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Samarkand played host to both the 2024 World Triathlon Cup Samarkand and 2024 World Triathlon Para Cup this weekend.
While the World Triathlon Cup marked the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic dreams for both James Edgar and Elizabeth Carr, the World Triathlon Para Cup saw Ireland’s Judith MacCombe in impressive form to break the tape and claim the top spot of the podium, with her teammates Donnacha McCarthy and Tom Williamson also both securing podium positions.
MacCombe, along with her guide Eimear Nicholls, put last week’s mechanical issues firmly behind them to win the Women’s PTVI podium. With their Paralympic ranking moving up to 9th after Yokohama, the pair had managed to put themselves within the qualification cut-off. However, competition was fierce between 6th and 10th. The win in Samarkand is another big step towards securing their Paralympic slot, with the duo now moving up to 6th on the ranking list for the Women’s PTVI category.
Donnacha McCarthy and his guide Sean Husband continued their Paralympic points chase as they raced to third in the Men’s PTVI. Despite the podium performance for McCarthy and Husband, the pair have dropped one place in the Paralympic ranking as Polish athlete Lukasz Wietecki and his guide broke the tape and secured the maximum points, jumping four ranking places in the process.
Tom Williamson also secured bronze in the Men’s PTS5 category. With his signature fast swim, Williamson was out of the water in the lead as they headed through T1. A strong bike split saw him maintain the podium position into T2 before racing through the 5km run course for 3rd.
MacCombe, McCarthy, and Williamson will all line up again for the 2024 World Triathlon Para Cup Vigo, Spain, on the first of June. For MacCombe, she will look for another strong performance to maintain her position in the top 9 in the Paralympic rankings. For McCarthy and Williamson, only a gold medal performance will be enough to secure the points required for Paris qualification.
The team will also be joined in Vigo by Chloe MacCombe and her guide Catherine Sands.
Meanwhile, in the World Triathlon Cup, James Edgar, Russell White, and Elizabeth Carr were all in action. Edgar’s race got off to a strong start, claiming the 3rd fastest swim split of the field, he was in the lead group of athletes as they took to the bike course. Despite holding an advantage over the chasers as they exited T2 for the run, Edgar crossed the line in 23rd position overall, bringing his chase for the New Flag slot to an end. Russell White followed him home a minute later for 28th position, expressing that he was “left wanting more and excited for the rest of the season.”
Despite not securing a result to jump enough places in the World Triathlon Rankings to move into the New Flag position for Paris, Edgar can take confidence from his swim and bike performance in Samarkand, and know the running form can be found again.
Taking to instagram after the race he said, “[the] Olympic dream for Paris died today. Came in with the tall ask of a Top 4 at the World Cup. Made the breakaway out of the water and put in some serious time into the chase group over the 40km bike but it wasn’t to be on the run. I’ve raced 9 times in the last 13 weeks across 3 continents and the body is well and truly tired. Complete lack of training getting done over that time with only 3 proper run sessions while chasing the points for Paris. The run times went from being 30:30 off the bike in Cuba to 35mins today in Uzbekistan at an almost linear drop over the 9 races. Gave it everything but just wasn’t to be. Time to see what the future holds.”
While the Paris 2024 Olympic Games were always the target, Edgar has secured an impressive 3 podiums and a top 10 across the nine races he has undertaken this season.
In the Women’s race, Carr crossed the line in 19th in her World Cup debut. The result also marks the end of her Paris 2024 ambitions, however, a top 20 in her debut World Cup will no doubt inspire confidence in her abilities as she looks to her international triathlon future. For Carr, Paris was always going to be a long shot, not only would she have needed almost maximum points at six of the higher points awarded races, she would also have needed a number of athletes closer to the New Flag to have been less fortunate in their pursuits. While her results this season indicate the ability is there, last year’s injury which delayed her international debut was most definitely an influencing factor in her Paris journey.
All three will now shift their focus to the 2024 Asia Triathlon Cup Burabay which takes place on May 25th.
Jonathan Oakey was also in action this weekend, having remained in China for the 2024 Asia Triathlon Cup Lianyungang.
Oakey was in similarly strong form to the previous weekend in Taizhou, producing one of the fastest swims of the race over the two lap beach start course, cementing his position in the lead bike pack as the athletes took to the bike.
The four lap course featured 11km of undulating coast roads and a number of technical corners. The race saw a sizeable group come into T2 together to battle it out on the 10km run course in 35°C heat. Oakey produced a strong 33:40 10km in hot conditions to finish 10th overall, with little over 30 seconds separating the athletes who crossed the finish line between 5th and 10th. The result sees him climb another 33 places in the World Triathlon Rankings to 210 overall.
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