How to qualify for the Olympics. Part 1

Counting events include World Triathlon Championship Series and Finals, World Cup, Continental Championships and Olympic Test Event. This will be the first of a series of opinion pieces on the athletes who were towards the lower end of the rankings who qualified slots for their nations and how they achieved their scores.

Petra Kurikova was the last qualifier in 58th place on the Olympic Rankings. Among the top 58 the average age is 30 with only 8 athletes 25 or younger. There was a broadly similar age profile in the men's list with an average age of 29 among the 81 places to the last quota slot. The points required was significantly lower for the men at 1690 or slightly better than 12 world cup sprint finishes of 14th.

With a range of races to choose from and 2 distinct levels separating the majority, World Triathlon Championship Series and World Cup, it is interesting to look at which events athletes compete in and how they accumulate their points. There will be national priorities, link ups with relay competitions and other scenarios that influence event choice and one of those will be simply a desire to race at the highest level whenever possible. 

Elizabeth Bravo is an athlete whose name probably doesn't ring many bells among World Series TV viewers and for good reason. She has only ever competed in 8 World Series races and 1 World Championship in a career going back to 2005. Paris however will be her 4th Olympic Games. Go back through the archives and her name will appear invariably in the Top 100 of the World Rankings every year. Bravo is an example of an athlete who knows what they are good at and rarely goes off piste. Currently world number 35 she could have gained an entry in many more World Triathlon Series races over the years but the analysis would say not to take them.

Over the course of her career Bravo has 1 top 20 placing in a world series race and only 1 other top 40. She comes out of the swim towards the back and never really gets into the races. At World Cups though she is a prolific Top 20 athlete with a strike rate of 64% from over 50 starts. Indeed she has finished in the Top 10 in over 30% of her world cup races. 

Over the course of the Paris qualification window she competed in 15 World Cups and 2 Americas Continental Championships. Again she delivered in line with her career numbers with 6 top 10s from the 15 World Cups and only being out of the Top 20 on 4 occasions.  And she is not just scoring in South America but has counting scores in China, Spain, New Zealand and Czechia.

At World Cup level Bravo consistently swims mid pack, bikes well, and runs well. Her World Triathlon bio indicates a 1500m swim time of 19.16 and 35 minute 10km pace although these may be old. It may not be a profile generates a lot of TV time, certainly not in the English speaking media, but this is a piece about qualification and this is number 4 for Elizabeth Bravo. As a recipe for consistent qualification it is an exceptional model to follow. Well planned and great execution.

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