The World Triathlon Podcast

A very special guest joins the podcast to mark the 100th episode, the Paris 2024 Olympic Triathlon Champion Cassandre Beaugrand!It is a deeply honest hour in the company of our Olympic and World Champion, each story revealing a little more about just where all the grit, determination and competitive spirit that has taken the 27-year-old to the very top of the sport came from.Cass explains why she so cherished the support of teammate Leonie Periault, even when she was being ‘a nightmare' to train with, why she was so envious of the cool, calm spirit of Andrea Hewitt, and why she threw up all over her feet next to Georgia Taylor Brown in Paris.SHOW NOTES02:20 – 'All change' - Why she is joining coach Glenn Poleunis in Girona and saying goodbye to Loughborough13:17 – ‘How success feels' - Releasing the pressure, the 5km French record and Lievin19:40 – ‘Early years' - Growing up in Paris, losing her mum, moving to Antibes23:50 – ‘All change' - Leaving her father as coach and moving to Montpelier27:45 – ‘Bad mindset' - Being hard to coach and pushing too much in training31:37 – ‘Good people' – Support of Stephanie Gros and Leonie Periault33:25 – 'Christmas present' – Being the youngest woman at Rio 201637:20 – 'Shattered dreams' – The trouble with Tokyo41:40 – 'I need a plan' – The move to Loughborough45:26 – 'Pain threshold' – Pain and gains in WTCS Cagliari52:08 – 'Paris panic' – The rain returns on Olympics day57:00 – 'Lost at sea' – Turning it around in Torremolinos

A new perspective with World Triathlon's Kris Gemmell.Welcome to the start of a revealing new series that takes a wider look at the World Triathlon ecosystem as we head towards the LA 2028 Olympic Games, with insights from New Zealand Olympian turned Head of Commercial at World Triathlon, Kris Gemmell.Just days after winning the first new-look T1 Indoor World Cup, we cover the rise and rise of Cassandre Beaugrand to becoming the best triathlete in the world, what could be the irresistible lure of a home Games for Taylor Knibb and USA Triathlon, rules, regulations and something of a 2025 Championship Series exclusive...PODCAST #100 INCOMING WITH CASSANDRE BEAUGRANDDon't forget to email podcast@triathlon.org with any questions for the Olympic and World Champion, our very special guest on podcast #100, for a chance to win a year subscription to TriathlonLive.tv.--LINKS & RESOURCESWATCH CASSANDRE BEAUGRAND WIN IN LIEVIN over on the World Triathlon YouTube channelWhere you will also find the channel's most watched video featuring a certain Kris Gemmell.Before Beth Potter and Cassandre Beaugrand go toe-to-toe for the first time this year at the supertri E World Triathlon Championships, watch back the highlights of their 2024 battle!--Sign up to TriathlonLive.tv and never miss a minute of the action!Email the podcast via podcast@triathlon.orgSign up to THE APEX - World Triathlon's weekly newsletter - for more news and views from around the sport, straight to your inbox every Friday!

The second Olympic Qualification Period saw a meteoric rise to the Paris 2024 start line for Sweden's Tilda Mansson. From 2022 Junior World Champion to multiple World Cup podiums in the space of a whirlwind 12 months, the 20-year-old has bypassed U23 racing entirely and heads for a remarkable third Championship Finals of a young career in Torremolinos. With LA 2028 the next major target, the interim years will be earmarked for refining her talent, but the memories - and stories - from the Paris swim and beyond still have plenty of time to be told... Watch Mansson's brilliant Bergen World Cup win

USA's John Reed heads into this year's U23 World Championships on a mission to crown what has already been a brilliant breakthrough 2024. The rising star discusses his debut Series appearances, first World Cup win in Karlovy Vary and a sparkling WTCS Weihai, and hits his last U23 start line knowing that if he can take home a medal, it would catapult him into the next Olympic cycle and towards a huge home Games at LA 2028.

We catch up with Great Britain's defending Paralympic Champion in the PTS5 Triathlon Lauren Steadman, USA's PTS2 medal hope Mohamed Lahna and compatriot and Rio 2016 PTS5 champion Grace Norman fresh from the swim familiarisation in the Seine River ahead of their big races on 1 September. 

