To celebrate an incredible year of triathlon racing, we decided to look back on the season and carefully select a handful of winners for our 2023 TRI247 Triathlon Awards.
For our second award, we’re recognising the efforts of the best male racers across all distances, with our ‘Male Triathlete of the Year’ Award, picked from a shortlist of phenomenal athletes by our expert panel.
This year, the shortlist was made up of New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, Norwegian Kristian Blummenfelt, Great Britain’s Alex Yee and Frenchman Leo Bergere.
The Nominees
With so many great male triathletes making their case for this award in 2023, we were left with the difficult deliberation required to narrow it down to a short list of just four athletes. Eventually, we came up with the quartet of Wilde, Blummenfelt, Yee and Bergere, whose incredible achievements we’ll look at in depth.
![Kristian Blummenfelt Paris Test Event [Photo credit: World Triathlon / Wagner Araujo]](https://www.tri247.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Kristian-Blummenfelt-Paris-Test-Event.jpg)
Starting with PTO World #1 Kristian Blummenfelt, whilst he may not have had the season he was hoping for, Blummenfelt still picked up a first PTO Tour win at the fifth time of asking in Singapore and managed to get on to the podium at both the PTO Tour European Open in Ibiza and the PTO Tour US Open in Milwaukee.
On top of his 100km distance exploits, the 29 year old finished the season as WTCS #9 after racing in Yokohama, Cagliari, Montreal, Hamburg, Paris and Pontevedra, with a fourth place finish at the World Triathlon Sprint Championships in Hamburg his highest finish as he prepares to defend his Olympic title next summer.
Next up, Yee was brilliant in the WTCS this year, until a heartbreaking day in Pontevedra saw him finish well down in 30th place, a result which saw him lose out on the world title and the WTCS Overall podium in the process as he finished in fifth.
The events of the final race of the series could not have been crueller, after Yee had dispatched a number of close rivals on multiple occasions, with wins in Abu Dhabi, Cagliari and particularly Paris highlighting his credentials as one of the firm favourites for the gold medal next year in the French capital.
In the Super League Triathlon Championship Series, Yee wowed a home crowd in London with an electric win at the first round of the series, before finishing fifth in Malibu and third in the Grand Final to end the season in third place.
Finally, last year’s world champion Bergere followed up his title winning season in 2022 with another great year, winning the Super League Championship Series title, finishing on the WTCS series podium for the second consecutive season and picking up a memorable win at IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside.
After finishing sixth at WTCS Abu Dhabi, Bergere was never again outside the Top 5 in the WTCS series, notably finishing on the podium in Cagliari and Sunderland, whilst in the SLT Championship Series, he podiumed in Toulouse, Malibu and NEOM.
One of the most consistent racers in triathlon, Bergere faces an anxious wait with two of the three spots on the French team already filled for next year’s home Olympics by countrymen Dorian Coninx and Pierre Le Corre. However, the 2022 WTCS champion will fancy his chances after another brilliant season.
Each of Yee, Bergere and Blummenfelt were more than worthy of winning the award, having enjoyed an incredible amount of success in a thrilling season. However, for our panel, one man stood above the rest after a brilliant 12 months.
Our winner – Hayden Wilde
Despite missing out on the WTCS title and the overall Super League Triathlon Series win, Hayden Wilde proved his class across the board this year and thoroughly deserves the ‘Male Triathlete of the Year’ Award.
The Kiwi was phenomenal from start to finish in 2023, winning events ranging from the Super League Triathlon Championship Series event in Malibu to IRONMAN 70.3 Melbourne, with the World Triathlon Sprint Championship title also going to Wilde after a fantastic race in Hamburg.
A win at WTCS Yokohama early on in the season was a sign of things to come, with his victory in Japan followed up by WTCS podiums in Cagliari, Hamburg and Sunderland before a tough day out at the WTCS Grand Final cost him the world title for the second year in a row.
Despite the heartbreak of two overall runner-up finishes in the WTCS and Super League Championship Series, Wilde has plenty to look forward to in 2024, with Paris offering the opportunity to upgrade his bronze medal from Tokyo before a home IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupō beckons.
