We Noticed: Familiar favorites take T100 San Francisco, Beaugrand and Hidalgo win WTCS Alghero

Cassandra Beaugrand takes the win. Photo: World Triathlon

Story by Ben Snyder-McGrath

Saturday saw many of the world’s top elite triathletes competing in both short and long course events across the globe, with WTCS Alghero in Italy and T100 San Francisco. In Italy, France’s Cassandre Beaugrand took a commanding win, while Brazil’s Miguel Hidalgo won the men’s race. The victories were the first of the WTCS season for both athletes. In San Francisco, German Rico Bogen won the men’s race while Swiss star Julie Derron grabbed the women’s title.

It was the start of a busy weekend in the world of triathlon – tomorrow we’ll see a stacked women’s field compete at IRONMAN Hamburg.

WTCS Alghero 

Alghero was the site of the third stop on the WTCS calendar, and it was the first time that the Italian city played host to such an event. The elites put on a show for everyone present and watching at home, with the women kicking things off in the morning. 

After a DNF at her first WTCS race of the year in Yokohama thanks to a horrible crash, the 2024 series champion Beaugrand looked to bounce back. She trailed American Summer Rappaport after the swim, exiting the water 13 seconds back of Rappaport’s 18:25 split.

After the first of nine laps on the bike, there was a group of five sharing the lead, followed by Beaugrand and Dutch athlete Maya Kingma 10 seconds back. At the end of the second lap, Beaugrand and Kingma had bridged the gap, joining the lead group at the front of the race. 

By the time this group reached T2, they had put close to two and a half minutes between themselves and the rest of the field. It was a race between six women heading into the 10K run, and Beaugrand wasted no time setting off on her own. After the first of four laps she had a 13-second lead, and it only grew from there.

Beaugrand’s final run split of 34:33 gave her a 38-second advantage over Italy’s Bianca Seregni, who ran to the first WTCS podium of her career in front of a home crowd. Great Britain’s Olivia Mathias rounded out the podium, also grabbing the first top-three result of her WTCS career. 

Photo: World Triathlon

The men’s race played out in similar fashion, with Hidalgo using one of the best runs of the day to fly to victory. The race started with Australia’s Matthew Hauser (the current WTCS leader) first out of the water, trailed by a long string of athletes. After the first laps on the bike, there were nine men leading the way. By the end of the ride, that group was whittled down to eight, and they entered T2 with a lead of close to two minutes over the chasers. 

Photo: World Triathlon

Just like Beaugrand, Hidalgo got to work immediately on the run course, putting 20 seconds between himself and his closest competition. As he completed his third lap, he was 37 seconds clear of second place. Hauser managed to make up a little bit of time in the closing lap, but Hidalgo had given himself too much of a buffer. 

Hidalgo crossed the line in 1:44:05, taking his first WTCS win thanks to a stellar 30:09 10 km split. Hauser crossed the line in second, while France’s Leo Bergere took the final spot on podium. 

With his win, Hidalgo moves into second in the WTCS rankings, one spot behind Hauser, who maintained his lead. Portugal’s Vasco Vilaca sits in third, dropping one spot after a 31st place in Italy. The women’s rankings saw no changes in the top three after Alghero, with Germany’s Lisa Tertsch still atop the leaderboard, followed by Jeanne Lehair of Luxembourg and Mexico’s Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal.

T100 San Francisco

After a breakout season in 2023 that included a world 70.3 title, Bogen had a solid 2024 campaign, but he didn’t take home any wins. This year got off to a not-so-great start with a 10th place (and blown lead) at T100 Singapore and seventh at 70.3 Jesolo, but he got back into the win column in San Francisco on Saturday. 

The swim set the stage for a very competitive race right away, with 19 of the 20 men racing within 20 seconds of one another by the time they exited the water. American Morgan Pearson was first out of T1, but he had plenty of competition nearby, including Belgians Marten Van Riel and Jelle Geens, Bogen, and more. 

Van Riel and Geens challenged Bogen for the first two of six laps on the bike, but by the halfway mark, the German was free and clear in the lead by 34 seconds. As he entered T2, Bogen’s race-best bike split of 1:54:50 had given him a buffer of nearly two minutes. All that remained was an 11-mile run, but as he showed in Singapore, that is more than enough time to lose a significant lead (Bogen followed the day’s best bike at T100 Singapore with a 1:09 run, dropping to 10th in just 11 miles). 

This time around, Bogen powered to the line, running an average pace of 5:23 per mile. Geens climbed from fourth to second with the fastest run of the day (a stellar 59:40 split), and Bogen’s compatriot Mike Noodt used a 1:01:01 run to reach the podium as well. Bogen is now in first in the T100 rankings, with Van Riel second and Youri Keulen of the Netherlands in third. 

In the women’s race, it was no surprise when American Taylor Knibb was in the lead after the bike. Knibb had an unbeaten T100 record going into this race, and she was looking to extend that win streak. She had exited the water with a group of seven other women (including Derron), but a slower transition left her trailing as she left T1. As Knibb so often does, she flew by the rest of the field on the ride, and by the time she made it to T2, she had built a one-minute lead over Derron. 

This was a significant gap, but a far smaller one than the one Knibb rode to in San Francisco last year, when she got off the bike more than four minutes ahead of second. Derron certainly knew that the lead was far from insurmountable, and by the time she left T2, she had already made up nine seconds. 

Before the end of the first lap, Derron passed Knibb, and she never looked back. Her 1:06:37 run split lifted her to the win in 3:38:46. She finished two minutes ahead of the American superstar. Third went to Kate Waugh, who crossed the line another two minutes behind Knibb. With her win, Derron moves into second place in the T100 rankings, one spot behind Waugh, whose win in Singapore paired with a podium in the U.S. leaves her atop the standings. American Taylor Spivey sits in third, with Knibb just behind her. 

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