She is just 28 years old, but Veronica Yoko Plebani has already squeezed more into her young world than most do in a lifetime. Contracting bacterial meningitis at 15 could have been the end, too, but instead the appalling illness signalled a new beginning, one that has taken her on to representing Italy at three Paralympic Games in snowboarding, canoeing and triathlon, grace the cover of Italian Vogue and write a celebrated novel telling the story of a young woman whose life is altered but refuses to lie down. Now she heads to Paris 2024 with a second triathlon medal in her sights.

Two stars of the Para Triathlon visually impaired class, Italy's 2023 World Champion Francesca Tarantello and Australia's Continental Champion Sam Harding are ready to hit their first Paralympic Triathlon start lines on 2 September, and reveal their rapid rises through the ranks to the sport's biggest stage: Paris 2024.

PARK RUN TO OLYMPIC PODIUM VIA DUATHLON WORLDSAs the Multisport World Championships hit Townsville, we rewind to Ibiza last year with Great Britain's Georgia Bell, when she became Age Group Duathlon World Champion before embarking on an Olympic odyssey that saw her win 1500m bronze in one of the most nail-biting Paris 2024 finishes since... well, Yee vs Wilde. Hear why she credits cycling and duathlon racing with her staying power on the track, and how she was able to turn the tables on broken dreams and return to the biggest stage of them all, having thought world-class racing was behind her.

Sunday sees the first day of familiarisation on the Paris 2024 Olympic Triathlon course and a chance to catch up with some of the men ready to do battle on 30 July at 8am in the heart of the French capital.0m50s - KENJI NENER (JAPAN)5m35 - JAMIE RIDDLE (SOUTH AFRICA)14m06 - MARTEN VAN RIEL (BELGIUM)19m37 - SAM DICKINSON (GREAT BRITAIN)26m05 - ELOI ADJOVAN (TOGO)33m30 - JEAN GAEL LAURENT L'ENTETE (MAURITIUS)

Saturday is Day One of Paris 2024, and we take a trip to Poissy, 30 minutes west of the French capital, to catch up with defending Olympic Triathlon Champion Flora Duffy and one of the favourites for the men's gold, Hayden Wilde. Then we head across the city to a cafe in La VIllette and get the full men's and women's race previews with TriathlonLive.tv commentary team Trevor Harris and Helen Jenkins.1m10s - Hayden Wilde 10m10s - Flora Duffy20m20s - Trevor and Helen men's preview30m45s - Trevor and Helen women's preview

With just hours to go to the Opening Ceremony, we look ahead to the Paris 2024 Olympic triathlon events with the expert analysis and insight from Norway's Casper Stornes, revealing the complexities of the Paris Olympic course from swim to bike to run, and why you should never write off Kristian Blummenfelt... or the French.

Australia's Matt Hauser joins us for a rewind across the comings and goings of an almighty WTCS Yokohama that finally got the 2024 Series underway in dramatic style, and a look ahead to WTCS Cagliari, the final race of the Paris 2024 Qualification Period. The 55 men and 55 women are soon to be finalised, and the races to become Olympic Champions in the French capital are heating up already!

Reunited full-time with his coach Joel Filiol, back on extended training camps with nothing more to think about than form and focus, the enormous carrot of a home Olympics now just five months away, the two-time World Champion Vincent Luis is ready to pounce on every opportunity 2024 sends his way.Dialling in at the end of four weeks in Lanzarote and ready for the season opener in Abu Dhabi, Luis is open about the likelihood of this being his last full season of short course racing. The blue carpet will undoubtedly miss one of the greats but, as the 34-year-old reflects on his career on the latest episode of the World Triathlon Podcast, the feeling will be mutual.Before any discussion of retirement can begin, there is a season for the ages ahead of him. Injury may have seen him a mere spectator as teammates Dorian Coninx, Leo Bergere and Pierre Le Corre hoovered up the prizes in 2023, but the experience has also left him hungry. Three spots available, four world-class athletes competing for them, one huge decision ahead for the selectors. All Luis wants to do is produce the results that mean, purely based on form, he can still be one of them.

