Just two weeks after France was crowned the 2022 Mixed Relay World Champion, twenty teams will line up this Sunday in Hamburg for another shot at their efforts to qualify teams to the Paris 2024 Olympics. For the moment, only two teams have secured the 2 men and 2 women slots for the next Olympics, France as host country and Great Britain as they finished in second place in the World Championships. Now the remaining 18 teams are looking forward establishing themselves high enough in the rankings so that they dont have to worry about securing 2&2 athletes.
The mix of power and speed of the Triathlon Mixed Relay will take once again the stage this Sunday in the Hamburg city center for the 2022 Hamburg Wasser World Triathlon Championship Series Mixed Relay. A combination of new faces and well-known names will perform on the usual Hamburg 300m swim, 7km bike and 1.7km run course of pure drama all the way to the tape. And with final line-ups not confirmed until two hours before the race, take a look at some of the teams worth follow.
Team Germany indeed is one of them. The German’s were not present in Montreal two weeks ago to focus on their own National Championships, but Valentin Wernz, Lisa Tertsch, Lasse Nygaard Priester and Laura Lindemann will be indeed looking forward to revalidate the triumph that they got here in Hamburg in 2021, and with Laura Lindemann doing the anchor leg, it wont be easy for anyone else to avoid the locals doing another powerful performance like the one that earn them the victory in Leeds.
The current World Champions, France, will not line up their classic A team for this Sunday, giving some of their top athletes a bit of a break before the European Championships in Munich, but they surely have a powerful team with Valentin Morlec Mathilde Gautier, Paul Georgenthum and leaving the current U23 World Champion and Mixed Relay world champion, Emma Lombardi, the honors of being the one in charge of doing the last leg and crossing the finish line, hopefully on a podium position.
Team USA has chosen a great swimmer, Chase Mcqueen, to be in charge of the first leg, with the goal of not loosing contact with the leaders, while the anchor leg will be for Summer Rappaport, a fast runner that already knows what it is to do a relay, after the bronce medal Team USA got two weeks ago in Montreal. Also wearing the trisuit with the red and blue will be Taylor Spivey and Olympic silver medallist in the relay, Kevin Mcdowell, both of them great runners and strong contendans when it comes to a relay.
Star of the individual race, Hayden Wilde, will be in charge of the first leg for New Zealand, a country that is also lining up a combination of young talents like Dylan McCollough -current Youth Games champion- and Andrea Hansen, one of the more experienced athletes on the circuit, while they will be testing another different line up for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Team UK is using some new talents for the race this Sunday, with a great runner like Barclay Izzard opening the race, to be followed by Sian Rainsley, Samuel Dickinson and finally another young athlete, Kate Waugh, ready to take the team to the finish line, with the relax mode that comes when you know that your team has already qualify for the Games.
Australia is also testing different combinations for the Commonwealth Games, and this time it will be Luke Willian, Natalie Van Coevorden, Matthew Hauser and Sophie Linn representing the green and gold. Another consistend and reliable team will be the Netherlands, that will have some fresh legs as Jorik Von Egdom didn’t race on Saturday.
Some other countries, like Denmark, Belgium or Italy can never be discharged when it comes to a Mixed Relay race, while some other teams like Sweden or Mexico are bringing young new athletes to this race, to be able to secure their presence in the rankings to continue on their race to Paris 24.
The 2022 Hamburg Wasser World Triathlon Championship Series Mixed Relay gets underway this Sunday at 15h CEST. You can watch the race live and on demand on TriathlonLIVE.tv, and you can check the latest start lists here.
