Morning endurance fans…

A few months into the season and triathlon’s biggest names are already laying down serious markers, with dominant displays, statement wins and a growing sense of who’s really in control.

From the relentless consistency of Kristian Blummenfelt to the all-distance brilliance of Taylor Knibb, and a new wave of contenders refusing to play by the script, the early narrative is one of power, depth and shifting rivalries.

Across WTCS, middle distance and the ever-evolving T100 landscape, some athletes are already building seasons that could define the year, while others are being forced onto the back foot.

So who’s dominating? Who’s knocking on the door? And what have we learned so far?

Let’s break it down…

👫 RIVALRY: Kate Waugh and Taylor Knibb will line up against one another in Yokohama this weekend at the latest WTCS event. Read HERE.

🇳🇿 CHANGE: The Challenge Wānaka race will switch to a 100km event after the PTO acquired a majority shareholding this year. Read HERE.

🤔 LESSONS: Jelle Geens says there were plenty of lessons learned when he recorded a DNF at his first-ever full-distance IRONMAN. Read HERE.

🎽 BARRIER: Will the floodgates now be opened after Kenyan Sabastian Sawe’s incredible first-ever sub-2hr marathon? Read HERE.

🥾 QUALIFIED: Popular American ultrarunner Zach Miller grabbed the last opportunity for a spot in this year’s Western States. Read HERE.

Jake Birtwhistle and Natalie Van Coevorden won the men’s and women’s professional races at IRONMAN 70.3 Western Sydney on Sunday, with both athletes putting in dominant displays on their way to the top step of the podium.

Birtwhistle won the men’s race in 3:32:59, almost three minutes clear of New Zealand’s Trent Thorpe, with Jarrod Osbone (AUS) crossing the line in third.

Van Coevorden took the tape in the women’s race in 4:00:58, three minutes clear of Ellie Salthouse (AUS), with Regan Hollioake (AUS) rounding out the podium.

Men’s results (swim - bike - run = overall time)

🥇 Jake Birtwhistle (AUS) 23:19 - 1:58:31 - 1:09:15 = 3:32:59
🥈 Trent Thorpe (NZL) 23:15 - 1:58:33 - 1:12:07 = 3:35:58
🥉 Jarrod Osborne (AUS) 24:40 - 2:00:44 - 1:10:10 = 3:37:54

Women’s results (swim - bike - run = overall time)

🥇 Natalie Van Coevorden (AUS) 24:43 - 2:14:16 - 1:19:52 = 4:00:58
🥈 Ellie Salthouse (AUS) 25:25 - 2:13:13 - 1:23:04 = 4:04:00
🥉 Regan Hollioake (AUS) 25:29 - 2:12:59 - 1:25:20 = 4:06:28

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) sealed the Tour de Romandie title in style on Sunday, winning his fourth stage on the final day of the six-day race.

The World Champion defused the inevitable attacks from second-placed Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) on the summit finish at Leysin – even itching his nose as he responded to the German’s opening salvo – before out-sprinting him in sight of the line.

Such was Pogačar’s superiority that he opened a three-second gap over Lipowitz in the short sprint for the line, with Lipowitz’s teammate Primož Roglič summoning a late charge to take third place on the stage.

👩‍💻 Read a full report from the Tour de Romandie at Cycling News, HERE.

And just like that, we are headed into May, and two thrilling months of the 2026 season have been and gone in a flash.

We’ve had no shortage of thrills, one or two spills and plenty of wobbly legs to keep us entertained as athletes from right across the triathlon spectrum have treated us to some incredible feats of endurance and sporting skill.

With the campaign seeming to have reached a natural break, we thought it would be a great opportunity for us all to take a deep breath, look back, and reflect on some of the incredible action we have seen so far.

So in this mid-term special report, we have picked out our top nine performers in the world of triathlon so far… do let us know if you think we have missed anyone out…

Three wins from his opening four races in what has been a brutal start to the new season have not only propelled Big Blu to the top of the Pro Series table, but have also served to send a very powerful message to the rest of his fellow competitors that he means business.

‘Beast Mode’ is most definitely in operation, and the cap has been turned backwards for the majority of his runs as the Norwegian has set new standards for everyone else to follow… despite a slow and frustrating start in New Zealand.

His incredible 1:06:39 half-marathon at Geelong was enough to hunt down Jelle Geens (BEL) and Hayden Wilde (NZL) to secure victory, while it was a similar story at Oceanside, where he ran a 1:07:01 to catch Jonas Schomburg and Sam Long.