Standing at #32 in the Olympic Rankings at the start of 2024, Kiwi Dylan McCullough looks set to join Hayden Wilde on the New Zealand team for Paris 2024 if he can continue the form he produced in 2023. He talks team tactics for the big races, becoming Youth Olympic Champion and going face to face with Justin Bieber.

We continue our look back at some of the names breaking out in 2023 and with ambitions set fully on Paris in the company of Hungary's exciting talent Marta Kropko.Still only 20 years old, this season saw Marta cement her place in the Hungarian Mixed Relay squad after what was a tough debut in Leeds in 2022, this time helping the team to 5th place at the World Championships in Hamburg, 3rd at the European Games Krakow and now suddenly eyeing an Olympic qualification spot that would guarantee two men and two women on the Paris start lines.The U23 Aquathlon World Champion after winning in Ibiza, Marta scored a first World Cup top 10 in Weihai in August and is now hunting a first WTCS start in 2024, all fitting around an Economics degree in which she is in her third year at Budapest University.

With a huge Olympic year ahead it is the perfect time to look back at some of the younger names that made an impact in 2023 and suddenly have Olympic places in their sights.We get underway with 22-year-old Cathia Schar, who anchored the Swiss Team to Mixed Relay World Championship bronze in Hamburg, took 4th place in the U23 World Championships Pontevedra and then crushed her first World Cup podium with bronze in Rome.Currently 33rd in the Olympic Rankings, Paris 2024 is suddenly a very real prospect for both the individual and mixed relay, so we get to grips with the journey there, overcoming self-doubt and proclivity for a party to emerge from the COVID years as a new force in Swiss triathlon.

OLYMPIC-SIZED AMBITIONHe has only been in the sport for two years, but at 6'4" tall and with his first World Cup win already secured in Miyazaki, could Hugo Milner be the Next Big Thing in British Triathlon? He honed his run skills in Harvard, his swimming in Nottingham and his bike handling in Derby, and it looks like the fist test of a WTCS start line could be heading his way in 2024.

In 2013, Dorian Coninx became Junior World Champion in London, beating two rising British talents on their own patch. A decade later, the Frenchman went into the 2023 World Triathlon Championship Finals as a long-shot title prospect, fifth in the rankings, the much-fancied Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde among those ahead of him. Once again, the underdog title suited him down to the ground, but now Coninx must prepare for a home Olympics in Paris next year as the new World Champion and the name on everyone's lips. He has learned and matured enormously since the dark days of his Rio 2016 campaign, but how will the 29-year-old cope with going into Paris as a favourite?

In September, Great Britain's Beth Potter capped a phenomenal year with a World Championship-winning display in Pontevedra. With her 2024 Olympic Games place now also booked thanks to that title and victory in the Test Event, Potter now has the freedom to plan her perfect Paris build up. Tune in for a revealing 45 minutes in her company as she dissects life on and off the blue carpet, including pre-race insomnia, post-race elation and how she plotted her way past Cassandre Beaugrand to become world champ at the 2023 Championship Finals.

Could Vincent Luis be a CrossFit Champion? Who are the ultimate athletes - triathletes or CrossFitters? Could you row a marathon?Hailing from San Diego, California, Lauren Fisher is a 7 x CrossFit Games athlete and former Junior national weightlifting champion in the US who tuned in to the world of CrossFit from a young age initially to help with her basketball training. The multi-dimensional fitness competitions soon took over as her sport of choice, however, and after a decade competing at the top level, she now also runs her own signature fitness programmes and retreats for those looking for a slice of the Lauren lifestyle. Lauren hit her first Olympic distance triathlon in Hamburg's open races and thinks there could be more crossover potential between the sports. Listeners can receive a 50% discount for Lauren's Grown Strong fitness programme for women using the code worldtriathlon

Will McCloy is best know to triathlon fans as the commentary voice behind the Arena Games and Super League, for whom he has been calling races for over five years. The Australian took a first dip into Age Group World Championship racing in Hamburg in mid-July, where he puked, fought walls and raced actual former elite champions. McCloy reveals the importance of testing himself, the power of preparation and the potent competition to be found among middle-aged men on an AG triathlon start line.

