Great Britain have officially qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with two men’s triathlon spots, two women’s triathlon spots, and one mixed relay team.
The winner of Sunday’s World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championships were to win two quota spots for each gender, enough to make the Mixed Relay event in Paris. Frances as hosts already had these quotas, so if they were to win the race the places would instead go to the runner-up. With at most three athletes per gender qualifying for the individual events per country, all countries with at least two per gender will automatically enter the mixed relay. There are also eleven specific mixed relay spots, that will automatically qualify two men and two women for the Olympics, and the second of these (after the host spot) was up for grabs in Montreal, Canada on Sunday.
The British team were the pre-race favourites with Alex Yee, Sophie Coldwell, Samuel Dickinson and Georgia Taylor-Brown. Yee and Taylor-Brown won the individual events, with Coldwell also placing high: Dickinson was the odd one out but this was a great experience for him. There was a big pack initially: sixteen teams started (Belgium were non-starters) and this remained through the first swimming and running portion, but Yee managed to lose most of the pack in the run, with just Hayden Wilde of New Zealand staying with him. But the Brazilian, French, and Australian teams managed to catch up in the second swim, with Coldwell leading. However, the chasing pack managed to catch up, and in the end Denmark managed to join France in the lead going into run three. Dickinson’s inexperience showed somewhat as he earned a ten second penalty for missing the box with his helmet, and with France twenty seconds clear of the chasing pack there was no doubt who the winner would be. This pack contained New Zealand and the US, with a second pack of GB, Canada, Denmark and Switzerland eight seconds behind but losing ground despite Dickinson’s best efforts. In the final handover, France were nineteen points clear of NZ/the US, while the other group including GB were sixteen points clear.
But they didn’t have Georgia Taylor-Brown.
France were uncatchable, and Taylor-Brown was 52 seconds off the pace. But New Zealand’s Nicole Van Der Kaay had lost a bit of ground to Summer Rappaport of the US in second, and Taylor-Brown had her first target in sights. As they cycled, she caught up to them, and now the two-woman race for silver was a three-woman race. But she still had the ten second penalty to contend with. She needed to find twelve or so seconds on the run to be sure. After all that hard work, against two other world class triathletes.
But find it she did. Van Der Kaay tried to go with her, but she ran out of steam and Rappaport, who had stayed back, was a bigger threat: slow and steady wins the race, and all she needed to do was be within ten seconds of Taylor-Brown. But as she slowed down in the penalty box, it was clear that GTB had judged it to perfection. While France took the win, Britain came home in second and had booked their place in the Olympics. It was a brilliant performance, with the US getting the bronze medal.
The British team were over the moon. Yee said “It’s amazing, I am absolutely over the moon to share with these guys. To have such a good result, it’s been a long weekend honestly but what a dream way to finish it.” Coldwell added “I think when it’s for your team you always find that little bit extra. Like Alex said, it’s been a tough couple of days of racing and just really proud of everyone for rallying and getting another great performance out.”
Dickinson was apologetic for his mistake, stating: “Obviously being on a team with these superstars it’s always hard to sly in. I didn’t make it easy for G, I might need to buy her a pair of sunglasses or something but I am so thankful, she’s such a superstar and managed to bring it home.” ‘G’ referring of course to Taylor-Brown, who admitted “I really wasn’t sure, I was kind of settling for fourth place as Van Der Kaay and Summer would outrun me because I worked really hard on the swim and the bike. I was using some very strong curse words for little Samuel on that race there but I am glad we got there in the end!”
Dickinson shouldn’t feel too down though as it is a great experience with a big set of events coming up. A silver medal is worth a million pairs of sunglasses.
At most three men and three women can qualify for triathlon. With two of each gender now achieved, we just need one more place per gender to qualify. Keep your eyes peeled on the World Triathlon Individual Olympic Qualification Ranking, which tracks athletes from 27 May 2022 to 27 May 2024.
GB Games 