World Cup season kicks off in New Zealand

The inaugural World Triathlon Cup Napier promises lots of early-season action as Olympic qualification surges into high gear. All eyes will be on home-country favourite Hayden Wilde this weekend – the Kiwi, currently ranked second in the world standings, took the bronze medal at the Tokyo Games and will arrive in Paris this summer as a medal threat.

Hayden Wilde’s post-Olympic 70.3 worlds prep begins with Noosa Triathlon

After a second consecutive year of missing out on the world title thanks to a disappointing Grand Final performance, Wilde rounded 2023 out in style with wins at the classic Noosa Triathlon and a 70.3 win in Melbourne, but now his focus is on short-course racing as he gears up for Paris. It’s hard to imagine that anyone will be able to top the Kiwi star this weekend, but you can imagine the likes of countrymen Tayler Reid and Dylan McCullough (fresh off a silver from the Oceania Triathlon Cup in Wanaka), Norway’s Casper Stornes, Aussies Luke Willian and Brandon Copeland and Great Britain’s strong contingent of Daniel Dixon, Samuel Dickinson, Hugo Milner and Ben Dijkstra will be in the mix for the podium.

You can see the full start list here.

Gina Sereno looks to spur on Olympic hopes

It’s hard to believe that American Gina Sereno (pictured above on her way to the win at last year’s Arena Games Montreal) is the eighth-ranked American in the Individual Olympic Qualification Ranking – she’s 56th overall. To have any hope of making the team she’ll have to really move up in the standings and get herself a starting spot at the qualifying race at WTCS Yokohama on May 11. She arrives in Napier as the top women’s seed after silver medals at the Pan Am Games and the World Triathlon Cup Vina del Mar last year.

There’s a lot of potential podium contenders in the race, including China’s Xinyu Lin, Hungary’s Zsanett Kuttor-Bragmayer, Australia’s Natalie Van Coevorden and Sophie Linn, Italy’s Ilaria Zane (fresh off the win at the Oceania Triathlon Cup in Wanaka), Belgian’s Valerie Barthelemy, Great Britain’s Olivia Mathias and Ecuador’s Elizabeth Bravo. There’s a large Kiwi contingent, too, including Ainsley Thorpe, Brea Roderick, Olivia Thornbury, Eva Goodisson Olivia Cummings, Hannah Howell and Amara Rae.

You can see the full start list here.

Olympic update: The road to Paris

Mixed Relay

There will also be a relay event on Sunday, which will provide countries another opportunity to qualify athletes for the Paris Games. The top-six ranked teams at the end of the qualification period will qualify two men and women for the Games – points earned during Sunday’s relay will help with that process.

Live coverage

The races will be covered on TriathlonLive.tv – unfortunately for those of us in North America the  race times aren’t the best. The women head off at 4 pm local time on Saturday (10 pm EST on Friday night), with the men starting at 6 pm (12 am Saturday morning).