The final triathlon at the Paris Olympics is the mixed relay. Sadly Canada won’t be there.
Canada narrowly missed qualifying enough athletes to compete in the mixed relay in Paris
Photo by:
Nick Iwanyshyn
The Canadian team enjoyed an excellent day of racing here in Paris last Wednesday for the individual racing. Tyler Mislawchuk had his best of three Olympic races with a ninth-place finish, while first-time Olympians Charles Paquet and Emy Legault (pictured above) finished 13th and 35th. (Just getting to the finish line in one piece considering the current and the slick roads the women faced was an achievement.)
20 more seconds. Tyler Mislawchuk puts it all on the line in Paris
Unfortunately, though, those athletes won’t enjoy a second race opportunity here in Paris because the Canadian team didn’t qualify for the mixed relay. Had Canada’s Dominika Jamnicky managed to make it to Paris, Canada would have been able to compete in the mixed relay, but she missed the final spot by just a few points, leaving Canada one athlete short.
Triathletes can qualify for the Games in two different ways – either as individuals or through the mixed relay. If a country qualifies a team for the Olympics, they automatically get two men’s and two women’s spots. The mixed relay qualification was a complicated process. The host country, France, automatically got a spot. The 2022 and 2023 mixed relay world champions (the 2022 spot rolled down to Great Britain because France won, while Germany won in 2023) each earned a spot, too. The six highest ranked countries in the World Triathlon mixed relay rankings on March 25, 2024, got spots. Then there were two spots available through the Mixed Relay Olympic Qualification Event held in Huatulco, Mexico in May. All 11 of those teams would have guaranteed themselves four spots at the Olympics (two men and two women).
For much of the lead up to the Tokyo Games, Triathlon Canada emphasized relay qualification for the national program. While Mislawchuk and Joanna Brown had basically met the qualifying criteria for the Tokyo Games, they flew to Lisbon, Portugal to compete in the Mixed Relay Qualification Event to try and guarantee the country their four spots and a chance to race the mixed relay. In the end, though, they didn’t race – Brown got sick and ended up in hospital, and some of the other athletes chose not to race in order to focus on the individual races the next day. (This is no knock on those athletes – the shortened Olympic qualifying process wreaked havoc on team selection, putting the athletes in a no-win situation. You can read the details in the story below.)
Did Triathlon Canada give up on an Olympic relay team? Amelie Kretz says yes
For this Olympic cycle, Triathlon Canada high performance director Phil Dunne said the association made a strategic decision to have the athletes pursue individual qualification, leaving the mixed relay qualifying as a development (next-generation) opportunity.
“It’s not logical for your best athletes to be racing individual and mixed relay,” Dunne said, pointing out that many of the countries that had earned the mixed relay spots had incredibly deep programs.
“The Next Gen athletes also get exposure to that level of competition,” Dunne continued.
Despite that emphasis, Canada still appeared to have a good chance of qualifying a team here in Paris. Paquet had an incredible build through the early season, Mislawchuk was rounding into excellent form and would easily qualify. On the women’s side, while Amelie Kretz’s Olympic qualification run stalled last year due to a back injury, Legault and Jamnicky appeared on track to earn enough points to make it to Paris as individuals. Any country with two men and two women qualifiers would be eligible to compete in the mixed relay.
Mixed Relay Olympic Qualification Event
Things even looked better at the race in Huatulco, where Brock Hoel finished the first leg of the race in the lead. As she ran down to the water to start her leg, rising Canadian star Sophia Howell inadvertently entered the water through the swim exit, which meant the team would be disqualified. The team kept going, though, hoping that an appeal would overturn the DQ. Howell would hand off to Mathis Beaulieau, who would manage to keep Canada in the mix by staying within seconds of Norway’s Casper Stornes and almost a minute ahead of the Netherlands’ Richard Murray, who was in third.
In the final leg, though, Solveig Lovseth powered away from Canada’s Desirae Ridenour, who would eventually be caught by Hungary’s Zsanett Kuttor-Bragmayer and the Netherland’s Rachel Klamer. Klamer would run her team to second and the final Olympic spot (and the automatic two men’s and two women’s spots for the Olympics).
Which left things to Jamnicky, who would make a dramatic final push to try and earn her qualifying spot for Paris, competing on five different continents over a seven-week period and narrowly missing the last qualifying spot.
The end result is Canada won’t be fielding a team here in Paris tomorrow morning.
It’s always easy to second guess a strategy after the fact, but based on available funding, it’s easy to understand why Canada would prioritize one component of the program. The incredible results and development we’ve seen from Paquet this year, along with Mislawchuk’s impressive race last Wednesday, are positive signs that the program is moving in the right direction.
Hopefully things will work out so we’ll see a Canadian mixed relay team compete in Los Angeles in four years.