France Qualifies for 2028 LA Olympics With Mixed Relay Win in Hamburg
The first Olympic qualifying slots for the LA Games were up for grabs today at the World Triathlon Mixed Relay World Championships in Hamburg, and France took full advantage, guaranteeing themselves at least two men and two women on the start line for the first medal sport at the ’28 Games. As is the norm both for any mixed relay, but especially one in Hamburg, which has been a regular host of this world championship, the day was full of both excitement and drama.
Here’s a photo recap of the day’s action:
The big news on the drama front came in the first leg of the race when Australia’s Richelle Hill pulled out on the bike, leaving one of the major favourites for the win suddenly out of the picture. (Hill reportedly felt sick and had to pull out early on in the bike – it’s unclear at this point of something happened during the swim.)
Heading into the third leg there were five teams in the mix – France, Hungary, Great Britain, United States and Germany. It was here that more drama ensued – during the ride it was rumoured that Germany’s Franka Rust had a flat tire, but it turns out she had just pushed too hard to try and catch the group heading into the water and simply couldn’t stay with the first four.
| Pos | Team | Total Time | Leg 1 | Leg 2 | Leg 3 | Leg 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 1:18:37 | 20:12 | 18:39 | 20:36 | 19:10 |
| 2 | Hungary | 1:18:41 | 20:24 | 18:41 | 20:21 | 19:15 |
| 3 | Great Britain | 1:18:50 | 20:14 | 18:36 | 20:35 | 19:25 |
| 4 | United States | 1:19:03 | 20:21 | 18:32 | 20:33 | 19:37 |
| 5 | Germany | 1:19:55 | 20:11 | 18:48 | 21:05 | 19:51 |
| 6 | Portugal | 1:20:19 | 20:35 | 18:43 | 21:29 | 19:32 |
| 7 | Spain | 1:20:51 | 20:34 | 18:45 | 21:29 | 20:03 |
| 8 | New Zealand | 1:20:57 | 21:07 | 19:10 | 21:29 | 19:11 |
| 9 | Canada | 1:21:10 | 20:52 | 19:16 | 21:38 | 19:24 |
| 10 | Poland | 1:21:28 | 20:22 | 19:13 | 22:30 | 19:23 |
| 11 | Italy | 1:21:32 | 20:41 | 19:30 | 21:43 | 19:38 |
| 12 | Luxembourg | 1:21:34 | 20:22 | 19:08 | 21:59 | 20:05 |
| 13 | Switzerland | 1:21:56 | 20:33 | 19:40 | 21:32 | 20:11 |
| 14 | Brazil | 1:22:43 | 21:05 | 19:11 | 21:55 | 20:32 |
| 15 | Czech Republic | 1:24:13 | 21:09 | 19:31 | 22:18 | 21:15 |
| DNF | Australia | — | — | — | — | — |
| LAP | Netherlands | — | 23:01 | 19:04 | 22:08 | — |
| LAP | Belgium | — | 22:21 | 19:37 | 22:13 | — |
| LAP | Japan | — | 22:03 | 19:56 | 22:11 | — |
| LAP | South Africa | — | 22:31 | 19:47 | 23:07 | — |
Tags:
LA OlympicsMixed RelayWTCSRelated Articles:
Notable Replies
Continue the discussion at forum.slowtwitch.com
Participants
Great set of images and captions.
The need to be in the lead pack drove some of the nation’s choice of which woman to pick for first leg. The Germans must have regretted ‘wasting’ Tertsch on Leg 1 but I guess they felt the risk of Rust missing the main pack out of the swim was too great. Periault went well, but she is never going to be selected ahead of Lombardi and Beaugrand because of her weak swim and the risk that a select group gets away immediately on lap 1 of the bike.
Stapley excelled for GBR on Leg 2, but I guess he was up against athletes who are also not the strongest on the run (Richard, Devay, Rider, Wernz). The other lead teams have Leg 2 athletes who will gap him on the run (even only 2km) and tbf, with Yee on Leg 4 GBR have options too. Rider seems to get extra wings from being a ‘team player’. Wernz lost it for Germany creating a deficit Rust couldn’t possibly make up.
Olympic silver medallist Spivey is so good. Still gutted she missed out on Tokyo (though Zaferes was a valid selection and so proved - the Rappaport aberration was addressed with the USAT Paris selection criteria). Szalai swam superbly. Now of adult stature she is above the trajectory even her 15/16 yo performances suggested. Her challenge will be to keep her run speed cutting edge. I hope the sustained (year on year) elite performance demands on her body are managed sensibly.
In the final swim ‘battle’, thought Conway swam well. But I wonder why GBR stuck with him rather than promoting Bentley, after the individual sprint and the massive differential in performance. Some chat elsewhere about tactical choices on Leg 4, but clear to me from T1 that Conway, Pearson and Lehmann were well advised to aim to spend as little time working hard on the front as possible: which is what they did. Surely Coninx was advised the same and ‘accidentally’ found himself hung out to dry. In the event the relative run strength of the four played out, with Pearson self sabotaging in T2 and maybe his superb 10km and half marathon palmares (and his Tokyo and Paris medal winning legs) no longer translates to a 2km sprint.
