USA Triathlon Olympic team drama continues with WTCS Cagliari substitution
USA Triathlon switches out start list as Olympic selection decision looms

With only one athlete who has met the selection standard for it’s women’s Olympic team (Taylor Knibb), USA Triathlon is setting up for a tough choice when it comes to naming its team for the Paris Olympics this summer. There are five American women with very realistic Olympic aspirations, including 2016 gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen, Tokyo silver (mixed relay) and bronze (individual) medalist Katie Zaferes (pictured above at last year’s WTCS Cagliari race), Taylor Spivey (currently ranked third in the Olympic Qualification Ranking), Tokyo Olympian Summer Rappaport  and Kirsten Kasper.
Olympic gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen returns to triathlon for run at Paris Games
The final American automatic qualification opportunity is at the World Triathlon Championship Series Yokohama race – a podium finish there will automatically qualify an athlete for the team. If there are still positions available after the race in Yokohama, they will be decided through a committee.
That’s likely the reason why USA Triathlon decided to substitute Zaferes for Jorgensen for the final WTCS event before the Olympic qualifying window closes in Cagliari. Anticipating having to make a tough decision, officials are likely hoping to be able to compare the results at the highest level of competition.

“Did you notice my name disappear from the Cagliari start list?” Jorgensen wrote in an Instagram post yesterday. “This was not by choice. I asked USAT to race Cagliari and was in the top 5 USA and top 25 in the world. USAT has the right to take out one person and put in a different person (called a substitution). They have discretion and used it. If sport is anything, it’s unpredictable. To be successful you must adapt. Control the controllables and adapt and execute the uncontrollables. I’ve come a long way in a year and I’m excited to race in Yokohama on May 11th.”
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More drama
All this just adds more drama to the selection process. Zaferes is no stranger to all this, either. In 2021 she was named to the Tokyo team “via discretion by USA Triathlon’s Games Athlete Selection Committee, taking into account an athlete’s full resume of results since the start of the Olympic Qualification Period.” Zaferes had been building back to fitness after taking time off in April of that year after the unexpected death of her father.
She’s been steadily building back to the form that saw her win a world championship and the two Olympic medals after giving birth to son Kimble in July, 2022.
Jorgensen decided to make a run for the Olympics after giving birth to her second child in October, 2022.
While Jorgensen has struggled at WTCS events, she enjoyed an impressive run at World Cup events last year, winning four. One of those wins came after Zaferes was disqualified at the World Triathlon Cup Vina Del Mar – Zaferes crossed the line first, but was disqualified with four others for running through the finish line instead of transition on part of the run course. (See below.)
It all makes for even more excitement through the month of May as athletes clamour for their chance to race in Paris in July and August.