2024 World Triathlon Championship Series finale: Alex Yee and Cassandre Beaugrand look to cap perfect seasons with world titles
The Paris 2024 triathlon champions have enjoyed a remarkable year and both enter the Series finale in Torremolinos, Spain in pole position for world titles.
Triathlon
What represents a perfect season for a sportsperson? For triathletes Alex Yee and Cassandre Beaugrand 2024 could turn out to be as close to perfection as possible.
Yee and Beaugrand enter this weekend’s World Triathlon Championship Series finales, which take place on 19 and 20 October, as reigning Olympic champions, having both claimed individual gold at Paris 2024. Now they will begin the season's final race as favourites for the men's and women's world titles, having both been victorious in all three of the Series races they have competed in this year.
Olympics.com looks at the world title charges of two athletes aiming for a perfect end to a year in which they have already won the most coveted prize in sport.
Alex Yee’s perfect WTCS season
25 May: WTCS Cagliari
Yee’s winning season start to the 2024 season began in the Italian city of Cagliari. As he did the year before, when he recovered from a trip in the first moments of the race to storm to victory, the 26-year-old battled to an impressive win over New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde. The two friends went toe-to-toe in an epic encounter, with Yee crossing the line first as Wilde trailed home just metres behind.
It would be the first sign of how the rest of this season would play out, with Wilde later proving to be a worthy rival to the Brit in arguably the most important race of their careers.
31 July: Olympic Games Paris 2024
Of course, competitions don’t come bigger than the greatest sporting show on earth: the Olympic Games.
In the capital of France, Yee produced a spectacular comeback to overtake a gallant Wilde after the latter had raced into what seemed to be an unassailable lead on the run leg.
The grit and determination Yee showed in what he described as a “magic moment” was met with gasps from the crowd.
Gold belonged to the Londoner and — with it — a second ranking victory in the race for the 2024 world title.
27 September: WTCS Weihai
Less than two months after his triumph in Paris, Yee entered the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Weihai with a perfect record of 2,000 points from a possible 2,000 from his first two races of the year.
Could he continue his winning streak in People’s Republic of China after the exertions of the Olympic Games? The answer was an emphatic yes.
Coming home some 46 seconds ahead of his nearest challenger, France’s Paris 2024 bronze medallist Leo Bergere, the Brit was even more dominant than usual, setting himself up for what could be a perfect end to the season in Spain’s Torremolinos when the men’s elite final takes place on Sunday 20 October.
World Triathlon Championship Series elite men’s standings (top 5):
- Alex Yee (Great Britain): 3000.00 points
- Leo Bergere (France): 2572.08 points
- Hayden Wilde (New Zealand): 2476.40 points
- Matthew Hauser (Australia): 2301.40 points
- Luke Willian (Australia): 2112.24 points
Cassandre Beaugrand’s 100% 2024
25 May: WTCS Cagliari
Although she stands on 2750 points compared to Yee’s 3000, France’s Beaugrand is also unbeaten in the World Triathlon Championship Series in 2024.
As with Yee, her winning start began in Cagliari when she registered her first-ever WTCS victory over the Olympic distance.
Faced with the challenge of reigning world champion Beth Potter and this season’s surprise performer Lisa Tertsch, who currently sits third in the standings, Beaugrand showed nerves of steel to reign victorious in Sicily.
13 July 2024: WTCS Hamburg
Just weeks before she would have the opportunity to race in a home Olympic Games, Beaugrand continued her faultless 2024 with victory in the WTCS race in Germany’s Hamburg.
Competing over the shorter triathlon distance — which offers 750 points to the victor instead of the standard 1000 - Beaugrand was out in a league of her own, laying down a hugely impressive time of 15:20 in the run leg to secure a second victory in as many Series races.
Beaugrand’s run time that day was the fastest in the history of the Series, beating the old record by a full 11 seconds.
And she wasn’t done there. One last ranking race — the Olympic Games in Paris — would show that the French athlete who trains at England’s Loughborough University was close to unstoppable in 2024.
31 July: Olympic Games Paris 2024
While some wilt under the pressure of a home Olympic Games, others take their moment to shine in the spotlight in spectacular fashion.
Beaugrand’s race in Paris was the perfect example of the latter as she overcame the challenges of a wet, slippery course that saw multiple others crash, to register the single greatest victory of her career.
While the partisan crowd was whipped into a frenzy by the brilliant swim, ride and run of their home favourite, Beaugrand admitted that it had all felt like a dream.
“I didn’t realise that I was Olympic champion, I shouted but I told myself that it wasn’t possible, I told myself that someone had to wake me up,” she told Olympics.com.
The shiny gold medal that hung around her neck will undoubtedly be the greatest prize she will win this year. But the win also gave her a third victory in as many ranking competitions in the race to be crowned world champion.
Victory for Beaugrand in Spain will see her cap off a perfect season with both world and Olympic titles in the same year — a feat also achieved by Bermuda’s Flora Duffy in 2021.
World Triathlon Championship Series elite women’s standings (top 5):
- Cassandre Beaugrand (France): 2750.00 points
- Beth Potter (Great Britain): 2636.26 points
- Lisa Tertsch (Germany): 2618.75 points
- Emma Lombardi (France): 2438.53 points
- Georgia Taylor-Brown (Great Britain): 2210.01 points