Taylor Spivey already feels that the final key qualification race to earn an Olympics spot on the ultra-competitive US women’s team is in danger of being massively compromised.
Taylor Knibb is the only American woman to have booked her berth for Paris 2024, by virtue of her fifth-placed finish in the Test Event this year.
That leaves two places up for grabs, with seven other Americans in the top 60 of the Olympic rankings, in addition to Knibb.
Spivey leads the way in third, with Summer Rappaport (13), Kirsten Kasper (21), Erika Ackerlund (35), Gwen Jorgensen (40), Katie Zaferes (44) and Gina Sereno (56) all harbouring hopes themselves.
‘Same situation going into Yokohama’
Spivey of course missed out in hugely controversial fashion ahead of Tokyo in 2021 and speaking to Tim Ford on the latest Talking Triathlon podcast she admitted she fears a similar scenario playing out next year, especially given some potential dynamics she identified around WTCS Yokohama in May.
She explained: “It’s tricky because I guess going into Tokyo, you had COVID, which totally changed everything else in terms of how people qualified and who should or shouldn’t be qualified, in my opinion.
“And I think it created a big challenge for federations and at the end of the day, I was left off the team and a team I kind of think I should have been on.
“But going into the Paris qualification, so Taylor Knibb has already qualified, which means for the females, we have two more spots and the next qualification event will be in Yokohama in mid May. So the first American podium will get one spot and then the next spot will be discretionary. And if no Americans podium, then both of the spots will be discretionary.
However, it’s kind of almost playing out like it did leading into Tokyo, where the dynamics of the race really changed.
“Leading into Tokyo, because of COVID a lot of countries didn’t want to go to this race, so it ended up lowering the quality of field. There was no breakaway, which is very likely in the Olympics because the quality of field is more spread out. So there are all these factors that go into it.
“And now I’m starting to realise it’s kind of the same situation going into Yokohama, our qualification event this upcoming year, because, for instance, the British qualification race is actually going to be two weeks after in Cagliari, so they don’t want any of their athletes travelling super far away in an Olympic year.
“So that means all these athletes who generally affect the race tremendously won’t be there. And so it’s just kind of making me scratch my head why this continues to happen. And why this is our qualification race [when] the dynamics of the Olympics is going to be completely different.”
Double peak ‘very difficult’
And Spivey isn’t alone – Brit Kate Waugh has spoken in a similar vein – in wondering why athletes who don’t qualify automatically the year before potentially have their Olympic build-up compromised.