Rasmus Henning (DEN)Two-time top 10 Olympic triathlete ✅ Multiple World Cup and Ironman winner ✅ One of Denmark's most successful triathletes of all time ✅Back in 2010 he joined an elite club of male athletes to complete a sub-8hour Ironman and posted one of the fastest ever times at Challenge Roth, a four-time Kona vet, he could most recently be seen rolling back the years and tearing up the course at the WTCS Hamburg Age Group Sprint World Championships, winning silver in the 45-49 category. He is also the CEO and performance director of Triathlon Denmark after recently working with the Danish Olympic Committee.Denmark's triathlon titan Rasmus Henning found his competitive edge was as sharp as ever as he returned to the blue carpet in Hamburg. After picking up silver at the AG World Championships as legends like Daniel Unger and Stuart Hayes took to the opportunity to get back to competition, the Great Dane relives the Hamburg magic, the unique tussles of the $200,000 Hy-Vee race and missing out on winning a Hummer.

We take a look ahead to the fourth stop on the 2023 World Triathlon Championship Series - WTCS Montreal - with former World Champion Non Stanford and Tommy Zaferes, to figure out just where the race can be won and lost - and by whom. The chase for World Championship points continues over a demanding sprint-distance course, Vasco Vilaça of Portugal and USA's Taylor Spivey wear the golden #1 and look to continue their chase for the 2023 world titles.

After switching from representing the tricolor of France to the tri-suit of Luxembourg in 2022, Jeanne Lehair has been in the form of her life, seizing the new opportunities that have come her way to post career-best Series finishes and become the Triathlon Champion of Europe. She gives us the lowdown on squaring off that difficult decision to switch ahead of Paris 2024, the battle in Madrid and her targets for the rest of what is already a season for the ages. You can watch her race in June's French Grand Prix and WTCS Montreal over on TriathlonLive.tv.

A four-month goal achieved together - France's Marjolaine Pierre and Clement Mignon took Ibiza by storm as they won the 2023 World Triathlon Long Distance Championships in May. Taking the tape just minutes apart, it was an iconic finish to two outstanding races by the couple that have been together since racing the Junior National Championships back in 2018. That was the end of a long and difficult road for both of them, but now the ambitions are turning to Nice and Kona.

Portugal's Vasco Vilaça heads to WTCS Cagliari as the world number one after an electrifying start to the 2023 season saw back-to-back podiums in Abu Dhabi and Yokohama. We catch up with him and World Triathlon photographer Tommy Zaferes from his base in Sardinia to find out what makes him tick on and off the blue carpet and who is the FIFA king of the JFT training crew.episode notes02'50 - FIFA wars - Vilaça vs Geens vs Bicsak08'50 - Natalie Van Coevorden - passenger imposter11'50 - Swim cap crying - losing the coveted no.1 cap 15'35 - WTCS Yokohama rewind - cramping capers, Hauser pounces20'10 - Battling the waves in Cagliari - tips from a former lifesaver31'40 - Sprint finishers - who you got, Coninx or Bergere, Wilde or Yee? 34'35 - Eagle versus Falcon25'20 - Race no.1: passing the time on the starting line 38'00 - Pre-race nerves and the power of the nap43'00 - Abstinence among athletes45'30 - Fantasy Triathlon League: Tommy kiss of death obstri.com/fantasy51'50 - What's next in 2023 and Paris 2024 plans

The USA's Erika Ackerlund spoke out recently about the paralysing nerves she felt at the start of the 2022 season, and where the pressure she had unwittingly placed on herself had put her mental health. The 26-year-old reveals what helped her through it, and how she hopes to channel her nervous energy into something positive in 2023.

Hans Christian Tungesvik has played his own part in Norway's triathlon explosion in recent years, an Ironman and Norseman champion who made the switch to Winter Triathlon in 2021 in triumphant fashion, winning individual and relay golds on his championship debut. With the 2023 World Championships being held in his native Skeikampen, we catch up with one of the favourites for this year's title and hear just what it takes to become an extreme tri world champion, and how Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden have reshaped Norway's triathlon landscape.

