With less than a week to go before the Paris Games, it’s hard not to be focussed on the pinnacle of draft-legal racing. This weekend will offer up a pair of exciting long-distance races as the T100 Triathlon World Tour makes its first European stop of 2024.
While the T100 series has signed many of the sport’s biggest names, to date the series has struggled to get all of those athletes to the same race at the same time. That’s not going to be much different in London, although we’re still going to see some big names vying for the podium.
Charles-Barclay looks for hometown win
She’s the reigning Ironman world champion and fresh off a huge win at Ironman France, but Lucy Charles-Barclay is also a contracted T100 athlete with a pair of runner-up finishes at T100 events this year. Earlier this year she was all in for the T100 Series, citing this race in London as a huge part of her 2024 season. Even with her about face and return to the Ironman fold, it’s pretty clear that the former national team swimmer would love to thrill the crowd with a wire-to-wire win similar to her big day in Kona last October.
It won’t be easy, though. Australia’s Ashleigh Gentle has a habit of spoiling home-town (or country) wins, having beaten Paula Findlay to the line at the PTO Canadian Open a few years ago in Edmonton (Findlay’s hometown), and running down Taylor Knibb at the PTO US Open later that summer. Then there’s Anne Haug, who is fresh off a world-best full-distance performance at Challenge Roth a few weeks ago.
Anne Haug shatters world best time and almost breaks 8 hours at Challenge Roth
Add to the list of potential champions (or podium finishers) the likes of Kat Matthews, Imogen Simmonds, Laura Philipp, Emma Pallant-Browne and Chelsea Sodaro.
Amongst the list of wildcards are a couple of folks to keep an eye on as well – Lisa Norden has some cherished London memories, having taken silver in a sprint at the Games in 2012, while Sophie Coldwell will move up in distance after being left off the British Olympic squad.
Long looks for elusive T100 win, Brownlee looks to reenact London glory
London isn’t Alistair Brownlee’s hometown, but one would imagine that the crowds on hand will be cheering heartily for the two-time Olympic gold medalist from Leeds, who has been battling injuries over the last year. Brownlee routinely puts himself in a position to win at every race he enters, but has struggled to finish things out over the last few years. How huge would it be to see it all come together in London this weekend?
It’ll require quite the day for the London and Rio gold medalist, though, as he takes on the likes of T100 leader Sam Long (who finished second at T100 Miami and Singapore, eighth in San Francisco), Singapore champ Youri Keulen, Roth (and T100 Miami) champion Magnus Ditlev, San Francisco runner-up Kyle Smith, Rudy Von Berg, 70.3 world champ Rico Bogen and many more. (You can see the full list below.)
Can we say Magnus Ditlev holds the full-distance world best?
The men’s field
Suffice it to say, there’s going to be some exciting racing on Saturday (the women’s race gets under way at 2 pm local) and Sunday (the men also start at 2 pm local). Those start times will be 9 am EST, 6 am PST for those in North America.
Click here to find the best way to watch the events live in your area.
We’ll be in London this weekend, so stay tuned for our coverage of the races.
The post Yes, the Olympics are coming … but first, T100 London! appeared first on Triathlon Magazine Canada.