s Series.
Women: 6 countries
- GBR 23 medals Gold: 9 Silver: 8 Bronze: 6
- FRA 17 medals Gold: 7 Silver: 7 Bronze: 3
- BER 4 medals Gold: 3 Bronze: 1
- GER 8 medals Gold: 1 Silver: 2 Bronze: 5
- USA 7 medals Silver: 2 Bronze: 5
- MEX 1 medal Silver: 1
The past three years have been marked by a period of dominance by four countries: Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States of America. In that time, this quartet have gobbled up all but five of the available WTCS medals; the individual successes of Flora Duffy (BER) and Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal (MEX) have been the only instances in which the Big Four have been denied.
Britain and Germany tie with the most individual medallists (four), while France and the United States have had three medallists apiece. The image here is thus of an oligopoly at the top of the women’s Series with the leading national federations clearly developing multiple medal threats.
Men: 12 countries
- GBR 11 medals Gold: 8 Silver: 1 Bronze: 2
- NZL 10 medals Gold: 5 Silver: 4 Bronze: 1
- FRA 14 medals Gold: 4 Silver: 4 Bronze: 6
- AUS 6 medals Gold: 2 Silver: 3 Bronze: 1
- POR 5 medals Silver: 4 Bronze: 1
- USA 2 medals Gold: 1 Silver: 1
- BRA 4 medals Silver: 1 Bronze: 3
- ESP 2 medals Silver: 1 Bronze: 1
- GER 2 medals Silver: 1 Bronze: 1
- BEL 2 medals Bronze: 2
- HUN 1 medal Bronze: 1
- MAR 1 medal Bronze: 1
The recent history of men’s WTCS medals tells a slightly different story. There have been twice as many national federations to make the men’s podium since the start of 2022, indicating greater depth and variety across races. Perhaps the more significant detail, though, is how many medallists these countries have had.
New Zealand (Hayden Wilde), Portugal (Vasco Vilaca), USA (Morgan Pearson), Belgium (Jelle Geens), Hungary (Csongor Lehmann) and Morocco (Jawad Abdelmoula) have had their medals won by a single athlete. Half of the remaining federations have therefore had multiple medallists, but if we dig into these medallists we see that one country stands out.
France is the only national federation with more than two male medallists in the 2022 to 2024 era; four men have done so. All four of those men have won WTCS races in the period too, an achievement unmatched by any other male or female cohort. In addition, it is the only federation in which the second male medallist has won more than one WTCS medal in the past three years. As such, with the exception of France, the story of the recent men’s WTCS has been one of high turnover in medallists and individuals shouldering their country’s hopes alone.
This is not to diminish the value of a single threat to the podium. Wilde and Yee have each claimed ten medals apiece since the start of 2022, highlighting just how important a golden goose can be. Indeed, in recent times both have won more gold medals than all of France’s four gold medallists combined. On the other hand, France’s greater depth has seen them win the most men’s WTCS medals of any federation since the start of 2022.
When we look to next year, then, both Series will have a central question to follow. Can any national federation break into the oligopoly at the top of the women’s standings? And can any federation join France with multiple consistent medal threats in the men’s WTCS?
