This is a preview feature written ahead of Super League Triathlon Toulouse. You can read how the racing played out in our reports where Georgia Taylor-Brown topped the women’s podium and Hayden Wilde was unstoppable for the men
Two weeks on from Zuma Beach in Malibu, California, the 2022 Super League Triathlon Championship Series returns for round four.
There’s a brand new venue for SLT this Sunday too, with Toulouse, France hosting the Triple Mix format.
Hayden Wilde seemingly has a commanding lead at the top of the men’s series standings. Can 2021 overall champion Georgia Taylor-Brown return to top spot for the women, where after winning her ‘home’ race in Malibu, the consistent Taylor Spivey currently heads the table by just one point.
Here are all the details you need to know.
Start time and watch live
Racing takes place on Sunday October 2, 2022.
- Women’s Triple Mix starts 1308 local time (1208 in the UK, 0708 Eastern Standard Time)
- Men’s Triple Mix starts 1420 local time (1320 in the UK, 0820 Eastern Standard Time)
The great news is you can watch every second of Super League Triathlon Toulouse 2022 live right here on TRI247.com via the embedded video below.
And our live blog on Sunday also provides the perfect ‘second screen’ experience, with expert insight again from Lucy and Mark Buckingham.
The broadcast will also be available on the BBC Red Button, iPlayer, Discovery+ and TriathlonLIVE, and will begin at 1300 local time, shortly before the race start times above.
The events are also free to spectate – so come down and watch the action in person.
Who’s racing at Super League Triathlon Malibu?
The nature of Super League Triathlon racing is that you can get familiar with, broadly, the same athletes racing at each Championship Series round.
Toulouse will see the return of Jonny Brownlee (Cheetahs), Kenji Nener (Scorpions) and Panagiotis Bitados (Sharks) who were all absent in Malibu.
There are two wild card additions in France and, quite appropriately, they are French. The star name is Dorian Coninx, a multiple WTCS winner (Bermuda 2019, Montreal 2021), who more recently edged out Kristian Blummenfelt at the World Triathlon Cup Bergen.
Currently sitting last in the points table, Tim Don’s Team Eagles get first pick on wild card entries and, of course, have gone with Coninx. With a long history of success in Mixed Relay competition, Dorian – on paper at least – has the sort of skills to perform well in Super League.
The second wild card in the men’s race is local athlete, Nathan Lessmann. He will race for Team Scorpions.
For the women, Sophie Coldwell (Cheetahs) and Cassandre Beaugrand (Scorpions) also return to SLT racing having not made the trip across the Atlantic.
There is a familiar wild card addition, as Germany’s Laura Lindemann returns, having finished fifth in Munich. She will be in different colours this time however. Having worn the orange of Team Cheetahs at the Olympiapark, she will be in the yellow of Ronnie Schildknecht’s Team Rhinos this time around.
UPDATE – 29/9/2022 – Since first publication, there has been a late change to the women’s start list. Non Stanford (Team Eagles) now not racing on Toulouse, and she will be replaced in the white kit by Summer Rappaport. This will be the second SLT start of the season, who raced as a wild card in round three, on home soil in Malibu, finishing fourth.
That all leaves 22 men, and 21 women set to start on Sunday.
What to look out for
When Matt Hauser crashed out on stage one of Malibu’s Eliminator, it all but put him out of contention for overall series honours. After finishing second in London and then winning in Munich, he is now third overall behind Hayden Wilde.
There’s still plenty to race for (and the difference between second and third overall is $10,000), so he’ll want to regain ground on Portugal’s Vasco Vilaca.
While missing Malibu entirely and picking up zero points in Munich leaves Cassandre Beaugrand outside the top-10 on points, the French athlete won the triple mix format in London, and will of course have the home crowds behind her this coming weekend.
Despite missing the Malibu round, Sophie Coldwell still retains fifth place in the standings and has third in her sights, with Verena Steinhauser and Miriam Casillas Garcia the two athletes immediately ahead of her. Same too for Beth Potter – a strong result from the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist could see her make a major move up the points table.
The Course
Based at the impressive Port de la Daurade, the swim will take place in the Garonne river in southwest France.
