Reigning World Champion Kate Waugh looks set to line up for her first T100 race of 2026 after being named amongst a fully stacked preliminary field of star names for next month’s date in Spain.
Having dominated last season’s competition with seven podium finishes from as many races, the British athlete was forced to miss March’s Gold Coast opener after struggling to recover from a niggling calf injury.
But now it seems she is back to full fitness and ready to defend her T100 crown from the growing list of dangerous rivals who have once again lined up to challenge her supremacy.
Battle with Taylor Knibb on the cards
Waugh is due to make her competitive comeback at the WTCS event in Yokohama on May 16 before then turning her attentions to the middle-distance challenge in Pamplona, Navarra, in northern Spain on May 23.
Ready to face her in both of those events is the woman who took full advantage of Waugh’s Australian absence, American Taylor Knibb, who picked up her first set of maximum points in the race to Qatar with a perfectly pitched victory on the shores of Surfers Paradise.
Having also impressed in both IRONMAN and 70.3 action since that win in Australia (she was second in Texas and won at Oceanside), Knibb will once again line up for T100 action as her assault on triathlon – no matter the distance – continues apace this season.
Early indications are that the field in Spain will be tougher than that of the Gold Coast, where a number of big-name competitors were either ruled out or simply did not travel.
Return of many big-name athletes
The preliminary list sees the return of Waugh’s British colleagues, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Holly Lawrence, and India Lee, while Julie Derron (SUI) and Taylor Spivey (USA) are also named on the Spanish start list.
There will also be great interest in the two wildcard picks, with Switzerland’s Cathia Schär joining the field alongside Sophie Evans (formerly Coldwell), after the duo finished first and second, respectively, at the IRONMAN 70.3 in Valencia.
Schär not only came out on top that day, but the 24-year-old has, in fact, won on her last three outings, spanning back to last season when she finished the year with victories at Challenge Peguera Mallorca and Challenge Barcelona.
Missing from the line-up, however, are British duo Jess Fullager, who performed so impressively when running Knibb close before settling for a runners-up spot last month, and Lucy Charles-Barclay, who only made her return to competition last weekend, having undergone tendon surgery in the winter.
Austrian Lisa Perterer, named among the starters for Spain, recorded a DNS at IRONMAN Texas after suffering from a fever and this week announced how she had been recovering from off-season surgery to relieve the effects of iliac artery endofibrosis.