It was one of the most gripping climaxes to a season possible as a dramatic final 500m of the men's 2022 World Triathlon Championship Finals saw Leo Bergere eventually emerge with gold and the world title at the end of a hard-fought campaign. Ahead of his return to the desert for the 2023 season opener, we caught up with Bergere in Girona to hear how he finally got the better of Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde and what makes the French squad such aa force to be reckoned with heading in to the new year of racing. Watch WTCS Abu Dhabi on 3 March on TriathlonLive.tv

With the start of the 2023 World Triathlon Championship Series just around the corner, World Triathlon met up with Vincent Luis in the Girona hills where he lives and trains. This bonus episode is a short excerpt from the full interview with the two-time World Champion, and will be available to watch soon exclusively on TriathlonLive.tv along with all of the new season's action from the blue carpet. Stand by for the season launch on 17 February.

In mid-December, the word was finally out - Rio 2016 Olympic Champion Gwen Jorgensen was coming back to World Triathlon racing in 2023. A seven-year break from the blue carpet, two children and some serious marathon running since she hung up her tri-suit, one of the best of all time is back and eyeing a spot on the USA Mixed Relay squad for Paris 2024. Hear how it all came about and why on the latest episode of the World Triathlon Podcast.

Netherlands' Maya Kingma kicks off the new season of World Triathlon podcasts, the rising talent who fought through the pain barrier at the end of 2022 to help determine the outcome of WTCS Bermuda, was caught up in a bike crash in Abu Dhabi, and is looking to ease into the new year fully fit and ready to consistently hit the heights she has shown over the past two campaigns. After a little glitz at the first ever Global Triathlon Awards!

Gillian Sanders and Tommy Zaferes join the podcast to give their own inside takes on a season that has had it all, and look ahead to the big one - the 2022 Championship Finals Abu Dhabi, where the headline battles between Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee, Flora Duffy and Georgia Taylor-Brown for the men's and women's world titles are set to provide the season's final chapter of unmissable action!

Ahead of his first race back from an injury that has kept him off the blue carpet since Abu Dhabi 2021, we are in Chile to speak with USA's Morgan Pearson at the Vina del Mar World Cup and catch up on where the Olympic Mixed Triathlon Relay silver medallist is at mentally and physically as he builds back towards the all-important Paris 2024 campaign.

For 2022 World Coach Day, we catch up with Brazil Triathlon's High Performance Manager Rodrigo Milazzo and Tibor Lehmann, coach of Hungarian hotshot Csongor Lehmann, and hear how they are determined to convert years of work into Olympic success at Paris 2024, and exactly what it might take to realise those dreams over the next two seasons on the World Triathlon blue carpet.

Ahead of an hotly anticipated first World Cup in their hometown of Bergen, Norway's triathlon totems reveal the secrets of the City of Seven Mountains and just how they manage to keep pushing each others limits and buttons during training. From Iden's mortal fear of birds to the sneakier side of Blummenfelt's race tactics and the prospect of a complete overhaul of their Olympic formula for Paris 2024, it's a brilliant hour in the company of the two great friends and rivals.https://goo.gl/maps/oPeQVf9BN5tmQ5bq9

New Zealand's Craig Kirkwood began working with Hayden Wilde back in 2016 and has since helped develop a raw multisport talent into an Olympic medallist and world title contender. On this episode, he reveals how a tenacious Wilde first made him aware of his ability as the pair chased a $1,000 prize and how he prefers the art of coaching to the science, and looks forward to a potential world championship showdown in Abu Dhabi.

Dogged by injuries at almost every crucial step of his young career, Sam Dickinson is now ready to break out of the shadows in 2022. Serving as a domestique and standby for GB's Tokyo 2020 Olympic hopefuls, Sam has had to bide his time, but after helping land the first Mixed Relay spots of the Paris 2024 qualifiers - including a controversial penalty that nearly cost the team dearly - he is now laser-focussed on a big Commonwealth Games debut and kicking on in the new Olympic cycle. 

We're back and delighted to cast an eye over some of the remarkable action from the Championship Series races over the past months, as well as a first look ahead to the Commonwealth Games, with one of the young athletes making a name for himself in Leeds and Hamburg, Jamie Riddle. The 22-year-old is a shining example of the power of positivity and seizing your opportunities when they present themselves, as we take a look at the new generation coming through and bringing the heat to start of the Paris 2024 Olympic cycle.

