Throughout the 2024 season, there were only two outcomes in the women’s WTCS: either Cassandre Beaugrand won, or she was not present. The trend will continue into the opening race of the 2025 season as the Olympic champion has chosen against racing in Abu Dhabi. In her place, though, an array of stars will compete for the win, including both of the other Series gold medallists from last year. Read on to find out exactly which women will be on the start line.
Who’s there?
The first thing that jumps out from the women’s start list is simply how big the German team is. A selection of eight women makes it twice as large as the next biggest cohort; chances are, if you pause the race at any moment a German woman will be in frame.
Leading the squad will be Lisa Tertsch, the winner of WTCS Weihai, and Laura Lindemann, a WTCS gold medallist herself and anchor of Germany’s gold medal-winning Mixed Team Relay at the Paris Olympics. Throughout 2024, Tertsch showed her running to be as close as anyone to Beaugrand and she will likely enter Abu Dhabi as the favourite. The experienced Lindemann, however, will attempt to reassert herself as Germany’s leading triathlete.
WTCS medallist Annika Koch will also be starting while World Cup winner Nina Eim will likewise be present. Keep an eye out too for Tanja Neubert, who memorably finished 4th in Weihai.
The next largest team belongs to Italy. They will entrust their hopes to World Cup winners Bianca Seregni and Alice Betto, with Ilaria Zane and Verena Steinhauser also looking to cause a stir. Meanwhile, the American team will consist of three women: Gwen Jorgensen, Taylor Spivey and Erica Ackerlund. Spivey, a T100 Hot Shot this year, is the only returning medallist from the 2023 iteration of the race and as such will be confident of another high finish.
The winner of last year’s season opener, Leonie Periault, starts for France and will hope to open her campaign in similarly impressive fashion. Completing the two-woman team will be Sandra Dodet. A multiple World Cup winner, Dodet has fought her way through a turbulent couple of years and has the chance to dazzle the French selectors.
WTCS medallist Rosa Maria Tapia Vidal will race for Mexico while Miriam Casillas Garcia will look to recapture the form that saw her finish 5th at last season’s WTCS Final. Another looking to build upon a positive end to 2024 is Jolien Vermeylen. The Belgian athlete claimed a maiden World Cup win in Tongyeong in October. Look for her to push the pace in the water alongside Brazilian duo Vittoria Lopes and Djenyfer Arnold.
Kate Waugh is the lone British woman in the field. Like Spivey, she will be racing as a T100 Hot Shot this season and so will use Abu Dhabi as an early test of her fitness. Jeanne Lehair (Luxembourg), Emy Legault (Canada), Tilda Månsson (Sweden) and Márta Kropkó (Hungary) will also be the only starters for their respective countries.
Who’s not there?
As already mentioned, Cassandre Beaugrand will not be in Abu Dhabi, perhaps to the relief of several of her rivals. Also absent will be the remaining Paris individual Olympic medallists, Julie Derron and Beth Potter. The door is therefore open for the likes of Tertsch, Periault and more to run riot.
Emma Lombardi, who finished 4th in Paris and 3rd overall in the Series last season, is another to decide against racing at the opener. Former world champion and Olympic medallist Georgia Taylor-Brown likewise is out, while her compatriot Sophie Coldwell will not be racing during her maternity absence.
Four talking points
The fast start
On the men’s side, Abu Dhabi is known for its fast run course, but recent history has pointed to breakaways being more prevalent in the women’s race. Last time out, in 2023, a successful small breakaway group handed the medals to Beth Potter, Sophie Coldwell and Taylor Spivey. Memorably, Cassandre Beaugrand had the fastest run of the day but lost touch with the leaders in the water. Further breakaway success came hitherto at the 2022 WTCS Final in Abu Dhabi as well.
The likes of Vermeylen, Lopes, Spivey and Seregni are all capable of pushing the pace in the water and splintering a field that, for the most part, will not be race sharp. Conversely, the fast, flat 5km run at the end will bring the likes of Tertsch, Periault, Tapia and Jorgensen back into the mix. In addition, the divide between the field is not entirely clear-cut as Tertsch and Tapia have won medals from breakaways in recent years; the latter earned her maiden WTCS medal doing so. Either way, the timing or the race and recent outcomes indicate that a fast start could make all the difference.
Tilda Månsson
One athlete to keep an eye on is Sweden’s Tilda Månsson. The young starlet has won World Cups in each of the past three seasons and yet enters Abu Dhabi as the youngest woman in the field. Intriguingly, all three of her World Cup victories have come over the sprint format which suggests Månsson may benefit from the coming race over the shorter distance.
Although she has yet to break into the top-30 of a WTCS race (itself a somewhat harsh barometer given her age), the Swedish Junior record holder on the track has all the speed required to spring a surprise in the third discipline.
Gwen Jorgensen
On the other end of the spectrum is the oldest woman in the field, 2016 Olympic champion Gwen Jorgensen. The American athlete has more WTCS golds than the rest of the field combined and concluded her 2024 campaign with a win at the Miyazaki World Cup. Prior to that, she finished 12th at the WTCS Final and 6th at WTCS Weihai, her best Series finish since returning to the sport.
Jorgensen did not make her country’s Olympic team last summer but has the prospect of a home Games in four years to chase. With her experience, evergreen running speed and prominent uptick in late 2024 form, Abu Dhabi might be the moment she completes her return to the Series podium and announces herself as a Los Angeles contender.
A game of seconds
Over the sprint distance, big victories in Abu Dhabi have been fairly rare. Katie Zaferes’ 2019 winning margin of 26 seconds stands as the widest of any winner over the shorter format. Last time out, Potter won by a margin of 18 seconds (Alex Yee took the men’s race by a mere 6 seconds), and WTCS Abu Dhabi has typically been won after a closely-fought struggle.
One woman that knows how to win in Abu Dhabi, though, is none other than Jorgensen. She is the only woman starting to have won a Series race at the venue and her 2015 winning margin of 16 seconds stands as the third biggest over the sprint distance.
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