All the Ways Hayden Wilde Can Lose the 2025 T100 World Title (and Why He Probably Won’t)

Hayden Wilde will be the man everyone is chasing in Qatar. Photo: Professional Triathletes Organisation

The second season of T100 racing will wrap up this weekend with the World Championship Final in Qatar. Three men are in contention for the world title, with New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde leading the way. Wilde has a sizeable lead over his closest competitors in the overall rankings and, even if he has a bad day in Qatar, the odds that he will go home with the T100 world title are still heavily in his favour. Of course, anything can happen in triathlon, which means Belgium’s Jelle Geens or Germany’s Mika Noodt could still spoil Wilde’s amazing season.

Scoring in the T100

There are nine events on the T100 calendar, with the first eight sticking to a uniform scoring plan. The winners of those eight events received 35 points, while 20th place (there are generally only 20 pros at each T100 race) got one. To make things more interesting for the World Championship Final, the T100 has increased the points tally for each position in Qatar, with the winner earning 55 points.

While there are nine races on the season, athletes only keep points from their four best performances in the first eight events. Points won in Qatar are then added to that four-race total to determine the year-end rankings.

Here is the full scoring system:

There are certainly bragging rights on the line in Qatar, but there is also a lot of money to be won. The 2025 season saw more than $7 million offered to athletes in contract agreements and prize purses — $3 million of which will be awarded after the series rankings are confirmed. The winner of the series wins $200,000, while 20th overall will go home with $20,000.

The Men’s Series

The man of the year in the T100 has undoubtedly been Wilde. Despite a horrific accident early in the season that very well could have ended his professional racing career, Wilde has been virtually unbeatable in almost every race he has entered.

He won T100 Singapore in April, about a month before the accident that kept him sidelined until August. He made his comeback at T100 London, which he also won. The winning streak continued with T100 wins in the French Riviera, Spain and Wollongong, giving him a perfect record in the series ahead of November’s T100 Dubai.

The race in London was one of Wilde’s multiple T100 wins this season. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

That’s where things went a bit awry for Wilde, as he was one of the athletes caught up in the lap-counting fiasco in Dubai. He had been in the lead before adding an extra lap on the bike, but even with this mishap, he still managed to finish in eighth. Ultimately, missing out on another win didn’t matter all that much (other than the lost prize money, of course), as Wilde had already locked up the maximum amount of points with which he could race in Qatar.

Wilde enters the T100 World Championship Final with 140 points, 18 ahead of Geens, the two-time defending IRONMAN 70.3 world champion and the last man to beat Wilde in a middle-distance race where he didn’t miscount the laps.

Other than a DNF in Singapore to start the season, Geens hasn’t missed the podium in any T100 events this year. He won T100 Vancouver, finished second in San Fransisco, the French Riviera and Spain, and came third in London. That brings him to 122 points heading into Qatar, giving him the best chance of anyone to steal the series lead away from Wilde.

Noodt is the only other man who is truly in contention (and even he is quite the long shot), sitting in third in the standings with 113 points. It’s going to be tough for him to leapfrog Wilde and Geens, but with five podium finishes in six T100 races this year, he has proven that he has what it takes to lay down big performances over this distance.

Noodt has had a great season on the T100 circuit. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

There is one other man who is mathematically in the race for the T100 world title: Germany’s Rico Bogen with 93 points. To win the world title, though, Bogen would not only have to win the race in Qatar, but he would also need all three men above him in the rankings to have truly terrible performances, so we will not be examining his path to victory.

Wilde’s Title to Lose

Wilde has an extremely good chance of winning the world title. He could finish in 20th place and, as long as Geens was outside of the top eight and Noodt finished sixth or worse, he would still take the series win. This is a great illustration of just how dominant the Kiwi has been all season long — he could have the worst race of his season (by far), and he would still leave as the T100 champion.

Let’s look at the more realistic outcomes now. If Wilde finishes on the podium, he wins the title even if Geens takes first in the race. If Wilde is fourth, fifth, or sixth, he will win the T100 crown as long as Geens doesn’t finish first. (If Wilde finishes fourth and Geens wins, they will both be at 177 points. The T100 rules state that a tie in the final standings is decided by whoever crosses the line first in Qatar, so Geens would become T100 champ if they tied at 177.)

It shouldn’t be a surprise if Wilde runs away with the win in Qatar. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

A seventh-place finish for Wilde is where Noodt comes into the picture. The odds are already quite slim for Noodt, as Wilde hasn’t sniffed a finish this low all season (in normal conditions). However, if Wilde does falter considerably and finish in seventh, Noodt would take the world title if he wins the race.

Even if Geens finished second in this scenario, Noodt would still win, as they would be tied at 168 and the aforementioned tiebreak rule would come into effect. If Noodt doesn’t win and Wilde finishes in seventh, Geens has a shot at the title, but only if he can finish in the top two.

If Wilde finishes in eighth, Geens still has to come in the top two in Qatar to win the world crown. Once again, Noodt would need to win the race in order to take home the title. The odds are only marginally better for Geens if Wilde finishes ninth, as a podium finish would win him the world title. Unfortunately for Noodt, he would still have to win the race in order to become the T100 champion for 2025.

Geens has the best chance to upset Wilde in Qatar. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Finally, if Wilde finishes in 10th (and remember, he rode an extra lap on the bike in Dubai and only dropped to eighth, so this doesn’t seem all that likely), Geens can win the world title if he finishes in the top four. Noodt would win the crown if he finished first or second (as long as Geens didn’t win).

We could continue, but the picture should be pretty clear by now: as long as Wilde does even half of what he’s proven to be capable of, he should go home as the newly crowned T100 world champion. Geens has a chance to knock him off, but Wilde will certainly be well aware of this as he plans for the race. It’s very possible that Geens beats Wilde on the day, but topping the year-end standings is a much tougher task.

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