Goodness knows what the USA are going to do for Leg 4. There is no alternative given that Spivey, Rider and Knibb can ensure Leg 4 starts in the FP. I guess the French will stick with Coninx on Leg 4 even if Bergere returns to SC racing. All the other nations need to find a way of dropping the Brits before T1 Leg 4, or the gold is gone.
Sad for the Australians: Hill for starting sick (!) and the other three for missing the fun. Given Hill and Sosinski had deliberately (assumed) not raced the individual, what a wasted trip: well done TriAus! And sad for the Leg 4 athletes who were lapped out, Pennekamp as an example. These nations need as much MTR time as possible as they will be on the edge for getting MTR Q for LA.
As an aside the German broadcast team should be ashamed of themselves (Legs 3 and 4) and I hope World Tri remonstrate with them, demanding no repeat next year. I do not recall this behaviour before - I guess they’ve always been in the mix previously.
France qualifying this early is a huge strategic advantage for them. They can use every MTR event to their advantage now using development athletes to anchor down a full squad for MTR. Douche/Serre and at least 2/3 others are capable of being on that team in 2 years time.
They can lose every single MTR between now and 2028 developing strategies/scenarios.
and they could have done this without winning … since they will qualify 2 females and males.
That’s where the oddity of all this and sorta makes me roll my eyes. The MTR pathway qualification allows “strategy” that isn’t part of the actual olympics because the MTR in the olympics is then only your either 2 or 3 from the individual race. You can’t hold athletes out (well you can they just have to take an individual spot) like you can in this pathway. So it’s a bit funny and the reality is every top federation is “qualified” for the MTR cus of the 2+2 individual rankings, it’s just a matter of when they officially qualify which allows an press release of “QUALIFIED”. The MTR is for the few federations who have 2+1 individual qualified and so getting a MTR spot gets them 1 additional spot + MTR spot. The A federations can “strategic” all the way through cus they are qualified without being officially qualified.
And no I’m not suggesting they not allow “strategy” now, the whole MTR outside of the Olympic day is sorta a crap shot, so they shouldn’t ever handcuff feds with who can and then can’t race in an MTR.
I enjoy seeing how the different athletes perform in the MTR. And often it plays a part in Olympic selection
It 100% plays a part in the selection, the US has won 2 medals off MTR selection male athletes in the past 2 olympics. I was just pointing out that the actual MTR regular season pathway rules/procedures are actually less strict than the Olympic race details, so adding just another layer of “weirdness” to it all.
That and the fact their relay was likely to qualify anyway at the end (among the top X relays on point at the end of the qualifying period).
You are missing the point. Every MTR event now they can play around with lower ranked athletes that they are hoping will be in contention for MTR. The individuals can race their race but it doesn’t matter if they bring a couple of kids in for MTR because they have their ticket and meet their federation funding requirements.
Le Corre and Bergere I think LA might be too far away. At some point they have to resume their military careers and I can’t see that being too far into the future.
Interesting that all four MTR who qualified this weekend are also military as well.
Not replying to anyone in particular but one thing that gets missed in some of these post-race analyses and results review is the funding impact of the results.
IIRC, MTR performances at World Championships are part of the funding criteria for Team USA athletes so that 4th place for USA this past weekend could be costly for some members of the team. Spivey is fine since she already has two top 5s at WTCS this season, but finishing off the podium could impact the direct funding of the other three members of the team.
Again if the 1st right of refusal goes to the athletes based on the previous day’s individual results, fair play. But this is where someone should have probaly stepped up and said Pearson racing 2 days back to back is probaly not a good idea at this current time, especially when everyone knew the current shape he was coming to Hamburg in (wasn’t great). Again it’s all a big push and pull game by the feds on when they can show power and when they give way to let the athletes have some say too. That was a big swing and miss though for the US being in that position, kudos to the others for kicking their ass on that run.
Of course was Smith or John Reed in a better position? Whatever “funk” Reed is in, now is not just a bad luck scenario…he’s on the struggle bus with this many struggling results.
that is a good point.
for the uk for instance the only relay that has impact on funding is the Olympic Games relay.
The US are guaranteed a relay in LA no matter what. They have two years to try to work on the dynamics of their relay, who works best where. That should probably be priority number one for them. Second would be to ask themselves, do we have anybody who is a podium contender for the individual races in 2028, or who is on a trajectory to be. Third would be: how can we qualify three instead of two, and how does that influence who races which races.
The fact that the MTR offers so little from a prize structure some of the best athletes in the US have no incentive to race itu full time- Pearson and Knibb. While also acknowledging that both along with everyone else in the US isn’t a podium threat in the individual race. So how is the US going to get some of those key athletes to then focus on said event for the US? Pearson will do it because well if t100 is only going to be 3-4 regular season races, why not. Knibb may focus on it with the acknowledgment also racing non draft longer distances plus likely t100.
But the real issue is that if no other athletes in the pipeline step up and sorta take their spot your then relying on them under those conditions. What has happened to John Reed this year suddenly isn’t good. And since Pearson may only be “part timer” he’s likely not going to race enough to get scores for 3rd US athlete.
Vannerson seems to have fallen off his earlier trajectory as well, no? I kinda thought he’d be the next Tilda Månsson to be honest.
He broke his collarbone I think in April and has come back and is in the World Cup pathway. I think he needs to sorta race with the big boys soon to figure some things out.