It’s business as usual, just with a few less races.
That’s the message from Travis White, Tri NZ’s GM of Performance, to New Zealand’s Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games hopefuls after a series of global calendar disruptions in the past week.
The latest has seen World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) Alghero rearranged from a critical sprint and mixed relay weekend to open the LA ’28 qualification window, to a standard distance event only on Saturday, May 30 (Italy time).
World Triathlon has also announced WTCS London, scheduled for July 25, will now be a sprint as opposed to the originally slated standard distance event.
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It comes after the postponement of the WTCS season-opener in Abu Dhabi due to the war in the Middle East, and the postponement till November 15 of Oceania Cup Auckland, the latter removing one of the preordained trials to select the Tri Blacks quartet for Alghero.
Focus now narrows to the two WTCS races with Mixed Relay events in the first of the two, 12-month long LA 28 windows: WTCS Quiberon on June 21-22 and WTCS Hamburg, which doubles as the World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championships, on July 12-13.
The selection events for those are now down to next week’s HP Forum Super Sprint trial in Mt Maunganui and the April 18-19 Oceania Super Sprint Championships at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast, plus the recent Oceania Sprint Championships in Napier.
White is taking a “wait and see approach” to the fluid World Triathlon calendar in terms of subbing in potential replacements for the loss of the Alghero Mixed Relay.
Abu Dhabi may be rescheduled to later in the year – potentially in November when the UAE capital is already due to host the age group focused World Triathlon Multisport World Championships. The expansion of Mixed Relay to World Triathlon’s second tier World Cup level may also open up opportunities to chase ranking points now not available in Alghero.
“Essentially it is one less WTCS race that could be replaced,” White said of the situation.
“My message to our guys is a wait and see approach. At this stage, our European camp in Banyoles [Spain] stays the same…it essentially opened after Alghero anyway, a lot of our athletes have committed to it already, and we see no need to change that at the moment.
“So what impact does this have on planning and changes? Not a lot. We’ll still select the team for Quiberon based on what we’ve outlined to the athletes although obviously Auckland doesn’t factor into that now.”
The disruptions mean next Thursday’s Super Sprint Trial in Mt Maunganui, being held during the lunch break at the Bay Radiology New Zealand Schools Triathlon Championships, now takes on even greater importance. The trial is part of Tri NZ’s annual HP Forum and will this year include a standalone 400m swim time trial.
Saxon Morgan, Henry McMecking, Gus Marfell, Benjamin Airey, Caleb Wagener, Robbie White, Grayson Westgate, Finnley Oliver and Jett Curties are confirmed to race while Eva Goodisson, Brea Roderick, Phoebe Carter and Charlotte Brown are on the women’s start-list.
Ainsley Thorpe will attend the forum but is recovering from injury so won’t race. Tayler Reid will also be in Mt Maunganui but his race participation is not confirmed after a recent rib injury.
Two-time Olympic medallist Hayden Wilde, who has pivoted to race this weekend’s 70.3 Geelong after dominating in Napier and the postponment of Abu Dhabi, has an exemption to bypass Mt Maunganui while Dylan McCullough remains on the comeback trail.
Nicole van der Kaay, racing this weekend’s T100 opener on the Gold Coast, has opted not to attend, as have Australia-based Joel Lange, Will Taylor and Sophie Webber.