IM Texas was poetry in motion as he came within seconds of beating his own world record, and we can’t wait to see what he does at Kona later this season.

✅ Verdict: Undoubted star of the opening few months of the season and HUGE favourite to win pretty much any race that he decides to enter. Could the treble of IRONMAN World Championships, 70.3 World Championships and Pro Series be on???

Another athlete who has thrown themselves into a hectic opening couple of months of the 2026 campaign is American Taylor Knibb, who continues to test herself at all forms of the sport – and let’s face it, seems to succeed most of the time also!!!

Her opening win of the season came in the T100 on the Gold Coast, where she looked imperious, while her win at Oceanside was made slightly less comfortable by the running power of Solveig Løvseth, with the Norwegian making a late push.

Keen to also make her mark at full-distance, she battled her way to second spot in Texas, with a performance which not only proved she is a threat at IRONMAN, but she also has the guts and determination to match her undoubted skills.

✅ Verdict: Shown once again that she can do pretty much anything, but with WTCS races also lined up in the coming weeks, has she bitten off more than she can chew?

Poor Kat would have been sitting alongside or just behind Blummenfelt had she not experienced the frustration of a tyre blow-out midway through the Texas bike section.

Winner at IM New Zealand on the opening weekend, she followed that up with a most dominant display at the 70.3 in Geelong, and looked set to challenge again at The Woodlands, until disaster struck and the air went out of her challenge… literally.

Matthews, like Blummenfelt, had hoped to start the season fast and pick up the points required for another Pro Series win early on, leaving her with the time to focus on a double assault on the World Championships, which have so cruelly eluded her.

With Challenge Roth now very much her focus, it is unlikely that we will see her race IRONMAN until the first of those world titles comes around on October 10.

✅ Verdict: One of the favourites for a world title this year, but can she finally get herself over the line first? She certainly deserves to.

Such a powerful athlete, who has already demonstrated an ability to pretty much close anyone down on the run, Løvseth has already shown in her two races this season just how tough it is going to be for rivals to wrestle the World Championship from her grasp.

Close friends and training partners with her compatriots Blummenfelt, Casper Stornes and Gustav Iden, she is not only working hard in between races, but she is also learning so much in terms of strategy and racing skills.

Second behind Knibb in Oceanside, she was able to turn the tables when it came to full-distance racing in Texas, at one point looking as though she might be able to set a new world record, before easing off at the end.

✅ Verdict: At her very best, it is difficult to see anyone beating her at full distance, but Kona can do funny things to people, as she saw last year, and this year will be no different.

A year ago this week, Hayden Wilde was lying in a Japanese hospital bed, wondering whether he would ever be able to race again after colliding with a truck while out on a training ride.

And while this season has also started with a fair amount of disruption, thankfully, Wilde himself is back and very much at his best; injury-free and in dominant T100 mood once again.

With fewer T100 races this season and the postponement of the WTCS in Abu Dhabi, Wilde started 2026 with a battle against Geens and Blummenfelt at the 70.3 in Geelong. It was a race that he had not prepared for and was never going to win.

However, he returned to T100 a matter of weeks ago in Singapore and was very much back to his best, beating the rest of the field by a full six minutes.

✅ Verdict: A season of T100 and WTCS awaits Wilde as he seeks LA28 Olympic qualification and another 100km crown. Don’t be too surprised if he also turns up at the 70.3 World Championships in better form and better shape.

Last year’s IRONMAN World Champion may have surprised a few people with his impressive win at Nice last year, but nothing the Norwegian does is likely to shock anyone throughout the remainder of 2026.

Part of the much-vaunted Norwegian training group, he has shown remarkable levels of endurance in both his 70.3 at Oceanside and full-distance race in Texas to come in VERY strong at the tail end of the run.

The way he breezed past Sam Long to take third at Oceanside was particularly impressive, and no matter where he exits T2, you simply cannot write him off.

✅ Verdict: Definite challenger for all three IRONMAN titles this season, but he will have to get the better of his great friend and mentor Blummenfelt once again if he is to claim a repeat of his 2025 glory.

Beth Potter had the WTCS championship in her grasp last season, only to see it then be snatched away by Germany’s Lisa Tertsch in the final race of the campaign.

The British triathlete, world champion in 2023, bounced back with a very impressive opening win of the new year, seeing off France’s Leonie Periault and a stacked women’s field to win the opening race of the World Triathlon Championship Series season in Samarkand.

