This is a preview – click on the names to read about thrilling victories for Vasco Vilaca and Cassandre Beaugrand.
The race to Los Angeles starts on the Italian island of Sardinia this weekend, as many of the biggest names in short-course triathlon seek to win their first qualification points for the 2028 Olympic Games.
In what is the most stacked field of the WTCS season to date, both the men’s and women’s fields have a star-studded array of international legends ready to do battle around the port city of Alghero.
A literal who’s who of athletes, the women’s field boasts the likes of French Olympic gold medallist Cassandre Beaugrand, British trio Georgia Taylor-Brown, Beth Potter and Sophie Evans, reigning champion Lisa Tertsch (GER), and American duo Taylor Spivey and Taylor Knibb.
The men’s line-up is headed by last year’s champion Matt Hauser (AUS) and Olympic champion Alex Yee (GBR), Brazilian Miguel Hidalgo, and the man who won at Samarkand this season, Vasco Vilaca of Portugal. However, T100 champion Hayden Wilde (NZL) has pulled out due to illness.
‘New layers of excitement to the action’
World Triathlon President Antonio Fernández Arimany said: “The Italian leg of the Series always brings with it great competition, a unique atmosphere and superb organisation, and this year we will see the best athletes in the world competing for the first qualification points for the LA28 Olympic Games as well as the prestigious WTCS medals.
“With the opening of the first Olympic Qualification Period, the stories will start to be written on the long road to Los Angeles, right here in Alghero, bringing new layers of excitement to the action for fans watching here and around the world.”
Here’s all you need to know…
Start list and how to watch live
The Elite women are scheduled to get proceedings underway on San Giovanni beach at 11:00 local Central European time, while the men will then start later in the day at 14:00.
For the women’s race, this means a 10:00 start in the UK, 02:00 on the West Coast of North America, 04:00 in Central USA, and 05:00 on the East Coast. In Australia, that means the race will start at 17:00 AWST, 18:30 ACST, and 19:00 AEST. In New Zealand, the start time is 21:00.
For the men’s race, this means a 13:00 start in the UK, 05:00 on the West Coast of North America, 07:00 in Central USA, and 08:00 on the East Coast. In Australia, that means the race will start at 20:00 AWST, 21:30 ACST, and 22:00 AEST. In New Zealand, the start time is midnight.
All the action will be available to watch live via Triathlonlive.tv, with World Triathlon announcing on Friday that viewers can download a FREE pass by using the special one-off code MYRACEPASS.
The Alghero course
The course for Saturday’s races is focused around the port of Alghero, with the 1,500m swim expected to start and finish on the San Giovanni beach – although a water start is also available should conditions require it. Water temperatures at this time of year range from 15.5C to 21C.
Once out of transition, the athletes will jump on the bike for a 40km route that includes nine laps of a town course, which the official World Triathlon website describes as including ‘some uphill and some downhill sections and numerous changes of direction’.
The true splendour of Alghero centre will be on show throughout a 10km run leg which includes four laps through the town before finishing along the seafront.
Elite women’s field
Fresh from shattering the French 5km track record – a mark which had stood for 20 years – Beaugrand arrives in Sardinia looking to complete a hat-trick of WTCS wins on the island.
She’s yet to race a triathlon in 2026, having travelled to the season-opening event in Samarkand only for illness to prevent her from starting.
Winner at the last two races, she also secured the biggest margin of victory for the entire 2025 season when she crossed the line 38 seconds ahead of Italy’s Bianca Seregni. A feat made all the more impressive when you realise that no other woman won a series race by more than 17 seconds last year.
However, before we start popping the champagne corks prematurely, there is a note of warning that while Beaugrand is very much among the favourites, there are plenty of other strong athletes lining up against her in this opening Olympic qualifier.
Indeed, one of the ‘oddities’ of this course is that the fastest runner on the day has never won the women’s WTCS race on Sardinia, with Beaugrand herself missing out in 2022 and 2023 despite logging the top 10km split.
