🌪️ The unanticipated World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) debut came and went like a whirlwind. Now the constant breeze of the global triathlon calendar has carried Phoebe Carter on to Austria.
There’s no time to sit with what just happened in Quiberon: the unexpected media duties, the race among the stars, the cycling shoe drama, a top level result, 42nd, that is a line in the sand for a career that has barely begun.
Carter is straight back into the level she actually came to Europe to race – three Continental Cups in three countries in three weeks, the rungs on the ladder she was always meant to be climbing before Eva Goodisson’s foot intervened and sent her to western France as a travelling reserve for Team NZL. And then when places opened up on the individual start list in Quiberon, turned the 22-year-old into a WTCS debutant.
Wels, Austria this Saturday. Holten, Netherlands on July 4. Tata, Hungary on July 18. All built around the Tri NZ training base in Banyoles, northern Spain, where the real work of this European block gets done between races.
Carter crossed the line in Quiberon 1:01:40, 42nd of 50 starters, just over three minutes adrift of winner Cassandre Beaugrand (58:29) and understandably fourth of the Kiwi women who have all raced at this level before: Nicole van der Kaay (1:00:10) in 25th, Eva Goodisson (1:00:15) 27th and Brea Roderick (1:00:29) 32nd.
What it all has confirmed, more than anything, is appetite.
“It’s definitely made me hungry for the next WTCS,” Carter told SBR-Tri.com.
“I think I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m fully aware that it takes a long time. It doesn’t just happen, and that’s just slowly what I’m working at, chipping away, trying to gain as much race experience as I can.”
Whenever the next one comes, she wants to arrive with a proper build behind her rather than a 36-hour scramble.
“Hopefully next time I can build a better block going into it, and be able to go into it with a different perspective and different race goals. One day be one of those top girls racing at these races — that would be pretty awesome.”
There was a small taste of life at the top level before the sprint even started, World Triathlon pulling her aside for a TV interview during the athlete familiarisation sessions, an unexpected piece of attention for a late call-up. Being the daughter of a former Olympic champion means you can’t just quietly go about your WTCS debut under the radar.
“It was cool to be able to do that,” Carter said, “but I think it probably put a bit of pressure on me going into the race. I just tried not to think about it too much and continued focusing on what I need to do pre-race.”
The race itself started brilliantly.
“I felt like I had a pretty good swim. I think I was first into the water, which is pretty cool.”
Carter found clear water early, latched onto another swimmer’s feet around the first buoy, and came into the beach to see Sweden’s Tilda Månsson — the eventual silver medallist — right beside her.
“I was like, I must not be in too bad a position here. I could see the front of the race and was kind of like, okay, thinking I potentially might be in maybe the top third, which, yeah, I was pretty happy with.”
Then the shoes intervened.
Carter has been managing foot irritation, so she raced Quiberon in cycling shoes — a sound theory until she tried to get her feet into them on the move.
“Once that front group came together [out of T1], I tried to find a moment to put my feet in, but unfortunately I was racing in my cycling shoes due to a bit of foot irritation I’ve been having with my tri shoes. So yeah, I had to race in my cycling shoes, which proved a bit difficult to get my feet into.
“My shoes just spun out a bit. I looked up and I was just drifting off the back of the group, and I just couldn’t— wasn’t strong enough to hold on and get back on.”
Stuck in no-man’s-land, she settled in and waited for the chase group, rejoining the front pack roughly halfway through the third lap — at which point she made the call to simply leave her feet out of the shoes entirely rather than risk losing the group again.
“Unfortunately, I had to race with my feet out the whole time, which definitely took a bit of a toll on my quads.”
It’s the kind of detail that doesn’t show up on the results sheet but is a moment amplified, especially at the top level where one fumbled transition costs you the group.
The 5km run brought its own kind of education. Tucking in behind another competitor to break a headwind on the out-and-back course, Carter found herself sharing the road with the same leaders, the likes of Olympic champion Beaugrand, she’d watched disappear up the road.
“It was pretty awesome to just be in that field watching those elite girls come past down the other side of the run,” said Carter whose split was 18:54, among the slowest of the race but completely understandable given she’d been unable to do much running the previous month due to injury.
“Just be there and amongst it all soaking it up. It was a pretty cool atmosphere, a lot of supporters out there, and it was awesome running along the coast.”
Crossing the line was the goal she’d actually set herself.
“That was kind of my goal at the end of the day, and yeah, was really happy to just be out there and finish.”
For now, it’s back to the prescribed path which runs through Continental Cup level in Europe and, hopefully, the missing rung on her career progression, World Cups.
Carter is targeting her first starts at that level later in the year, possibly Beijing on October 17 or Hong Kong on November 7-8, before a locked in home assignment at World Cup Tauranga on November 22.
“Every race is super different. We’ll see what a World Cup brings, see what level those races are at, and just do the best I can, continuing to focus on my process and my training. That’ll be key.”
Quiberon was a nice bonus, a memory for a lifetime and that line in the sand to chase. Wels, Holten and Tata are the actual mission.
