A Year in Triathlon: 2025 Middle-Distance Triathletes of the Year

Hayden Wilde on the bike at T100 London. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Welcome to 2026, everyone! As we gear up for yet another exciting year of multisport and endurance coverage, we have a few more 2025 “look backs” to contemplate – we’ll take a stab and naming “triathletes of the year” (male and female) in three categories: draft legal, middle distance and long distance.

I’m going to kick things off with our middle distance category because, at least on the men’s side of things, the decision seems to be pretty straightforward (from my point of view). Of course, what I think is “pretty straightforward” might be completely wrong to some others – all this is more than a little subjective. Is the “triathlete of the year” the person who was the most consistent? The person who came through with a big win at a world championship when everything was on the line? The person who had the most dramatic race season? With all that in mind, I welcome everyone’s thoughts and comments on my picks.

First things, first – what am I defining as “middle distance?” This is T100 and 70.3/ half-IRONMAN racing. I wanted to differentiate those races from full-distance events because, while many athletes excel at both distances, we’re really starting to see a lot more specialization these days. The rise of the T100 Triathlon World Tour has especially reinforced that trend. It’s also made naming a “triathlete of the year” in this category a lot harder – the man I figure should win this award didn’t event compete at this year’s 70.3 worlds, while the two women I felt were in the running each won one of the world championships up for grabs.

The Men – Hayden Wilde, Of Course

Hayden Wilde wins his comeback race after injury at T100 London. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

It seems so long ago, but believe it or not as late in the year as August it wasn’t even certain that New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde would make it onto a podium through the last half of 2025, let alone win virtually every race he entered. In his first race after a horrendous accident while on his bike in Japan in which he suffered a punctured lung, multiple broken ribs and a broken scapula, Wilde wasn’t sure how things would go as he lined up against some of the sport’s top athletes at T100 London.

He needn’t have worried – the Kiwi was at, or near, the front throughout the race, and blasted through the run to take the title. He would go on to dominate every other T100 race he did other than the lap-counting fiasco event in Dubai, where he finished eighth with the day’s fastest run split, despite riding an extra lap on the bike. He easily took the T100 World Triathlon Tour championship and finished first in the Triathlon Pro Tour rankings.

Jelle Geens leads Kristian Blummenfelt on the run at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, Spain. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

How dominant was Wilde this year? The only other man who I could conceive being in the conversation for this award, Belgium’s Jelle Geens, finished behind the Kiwi every time they raced. That’s why, even though Geens successfully defended his IRONMAN 70.3 world title this year, I can’t really see how I could make a viable argument that he should take our triathlete of the year award. While Geens had a tough day at the T100 Final in Qatar (along with a DNF in Singapore), throughout the rest of the year he typically beat everyone except Wilde – he won 70.3 Geelong, T100 Vancouver and the worlds in Marbella and was second at all the other T100 races he competed in other than London, where he finished third. So, it seems like Geens beat all the rest of the top middle-distance athletes (including out-sprinting Kristian Blummenfelt for the worlds title) on a regular basis. If I can’t justify giving this award to Geens, it seems pretty simple that it can’t go to anyone other than Wilde.

The Women – Lucy Charles-Barclay Gets the Nod

Lucy Charles-Barclay on the run at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, Spain. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

While I am more than confident with my final pick here, I would understand how there is a very viable argument that the other middle-distance world champion, Kate Waugh, could have won this title. Waugh took both the T100 finale in Qatar, which ensured she would take the T100 series title, and soundly beat Lucy Charles-Barclay, who finished fifth that day, in the process.

The two raced against each other four times, with Waugh winning the “heat-fests” in Singapore and Qatar, while Charles-Barclay won in London and Spain. If we were deciding all this just based on T100 racing, I’d have to give the triathlete of the year award to Waugh. She finished on the podium at every single T100 race she competed in, and added one other title (Wollongong) to her impressive 2025 resume along the way. The only time she wasn’t at least second at a T100 race was in San Francisco, where she finished third. Waugh didn’t compete at any 70.3 races this year, though, so she wasn’t in Marbella.

Kate Waugh wins the T100 World Championship Final in Qatar. Photo: PTO

What puts Charles-Barclay at the top of the list, I believe, is the win in Marbella, where she soundly beat a woman who routinely sits at the top of the middle-distance pecking order – Taylor Knibb. She also won IRONMAN 70.3 Eagleman just weeks after winning one of the toughest IRONMAN races on the planet (Lanzarote) over former world champ Chelsea Sodaro. The win in Marbella also came just under a month after Charles-Barclay’s collapse in Kona, adding to the drama, too. (Yeah, I know, long-distance events and “drama” shouldn’t play into any of this decision making, but what can I say.)

If you want to throw the subjective aspect (including the “drama”) of this final decision out the window, there’s one more reason to pick Charles-Barclay: she finished on top of the PTO World Ranking, just a hair ahead of Waugh.

Stay tuned for more of our Triathlete of the Year picks over the next few days.

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