The former World Triathlon and Ironman Champion and Super League pioneer Chris McCormack joins us for a look ahead to the first Series race of 2022, WTCS Yokohama. We get the inside scoop on the historic Sub7-Sub8 Ironman attempts and consider just what it is that makes the likes of Blummenfelt, Duffy and Brownlee so very good, as well as why there will always be someone around the corner waiting to outdo them.

Ahead of the London stop of the 2022 Arena Games Triathlon series, we catch up with one of the surprise packages from Munich a fortnight ago, Australia's Max Stapley, to get the inside scoop on the tactics that helped him to silver in Germany, as well as Kate Waugh (GBR), who can take some credit for his preparation having experienced the lung-burn for the first time herself a year ago, and who is also looking forward to the challenge ahead and the prospect of racing in front of a sell out crowd at the London Olympic Aquatics Centre.

Before the Belgium Hammer - who scored gold at the 70.3 Dubai earlier in 2022 - heads to the opening Munich leg of the Arena Games Triathlon World Championships, Marten Van Riel explains just how and why he is ready to make the seemingly impossible leap from longer distance to intense, virtual super-sprint action, the fresh weapons his new training programme is bringing to his racing and why he just wants to spread good triathlon vibes everywhere he goes.

Born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, the ever outspoken Paulo Sousa had no fewer than seven members of his training group on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic start lines last year. On episode 58, he shares his excitement over the three new members added to the roster for 2022, the experiences and philosophies that have shaped his methods and why pragmatism and honesty are the core principles to everything he practices. And hill reps. Lots and lots of hill reps.

Hungary's Csongor Lehmann and Canadian Kira Gupta-Baltazar join us for the third in our mini-series of ones-to-watch for the 2022 season. Csongor was born and raised in the home of Hungarian triathlon, Tiszaujvaros, a fierce competitor with Junior and U23 World titles to his name, trained by his dad and brought up on a rich diet of triathlon as soon as he could walk. Kira made her debut in the Canadian Mixed Relay team in Montreal and, having won the NCAA Women's Triathlon title for her beloved San Francisco University, is looking to hit her first World Cups in 2022. 

Two of the hottest new talents ready to breakthrough in 2022 are Denmark's Alberte Kjaer Pedersen and Brazil's Miguel Hidalgo. Coming from opposite sides of the swim-bike-run equation, both are working it out on the world stage, hitting their first WTCS starts in style and planning to help their countries to Mixed Relay Olympic debuts in Paris. 

As we begin the countdown to the start of a new World Triathlon season, it's time to catch up with a few of the faces set to be breaking through in 2022. In the first of a series of ones-to-watch specials, the USA's Chase McQueen and French U23 World Champion Emma Lombardi give us the lowdown on the very different trajectories of their journeys in the sport so far, including high drama at WTCS Leeds and the art of French Grand Prix racing.

When the women's PTWC wheelchair category was left out of the Para Triathlon programme of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, USA's Kendall Gretsch didn't dwell on what might have been. Instead, she took up Para Nordic Skiing, going on to win gold at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games. After finally getting her shot at triathlon glory at Tokyo 2020 and winning the title in the most dramatic fashion, she is now heading to Beijing and hoping to defend her winter titles for the first time.

The most decorated World Triathlon Champion of all time, Spain's Javier Gomez has left an indelible mark on the sport ever since his first world title at U23 level in 2003. He looks back through those defining career moments and, with new coach Dan Plews, plots a route to his next chapter with one eye firmly on unfinished business in Kona.

Former USAT coach and the man behind Origin Performance, Ian O'Brien joins us on the latest episode, revealing how to achieve a winning mindset and why it is important to become 'comfortable in being uncomfortable' on the journey to the very top of the international sport. We go inside the tactics and hear the tales of what it takes to train the best in the world.

Fresh from her first international gold at the Europe Triathlon Cup Quarteira, Lotte Miller shares her unique insights to the Team Norway set up, from the intimidating early days with Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden to the cusp of an Olympic Mixed Relay slot, the emotional rollercoaster of 2021 and how the 25-year-old has already learned the hard way how to spot the danger signs of burn out.