There are threats throughout the field, including from within her own French camp, as Emma Lombardi – who has earned an average placing of third in Sardinia and is also one of three women with multiple WTCS medals on the island – challenges alongside Leonie Periault, who arrives on the back of a silver medal at WTCS Samarkand.
Taylor-Brown (GBR), the only other WTCS race winner in Sardinia, having triumphed in 2022 and 2023, heads to the island with a spring in her step after notching a maiden T100 win at the weekend. She also has the best average finish of any woman starting (2.67).
An equally formidable prospect will be Potter. The winner in Samarkand was pipped to gold in Yokohama by mere seconds and is in piping hot form. She has three finishes outside the top five in Sardinia and will have to handle the Yokohama double.
Not to be forgotten is Olivia Mathias (GBR), who won her maiden WTCS medal in Alghero last year. Mathias, Taylor-Brown and Potter are part of a British squad that packs an awful lot of swim-bike power, with Evans, Jess Fullagar and Tilly Anema also capable of detonating the field.
Elsewhere, the defending world champion Tertsch (GER) will have a point to prove after missing the medals in Samarkand and Yokohama; Spivey (USA) is another previous Sardinia medallist hitting form at just the right time, having powered to a first T100 medal last weekend in Spain, and then there is Knibb.
The American superstar has already won at T100 and IRONMAN 70.3 distances this year, while she finished second last time out at the full distance in Texas. She will be making her eagerly anticipated WTCS comeback on Saturday as she too seeks LA28 points.
Knibb medalled in Cagliari in 2022 after ripping the field asunder on the bike. Should she do something similar this weekend, she could turn Beaugrand’s hat-trick hopes – and indeed the entire race – on their head.
Missing, however, is the new star of WTCS, Tilda Månsson, with the Swede not competing this weekend after her heroics in Yokohama.
Elite men’s field
The lure of early Olympic qualification points had brought out the big guns in Alghero, as the big three of short-course racing – Yee, Hauser and Wilde – were due to line up against each other for the first time since 2024.
However, Wilde’s announcement on Friday that he was unwell means that he will be missing, and fans will have to wait a little longer for that particular showdown.
Brazilian Hidalgo won this race last year and finished in second behind Australian Hauser in Yokohama and will certainly test the two big names remaining.
Hauser powered his way to victory in Japan last time out – his opening race of the series following his brief sojourn into T100 territory – however, Alghero was one of the few WTCS races that he didn’t win last year, and that will give the chasing field some hope.
The winner that day, Hidalgo, has proved he has the skills to challenge the very best, beating Hauser into second and also finishing ahead of another major threat among this week’s field, Vilaca (POR), who came in third.
Indeed, Vilaca won the opening race of this season in Samarkand when the likes of Yee, Hauser and Wilde were elsewhere, and he will be looking to prove that he can now follow up that success when the terrific trio are also lining up against him.
Wilde, who finished third in the IRONMAN 70.3 at Geelong before then dominating once again at T100 level when he won in Singapore, chose to miss Yokohama and will now focus his immediate attentions on next week’s T100 race in San Francisco.
Yee certainly enjoys his visits to Sardinia. Every time the Briton has shown up at a WTCS race on the island, he has left with the gold medal. He returned to WTCS action in Yokohama, having spent last season focusing on his marathon running.
A steady fifth-placed finish under his belt, he will no doubt be in a better state of fitness as he challenges for a podium this time around.
The Olympic champion is one of a number of top runners lining up on Saturday, with the likes of David Cantero del Campo (ESP), Oliver Conway (GBR) and Hugo Milner (GBR) all looking for the opportunity to sprint away from the pack whenever possible.
Among the best of the rest is German Henry Graf, who is the only man to have beaten Hauser and Wilde in the same WTCS race since September 2024 (when Yee last accomplished it).
