The opening shots of the 2025 World Triathlon Championship Series will be fired in less than four weeks at the season opener in Abu Dhabi. The first of six regular season events ahead of the Series Final, Abu Dhabi will be among the earliest ever races in WTCS history. Indeed, this will be the first time a Series stop has been held in February. Read on to find out which big names in the men’s field will be starting, who will be keeping their powder dry and what to look out for ahead of the action.
Who’s there?
Hayden Wilde will be the headline act of the men’s field. The Paris Olympic silver medallist will be the sole male representative for New Zealand and will have a recent memory to correct. Two years ago his opening act in the 2023 Series was beset by a tyre puncture that meant he spent much of the bike alone and finished out of contention.
Three teams have four men starting. From this group, Spain has enviable depth. WTCS medallists Antonio Serrat Seoane and Roberto Sanchez Mantecon will lead the way, while World U23 champion David Cantero del Campo and World Cup gold medallist Alberto Gonzalez Garcia will look to insert themselves in the mix. Gonzalez had the best Spanish WTCS finish last season courtesy of his 4th place in Weihai and so may lead the way again.
Manoel Messias, who medalled in Abu Dhabi in 2023, and Miguel Hidalgo, now a WTCS medallist following last year, head up a strong Brazilian men’s quartet. Britain are the other team with four men, with World Cup medallists Hugo Milner, Ben Dijkstra and Max Stapley among their number.
Abu Dhabi is one of the few sprint distance events in the Series this year. With that in mind, Matthew Hauser will need to be watched closely given that he has won Series stops over the shorter format in each of the past two years. World Cup medallists Callum McClusky and Brandon Copeland will line up beside him under the Australian colours.
Vasco Vilaca is another returning medallist from the 2023 edition. He will be joined on the Portuguese team by Ricardo Batista and Miguel Tiago Silva. Elsewhere, Series staple Jonas Schomburg heads up a youthful German trio alongside Henry Graf and Jan Diener, while former WTCS gold medallist Casper Stornes races alongside Vetle Bergsvik Thorn and Sebastian Wernersen.
The winner of last year’s season opener in Yokohama, Morgan Pearson, will likely be at the fore in Abu Dhabi. Having signed as a T100 Hot Shot, Pearson recently ripped a 61:01 half marathon in Houston and his running speed will make him a prominent threat. World Cup winner John Reed will also be starting for the Americans.
Yanis Seguin will be France’s only male representative. Charles Paquet and Alessio Crociani find themselves in the same position for Canada and Italy, respectively. After a sterling season in 2024 that saw him rise through the world rankings, Ireland’s James Edgar will also be in attendance, plus Henri Schoeman, the Rio Olympic medallist and previous winner in Abu Dhabi, will be in the mix.
Who’s not there?
Alex Yee is the biggest name to opt out of Abu Dhabi. Having won last time out in 2023, the world and Olympic champion has shifted his focus to the London Marathon at the end of April. To that end, he recently raced at the Valencia 10km. His fellow Olympic medallist and former world champion Leo Bergere will also be absent. Like Yee, Bergere has a new challenge on his horizon this season as a T100 Hot Shot. Unlike fellow Hot Shots Wilde and Pearson, though, he will not start his season until later on.
2023 world champion Dorian Coninx and WTCS gold medallist Pierre Le Corre are other leading French names to skip the race, opening the door for Seguin to potentially impress. German WTCS medallist Tim Hellwig is also absent, as is Csongor Lehmann, who claimed a maiden Series medal in Cagliari last season.
Four talking points
Wilde dabbles
Given how close the men’s battles for the world title have been in recent times, the season opener may already have major consequences for this season’s contest. At the time of writing, Wilde sits atop the world rankings with 5552.09 points. Next, Bergere is on 5542.47 points, while Yee has 5541.69. Barely 10 points separate them and no one else is within 750 points of the leading trio.
A clear gulf therefore exists between the three best men in the world and the rest, which makes it all the more intriguing that Wilde could get an early leg up over his rivals in Abu Dhabi. The absence of his closest rivals gives him a clear chance of victory, particularly when recalling how he finished 2024 in style with his win at WTCS Final in Torremolinos.
A win in Abu Dhabi would hand him a solid base with which to combine both the WTCS and T100 throughout the season. In contrast to Yee and Bergere, Wilde is yet to win a world title. If all goes to plan in the Series and T100, though, might the Kiwi star legitimately target two crowns across two competitions?
Speed demons
Abu Dhabi is typically one of the fastest courses in the Series and as a sprint distance race every second on the run can have big implications. With that in mind, the fortunes of Hugo Milner and David Cantero del Campo will be especially interesting.
Milner clocked the fastest ever run split at a WTCS Final in Torremolinos. Already, the Brit is among the fastest ever runners in Series history. Cantero did not finish in Hamburg last year on his WTCS debut. Nevertheless, his running dominance at last year’s World U23 Championships demonstrated his running is at a supreme level.
Both Milner and Cantero have competed internationally as runners and if anyone could upset Wilde and the various established stars of the field, chances are it will be one of these two extraordinary talents.
New faces
On the younger end of the spectrum, Mexico’s Osvaldo Darell Zuñiga Fierro and Dmitri Karpeev (AIN) will be making their Series debuts. Both were born in 2005 and so face their first year out of junior ranks. Karpeev is yet to make a senior international start so will be tackling quite a step up.
Zuñiga, however, signed off his 2024 season with a 13th place at the Brasilia World Cup and will look to advance further. The Mexican athlete won consecutive medals at the 2023 and 2024 Americas Junior Championships and finished 5th at the World Junior Championships in 2023. While Abu Dhabi will be a big jump for him, his running speed could put him in the hunt for an unexpectedly high finish.
The curse?
Since 2015, Abu Dhabi has been the first race of the Series. Exceptions came in 2020 (race cancelled), 2021 (race postponed), 2022 (it hosted the Final in November) and 2024 (race cancelled). Over the years, though, a clear trend can be seen.
On only one occasion has the men’s winner at WTCS Abu Dhabi proceeded to win the Series. This happened in 2016 and even then Mario Mola had a helping hand of sorts with his closest rival Jonathan Brownlee collapsing at the Final in Cozumel.
In more recent history, Alex Yee won Abu Dhabi in 2023 and went into that season’s Final leading the Series. He ended up 5th overall. Furthermore, in 2015, 2017 and 2019 the men’s race winner came second overall in the Series. On the men’s side, at least, there are two questions to ask. Is Abu Dhabi cursed? And can anyone break the trend this year?
Keep up with all the latest in the build-up to Abu Dhabi across World Triathlon channels and catch the racing live on TriathlonLive.
