We Noticed: Triathletes Shine at UCI Esports Worlds, Super Sam Holness Raffle Offers Impressive Prizes. In Arizona: Paralympic Gold Medalist Achieves Dream, While Canadian Cycling Star Suffers to Impressive Finish

Elyse Gallegos competes at the UCI Esports World Championships. Photo: @SWpix.com

We previewed the UCI Cycling Esports World Championships Final in Abu Dhabi last week, and were looking forward to seeing how the two women who competed in Kona last month would fare. Turns out they managed to find some power in their legs after all the IRONMAN World Championship training – Germany’s Merle Brunnée took fifth, while American Elyse Gallegos was 11th.

The racing took place in a custom-built virtual world that was developed on the MyWhoosh Platform, with riders using Elite Justo 2 smart trainers calibrated by the UCI to ensure fairness and accuracy.

The women’s race was won for the second year in a row by New Zealand’s Mary McCarthy, who took control of the event in the first stage, the Mountain’s Verdict. McCarthy was able to push over 7 watts/ kg to easily take the stage over last year’s runner-up, Brazil’s Gabriella Guerra. McCarthy continued her domination through the second stage, Puncher’s Playground, a 12 km points race. McCarthy held her lead through the final stage, an eight-lap course with sprints at the end of each lap. Guerra was able to maintain her second-place position, while Italy’s Francesca Tommasi took the final sprint to edge out Camila Ahlberg (SWE) by one point for the final spot on the podium.

“It was an absolutely incredible red carpet experience,” Gallegos said in a message earlier today. “MyWhoosh paid to fly each of us out to Abu Dhabi from our countries, paid for our stay, (and provided) literally a top-shelf experience from start to finish … The stages were super tough. Stage 1 was the climb in which I put out the same power (NP 318 watts for 14min, 5.2 watts/ kg) as the qualifier, yet placed 19th … Stage 2 (I got) a bit overheated – I went in and scored a few more points … and managed 15th.”

In the final stage Gallegos felt that all the endurance training for Kona paid off as she won two of the eight sprints and took fourth in the stage. She ended up in 11th, and was the second of the five Americans who competed.

“Super happy with that, though, and learned a lot,” she wrote. “Already looking forward to next year!”

In the men’s race Germany’s Jason Osborne took his third title in impressive style, like McCarthy leading from start to finish and taking the win over Poland’s Michal Kaminski and Belgium’s Lennert Teugels.

Osborne has finished on the podium at all of the UCI’s Esports World Championships, with his three golds (2020, 2024 and 2025), a silver (2023) and a bronze (2022). He also won a silver medal as a rower at the Tokyo Olympics.

“To be honest, I was not really happy with stage 1 because I couldn’t put the same gap I had in the semis, [held virtually on 3 October]” Osborne said in an interview with the UCI after the race. “I wasn’t feeling that great but on stage 2 I could really push on and then it just got better each stage. On stage 3, I went on the front with Lionel Vujasin and we worked well together.”

You can see the full results from the weekend’s racing in Abu Dhabi here.

Super Sam Holness Raffle

Photo: Ryan Sosna Bowd

Back in my days editing Triathlon Magazine Canada, I was proud that we were one of the first media organizations to do a feature on Sam Holness, who in 2022, became the first autistic athlete to complete the IRONMAN World Championship. Holness hasn’t slowed down since then, continuing with his quest to “become a professional triathlete and to change the perceptions about Autism and Neurodiversity, through sport,” according to his bio on his website. 

Holness competed at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, and has teamed up with some of his sponsors on a charity fundraiser to support Ambitious About Autism, a group that provide education, employment and support services for autistic children, ad the Superhero Sport foundation, which helps remove barriers to sport for people with disabilities.

The GiveWheel raffle has prizes worth over US$19,500, including the fully built Canyon CFR Di2 bike that Holness rode in Marbella, along with personalized gifts from Lucy Charles-Barclay and Gustav Iden. There are 20 prizes that include:

• A fully built Canyon Speedmax CFR Di2 triathlon bike with a retail value of £10,199 (in size small, as ridden only once by Holness in Marbella. Canyon will service the bike and ship it to the lucky winner) 
• £1,000 HOKA product voucher prize (comes as 2 x £500 single-use vouchers)
• 10 x HOKA £195 footwear single-use vouchers
• 2 x £300 SunGod vouchers for performance or casual eyewear
• 1 x HUUB Anemoi trisuit plus wetsuit of choice (worth over £1,000)
• 5 x euro 150 Maurten nutrition vouchers
• Maurten have also kindly arranged for athletes to donate items including;
  • Gustav Iden – signed pair of shoes
  • Lucy Charles-Barclay – winning trisuit from Ironman 70.3 Eagleman this year and signed Ironman World Championship 2025 swim cap

Photo: Ryan Sosna Bowd

Tickets cost £10 each, 3 for £20 and 10 for £50. To buy tickets and support the fundraiser please visit https://gvwhl.com/PGACO

Chris Hammer Makes IRONMAN Debut

American Paralympic gold medalist Chris Hammer completed his first IRONMAN in Arizona, finishing 35th in the pro ranks (49th overall) with his 8:48:26 finish time. Hammer, who was born without one hand, completed the swim in 1:01:20, then rode 4:37:17 and ran the marathon in 3:02:09.

“My goal was just to finish, but my dream was sub-9 hours, which I managed to do …,” he wrote on Instagram. “I can say with confidence that I never want to do this distance again unless I specifically train for it (which I probably won’t, with LA 2028 soon becoming the focal point of my training).”

I certainly won’t be surprised to see Hammer toe the line at an IRONMAN again at some point, but am also looking forward to watching him compete in LA first.

Canadian Ed Veal Completes First (and Possibly Only) IRONMAN

While you can’t hear what he’s saying, Canadian Ed Veal kept his description of his 10:42:03 finish at IRONMAN Arizona pretty simple. “Savage … Savage.”

“That’s humbling as … (we’ll leave out the expletive),” he said to a friend right after finishing.

“That stretch is the longest two minutes of my life,” he continued, pointing at the finishing chute.

For those who aren’t familiar with Veal’s cycling accomplishments, the 49-year-old represented Canada at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2016 as part of the team pursuit squad, and was part of the bronze-medal winning team at the Pan Am Games in 2015. Veal also held the Canadian one hour record (48.587 km), which was broken by Lionel Sanders (51.304 km) in 2020.

I need to disclose that my son was part of the worlds and Pan Am teams with Veal, and also that my wife looked on with glee as Veal suffered through his race in Arizona. At a dinner we held with the team pursuit athletes some time around the Pan Am Games in 2015, Veal told my wife (Sharon Mackinnon, who won the 60 to 64 age group in Kona in 2024) that “anyone could just roll off the couch and do an IRONMAN.”

I’m pretty sure that Veal didn’t exactly “roll off the couch” to do the race in Tempe – he put together an impressive 1:10:15 swim, a speedy 4:26:35 bike (the 35th fastest of the day), but he did spend more time completing the marathon – he got that done in 4:50:56.

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