For the first time since the opening round at West India Quay in London, athletes will take on the Triple Mix format which will see them race three times, in three different racing formats:
- Stage One – Swim, Bike, Run
- Stage Two – Run, Bike, Swim
- Stage Three – Bike, Swim, Run **
(** started in pursuit style, based upon times from the first two events)
There’s little time for recovery either, with the ‘rest’ times between the stages being just two minutes (S1-2) and four minutes (S2-3), respectively.
The changing formats of the three stages tests both versatility and sometimes under pressure, memory, as to which discipline is next.
The swim distance each leg will be 300m, the bike comprises of four laps for a total of 4km, but there is a small twist relative to previous events on the run.
Regular Super League races are two laps of 800m each, for a total of 1.6km (one mile, as near as). In Toulouse, the run course will use exactly the same circuit as the bike loop (1km), and so for stage one and stage two, the run sections will be just one lap (1km), but the final stage three (Bike-Swim-Run) will finish with a two-lap (2km) run.
The 90-second rule is in play. So any athlete that falls 90 seconds or more off the leader’s pace at the end of any individual lap is shown the Yellow Elimination Flag and is out of the race.
Short Chutes – new rules apply
Love them or hate them, the Short Chute remains part of the Super League Triathlon DNA for 2022. If you are new, the Short Chute is a ‘short cut’ that can be taken within the race by an athlete, having earned that right at a previous point in the event. Think of it as a bonus in real time, rather than a post-race adjustment (as is the case in the Tour de France for example). In that way, the ‘first across the finish line wins’ remains.
You can earn a short chute in Toulouse as follows:
- 1. the first athletes across the Mount Line after the swim on Stage 1,
- 2. the first across the Mount Line after the bike on Stage 1 (i.e. after T2, starting the run)
- 3. the first athlete across the Finish Line at the end of Stage 1 (i.e. first to finish Stage 1)
Short Chutes are always taken on the final Run – Stage 3. And always on Lap 1, so even if you have an advantage, you are not yet over the line. That’s a good move, and will help avoid situations such as the slightly disappointing finish – after a great race – in Munich last year, when Vincent Luis was able to take that advantage right next to the finish line.
With the further development of the SLT Teams concept, Team Managers can choose which of their squad will be awarded the short chute. Thus, while a fast swimmer could earn a short chute (point 1 above), the team could elect to award that advantage to another member of the team, who perhaps will be in a better position to secure overall success in the race at the end of the final stage.
Also of note – whatever happens, a team can only earn one short chute in an individual race.
SLT Rankings after Malibu
Women
- 1. Taylor Spivey – 42pts
- 2. Georgia Taylor-Brown – 41pts
- 3. Miriam Cassilas – 27pts
- 4. Verena Steinhauser – 27pts
- 5. Sophie Coldwell – 26pts
- 6. Beth Potter – 25pts
- 7. Jeanne Lehair – 23pts
- 8. Nicole Van Der Kaay – 19pts
- 9. Non Stanford – 18pts
- 10. Kate Waugh – 18pts
- 11. Cathia Schar – 15pts
- 12. Cassandre Beaugrand – 15pts
- 13. Rachel Klamar – 14pts
- 14. Summer Rappaport – 12pts
- 15. Laura Lindemann – 11pts
- 16. Sian Rainsley – 10pts
- 17. Sophia Green – 8pts
- 18. Natalie Van Coevorden – 6pts
- 19. Emma Jeffcoat – 2pts
Men
- 1. Hayden Wilde – 43pts
- 2. Vasco Vilaca – 32pts
- 3. Matthew Hauser – 29pts
- 4. Tayler Reid – 27pts
- 5. Shachar Sagiv – 26pts
- 6. Chase McQueen – 23pts
- 7. Jonathan Brownlee – 23pts
- 8. Daniel Dixon – 21pts
- 9. Kenji Nener – 20pts
- 10. Emil Holm – 18pts
- 11. Jamie Riddle – 15pts
- 12. Tyler Mislawchuk – 15pts
- 13. Richard Murray – 14pts
- 14. Alex Yee – 13pts
- 15. Valentin Wernz – 12pts
- 16. Sergio Baxter Cabrera – 12pts
- 17. Max Stapley – 9pts
- 18. Ryan Fisher – 4pts
- 19. Maximilian Sperl – 3pts
- 20. Chris Perham – 1pt
Teams
- 1. Sharks – 235pts
- 2. Cheetahs – 216pts
- 3. Scorpions – 211pts
- 4. Rhinos – 181pts
- 5. Eagles – 178pts
