Team of 5 for Ireland in Olsztyn, Poland.

This race has been on the Europe Triathlon circuit for 8 years with a lake swim and fast, flat bike and run. For any aspiring race organisers it is a lesson in how little is needed to put on a good race including excellent live coverage of the event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B04bbbNTkXM. 

It is the first individual race on the World Triathlon calendar in 2025 for all 3 women with Elliott and McConnell having raced in the Abu Dhabi relay in February. O’Brien’s last WT race was the World University Championships in Poland last year finishing 36th of the 67 racing. With a race rating of 112, the average world ranking of the top 8 athletes, it is a standard European Cup type event, not one of the high level races close to World Cup standard. This doesn't mean easy being led off by Nora Gmur, 11 podiums in 77 starts and Franka Rust who had a top 20 in the World Series in Abu Dhabi this year. I will be looking to see if the run pace has improved since Abu Dhabi for Elliott and McConnell although that was over a supersprint distance. 

The men’s race had a rating of 143 on Wednesday but has since lost its top ranked athlete, Maxime Fluri, so in theory a weaker top end to the race than the women's event. The field is now led by Antoine Duval coming off a podium in the indoor world cup in Lievin where James Edgar finished 9th. Duval was 19th here last year though with the 4th fastest run. McCarron was a top 10 finisher in the Supertri E World Champs last month so should be bringing some nice form into the race. Oakey comes into the race with a better European Cup record than McCarron, and ahead on the Irish Rankings, but looking to close a 80 place gap on the world rankings.

Previous Weeks

There were a couple of DNS down in Australia a few weeks back, although possibly there may have been some admin issues in Australia, so hopefully no injuries or illness there and that all on this week's team are good to go this weekend in a race well worth checking out if available on Youtube on Saturday. 

Typically you do not see too many DNS on World Triathlon races as there are penalties for both the athlete and federation for any athlete who withdraws after the Monday startlists are produced and further implications for missing race briefings. Athletes are taken off any entry lists for the next 30 days and federations can lose a quota slot in subsequent races, although this can be avoided by use of jokers, essentially a get out of jail free card, Ireland gets 4 per year. 

Yokohama

Although they had a very fast run in Yokohama Chloe Mccombe and Aoibh Clarke never really got into the Para World Series race in Yokohama last weekend. They lost time in both swim and bike to the main competitors and finished 4th behind Francesca Tarantello, Anja Renner and Maggie Sandles in a race that went to expectations based on this year's performances. The pairing, still with only a few races together, have a month now to see if they can further build toward the European Championships and close some of the gaps.

Tom Williamson led out of the water in his PTS5 race and looked in contention for a really big result when coming off the bike with the leaders but couldn't hold the pace on the run on this occasion to finish 5th. This is still a good result but it looks like there is more there. It starts with putting yourself in position to win and he did that in Yokohama. 

Pamplona

Ralf Bodamer and Russell White were in the European Multisport Championships in Pamplona with Bodame in the Aquathlon and White in the Middle Distance Triathlon. Erin McConnell was 3rd in the women's elite race a few years back, behind Bianca Seregni who has gone on to multiple World Cup wins and 22nd in Paris, and there are always top athletes there. The eventual 1st and 2nd were clear from the swim with Bodamer in the second of 2 chasing packs separated by about 10 seconds over the 1k swim. He would probably be expected to be a little further up in the swim but with little mass start racing intensity for a while, certainly at this level, he can be expected to build on this for his next race in Austria in June.

White was 5th out of the water in his event and had a very good bike, allowing for the eventual winner putting a lot of time into everyone. On a brutal run course through the town White did lose time to eventually finish 8th. He will only get stronger on the run over this distance.

Caorle

Mathys Bocquet won his semi final in the Junior European cup in Italy a couple of weeks ago, comfortably jogging in to the finish with a group clear and safe with the work done, and went on to finish 19th in the final running 5.56 for the 1.9km. No doubt plenty learned by himself and coaches coming in from a recent training camp. Sean McMahon was 16th in his Semi Final with the top 7 qualifying for the final. He had a positive swim and very good bike but lacked the speed on the run for now. Really good to see them in these races. Once an athlete has the swim speed and the bike experience to be safe and can get into the races proper it is a real learning space for athlete and coaches. Unfortunately we did not get the TV coverage of previous years at this race.

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