The last time a WTCS race was held in London it was Alistair Brownlee and Gwen Jorgensen who took the victories, a year out from their gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Brownlee may have retired but Jorgensen is back as the event makes a welcome return to the UK capital – as does pretty much every other short-course big hitter, bar one significant absentee.
And that’s Olympic silver medallist and T100 champion Hayden Wilde who had intended to race but explained on Monday why he will be sitting this one out.
The likes of the current Olympic champions Alex Yee (GBR) and Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) do join the fray and there’s great news for home fans who can’t line the streets of London to support as the BBC have stepped in late on to provide free-to-air coverage.
Read on to find out more…
Start time and how to watch live
Yee has often told us how important it is to make the top triathlon races as easy as possible to watch so it’s a big boost that confirmation finally came through last week that this one will have live coverage on the BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app in the UK.
It features the strongest fields of the season and is also over the sprint distance (750m / 20km / 5km) so is pretty much the perfect shop window for the sport.
The action gets under way on Saturday 25 July at 14:30 BST with the elite women. That’s 15:30 CEST, 09:30 Eastern and 06:30 Western. The elite men then go off at 16:15 local time.
For those outside of the UK you can watch both races as normal live on TriathlonLive.tv. A subscription is required which is currently at £10.99 a month or £37.99 a year.
Elite Women
Bar one person, every single women’s WTCS race winner since the start of 2023 is scheduled to race in London, with Germany’s Laura Lindemann the exception.
Rather than the Brits we should probably start with the French line up as Olympic champ Cassandre Beaugrand returns to the fray after her recent Diamond League heroics on the track.
Her record in the UK could hardly be better – she won at both WTCS Leeds and WTCS Sunderland as well as numerous Super League / Supertri / Arena Games events in London.
She is also looking for a third WTCS win of the year following her triumphs at Alghero and Quiberon and she’s joined by Hamburg winner Leonie Periault and Emma Lombardi, the two of whom also combined to win the Mixed Relay events in both Quiberon and Hamburg for France.
Moving to the Brits and they are now six-strong, headed by 2023 World Champion Beth Potter and the most decorated Olympic female triathlete in Georgia Taylor-Brown, a winner in Leeds back in 2019.
Sophie Evans continues her impressive return while Jess Fullagar again went well as she helped GB onto the podium in the Mixed Relay in Hamburg and Tilly Anema and Sian Rainsley complete the six.
Matching the Brits numerically are the USA. We’ve already mentioned Jorgensen and she’s joined by Taylor Knibb who heads here in great form after a dominant World Cup victory in Edmonton at the weekend. Namesake Taylor Spivey is also in form and the American sextet is completed by Erica Ackerlund, Gina Sereno and Naomi Ruff.
Reigning World Champion Lisa Tertsch spearheads a German trio along with Tanja Neubert and Therese Feuersinger.
And other WTCS gold medal winners racing are Jeanne Lehair (LUX) and Tilda Månsson (SWE) while that title is surely something Hungarian phenom Fanni Szalai will achieve one day and she heads here fresh from a brilliant WTCS debut in Hamburg.
Elite Men
There’s similar strength in depth on the men’s side but we’ll have to wait a little while longer for the first ‘big four’ battle of 2026 between Alex Yee, Matt Hauser (AUS), Wilde and Vasco Vilaca (POR).
Hauser gave himself every chance of retaining his world title when he outsprinted series leader Vilaca once again in Hamburg a fortnight ago and the big Aussie has to be the favourite here, especially as Yee has yet to show his top form in 2026.
Vilaca tops what is again a super-strong Portuguese contingent of Ricardo Batista, João Nuno Batista and Miguel Tiago Silva.
Another WTCS winner lining up is Morgan Pearson who tops a five-strong USA team and possibly has a point to prove after a frustrating anchor leg last time out in the Mixed Relay in Hamburg.
Numerically it’s no surprise that GB are the biggest team – and they have strength in depth to match. As well as Yee, Oliver Conway looks a future superstar while Connor Bentley and Jack Willis have both cracked the top 10 at WTCS level recently while Max Stapley is on an upward trajectory and Michael Gar and Harry Leleu can be factors too. And another illustration of how tough it is just to get a starting spot for GB came with Solomon Okrafo-Smart’s win the men’s race at the World Triathlon Cup Edmonton last weekend.
Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) and Csongor Lehmann (RSA) are others for the short list.
As ever these fields are fluid in race week – click here for both of the latest start lists.
The London course
It’s a new course and makes plenty of use of the Excel convention centre which acts as the race hub and transition area.
The one lap 750m swim takes place in the Royal Docks, with the athletes starting from a pontoon and swimming in a clockwise direction. It’s 315m to the first buoy. The run to transition is an unusual one – they enter the venue up a flight of carpeted stairs.
Once they have their bikes, it’s a flat and fast seven anti-clockwise laps and due to the short distance of each lap, the World Triathlon Technical committee has given a rule exception to allow lapped athletes to remain on the bike course.
The run course consists of three laps and is also anti-clockwise direction and utilising some of the Excel.