✅ Verdict: The double Olympic bronze medallist from Paris was bouncing back brilliantly after an injury-hit winter, and looks set to challenge for the world title again.

It surely won’t have escaped the attention of our US readership that the Europeans seem to be leading the way when it comes to the men’s pro IRONMAN races this season.

A quick glance at the Texas top ten tells its own story, with only one American in amongst a gang of three Norwegians, two Brits, a Frenchman, a Belgian and a German. Indeed, the last full-distance World Champion from the States was Tim DeBoom, who won in 2002, defending the crown that he had won the year before.

Medical student and triathlete Matthew Marquardt has won three of his last four races – including victories at Cairns and Lake Placid – while he finished eighth in Nice.

✅ Verdict: Victory in South Africa also saw him set a new world record time, and he is definitely one to watch out for when it comes to Kona later this year.

Vasco Vilaca finished on the podium an incredible five times from his seven races across the WTCS and 70.3 seasons last year – it took him just one to kick-start this new campaign off with his first-ever win.

His opening third place at WTCS Abu Dhabi last year was followed by runners-up places at Yokohama, Hamburg and the French Riviera, before he finished the season with a second place at the 70.3 in Bahrain.

On each of the times he missed out on a WTCS win, he was denied by the eventual series winner, Matt Hauser… the time he came third, they were both beaten by eventual T100 champion Hayden Wilde.

✅ Verdict: Victory will have tasted so very sweet in Samarkand, but it will be all the more special if he can now do it when Hauser returns from his brief venture into the world of T100.

We’ve written before about the ‘family’ feeling that seems to emanate around the pro triathlon ranks, with the regular competition against one another on the course seeming to enhance friendships and mutual respect off it.

This special bond, which seems to exist between athletes who love nothing more than to test their bodies to the absolute limit as they battle for the finish line, is what makes triathlon so unique.

Further evidence of that appreciation among rivals came from Jelle Geens last week when he recalled an incident during his troublesome full-distance IRONMAN debut in Texas… and the support he received from a rival competitor.

Clearly struggling in the run, it looked as though the Belgian was going to DNF around the 17km marker, when Frenchman Vincent Luis came up from behind him and proved his total class.

“I had a bad moment and had started running really slow,” said Geens on his All In Triathlon podcast with Aaron Royle. “Vince overtook me; he gave me some encouraging words, actually, which was nice, and I started to feel a little bit better again.”

When asked if he was willing to share what those words were, Geens added how Luis had tried to gee him up by thinking about his partner Kate and their daughter Sienna – a ploy which seemed to work, even if for a short while.

“Yeah, he said something like ‘come on, let’s keep going… do it for Sienna and Kate’, which I really did appreciate. It did help… for a couple of minutes,” added Geens, who eventually did DNF around the 30-35km mark.

Strength and mobility training play a critical role in improving resilience, reducing strain, and supporting efficient movement. When combined with consistent running, they form the foundation for long-term performance and injury prevention.

Most running injuries are caused by repetitive stress rather than a single event. When muscles are weak or joints lack mobility, certain areas of the body take on more load than they should. Over time, this imbalance leads to discomfort, fatigue, and eventually injury. Addressing these weaknesses early reduces risk significantly.

🏃‍♂️ The role of Strength training:

🏃‍♂️ Key muscle groups for runners:

Runners rely heavily on the lower body, but full-body strength is important. Weakness in any of the following areas can increase injury risk. Targeted strength training improves overall durability.

🏃‍♂️ Mobility and its importance:

🏃‍♂️ Combining strength and mobility:

🏃‍♂️ Improve your running mechanics:

🏃‍♂️ Integrating Strength Training Into Your Routine:

🏃‍♂️ Mobility as a Daily Habit:

🏃‍♂️ Recovery and Adaptation:

Any dog owners out there among the Daily Split readership will know that our four-legged friends just love to follow us around wherever we go.

But what about following you on your endurance exploits? What about taking them with you when you do your next triathlon or duathlon?

The latest Traildog events were held at the end of April in Northumberland, England, where a series of race options were on offer for the ‘pawfect’ day of swim-bike-run.

Four different races were held at the event, including…

From the looks of the video below, it looked like an incredible day, although we would suggest you don’t try taking part if you have a Chihuahua!!! 🐶

You can find out more on the Traildogs events at their website, HERE.

Together, we go the distance. — @247_endurance 🏃‍♂️🚴‍♀️🏊‍♂️