Earlier this week, we dove into the top stats of the leading performers in the 2024 men’s WTCS. Today, it is the turn of the women. The goal of this article is to survey the average performances of the best athletes in the women’s Series by looking at how they ranked in each discipline across the various WTCS stops and Paris Olympic Games. From that perspective, we can develop a picture of where the overall podium stood apart from the rest of the top-10 and, in turn, where the top-10 elevated themselves over the rest of the field.
In the above graph, the x-axis denotes each discipline within the race while the numbers on the y-axis refer to the average position each athlete achieved in each discipline throughout the season.
The champion
Olympic and world champion Cassandre Beaugrand really provided a textbook demonstration of how to excel at triathlon this year. Indeed, her average split positions show that she was close to faultless – minor navigation issues in Torremolinos aside – throughout the season.
In the swim, she earned an average position of 9.5, ensuring that she was always in the mix at the front. She combined her fast start with flawless transitions; across all of her T1s in 2024, she averaged a position of 1. She was therefore the best transitioner in the women’s Series. The same was true of Beaugrand’s T2; again she logged an average position of 1. In between, her average bike position was 14.8. This is slightly lower but is also a consequence of her standard fast starts. Short of breaking away at every race, there was minimal scope for her to have a higher bike split. To round things off, she had an average run position of 1.2 and was beaten only once all year to the fastest split: by Lisa Tertsch in Cagliari.
Across the board, then, it is hard to say where Beaugrand could have improved while staying within the bounds of reason. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is her absolute mastery of transitions. While her swim and run have long since been clear strengths, her repeatedly excellent changeovers highlights how she nailed every aspect of her racing this year.
The overall podium
Beth Potter and Emma Lombardi took 2nd and 3rd overall in the women’s Series and what stands out is how their average performances were almost identical. In the water, Potter averaged a position of 9.2; Lombardi’s average stood at 9.4. In T1, Potter took an average of 2.4 while Lombardi’s was 3.8. The two women had the exact same average on the bike with positions of 13.2. Then in T2, Potter was on top again with an average of 2.6 to Lombardi’s 3.8. The run was actually the greatest point of difference between the two women with Potter averaging 2.8 to Lombardi’s 4.8.
Seeing as Lombardi did not beat Potter in any average this season, her finishing behind the 2023 world champion in races and in the overall standings makes sense. When comparing Potter and Lombardi to Beaugrand, it is clear that transitions and the run were the key separators between the athletes. Interestingly, as seen with the men, the three best women in the WTCS were also the three best athletes on average in T1 and T2. This reinforces the idea floated in the men’s article that mastery of transition and the small details stood as a good indicator for overall performance.
The near miss
Lisa Tertsch had the best season of her career so far as she came close to breaking onto the overall podium. She won medals in Cagliari and Hamburg while claiming a maiden Series win in Weihai. Ultimately, though, Tertsch fell just short. Her average positions provide some insight into why this was the case.
To start with her strength, Tertsch’s average run position of 2.5 was the best in the Series after Beaugrand. As already noted, she was the only woman to out-split Beaugrand this season. Her transitions were also among the best in the Series, with an average of 5.8 in both T1 and T2.
However, the swim (average of 16.5) and bike (average of 22.2) proved to be the difference for Tertsch. One thing that should be noted is that her average bike position includes when she was caught up in a crash at the Olympic Games. Nevertheless, the combination of Tertsch’s swim and bike averages left her at risk of missing the front pack, as happened in Yokohama and, even more significantly, in Torremolinos. The difference was not drastic, but it proved enough to determine making the overall podium or not.
The rest of the top-10
Flora Duffy (9th overall) was the top swimmer of the top-10 with an average position of 3.7. Duffy also had average positions of 6 and 6.3 in T1 and T2, respectively, serving a reminder of her skills.
Kate Waugh (8th overall) had an average position of 9 on the bike, making her the only woman in top-10 to average under 10 in the discipline. On the one hand, this is a sign of Waugh’s strength on two wheels. On the other, the fact that none of the rest of the top-10 had similarly strong bike splits indicates that the bike was not quite as important when it came to ranking highly. Rather, the relative lack of high-ranking bike averages appears to be a consequence of the high swim and T1 performances of the leading women.
Turning to the run, Vicky Holland (10th overall) and Leonie Periault (7th overall) were the best runners after the overall podium. Holland averaged a position of 5.5 while Periault’s average run position was 6.8. The takeaway here is that the run was an obvious separator of the top-3 from much of the top-10.
The run also proved to be an important point of difference in terms of making the top-10 and not. Not a single woman in the top-10 overall had an average run position of over 15 (the lowest were Jeanne Lehair with 13.4 and Waugh with 12.7). Without a fast run, then, an athlete could wave their hopes of making the top-10 overall goodbye.
Consistency is key
Meanwhile, consistency was in general a hallmark of the women to make the top-10 overall. Georgia Taylor-Brown (6th overall) was the most consistent in terms of smallest difference between her worst and best average position. She had an average swim position of 14.8 and an average T1 of 8.8, giving her a difference of 6. Thereafter, her bike average position stood at 12, her T2 at 9 and her run at 10.2.
Jeanne Lehair (5th overall) ran Taylor-Brown close with a difference of 7.3. The Luxembourg athlete’s worst average came in T1 (17.5) and her best in T2 (10.2). With her swim, bike and run nestled between those two values, Lehair was clearly highly consistent in all tenets of the race.
Lehair, Taylor-Brown and Duffy matched the achievement of the overall medallists in having all of their average positions under 20. The only instance of a woman in the overall top-10 having an average above 25 was Periault’s 28.8 in the swim.
Best by discipline
Finally, we come to the best performers in terms of single discipline averages. In the water, Therese Feuersinger had the best average position of 1, albeit from only one Series appearance. Vittoria Lopes was the next best with an average of 2.3 while Duffy completed the top-3 swimmers with her average of 3.7.
On the bike, Maria Tomé was another to record an average position of 1; this came courtesy of her field-leading bike split at the Paris Olympic Games, her sole Series-level appearance of 2024. The now-retired Katie Zaferes was the next best cyclist with an average position of 5.5. Anabel Knoll rounded out the top-3 with an average bike position of 7.
As seen above, Beaugrand and Tertsch were the best runners of the women’s Series, followed by Potter. Looking ahead to 2025, it may just be the run that shapes the women’s Series as the success of the world champion, overall podium and overall top-10 largely follow average run performance. However, the lesson of the 2024 women’s Series has been that consistency across all disciplines is almost as important as a fast run. As such, those looking to break through next year might want to think twice before putting all of their eggs in the running basket.
