Julie Derron’s ‘Wild Year’ Continues with T100 London
Photos: Kevin Mackinnon
Before Switzerland’s Julie Derron won silver at the Paris Olympics last year, she wasn’t on many people’s radar. She was a solid athlete, she had a couple of world cup wins to her name, but her best performance at a World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) event was seventh. Then, likely coming as a surprise to everyone but those in her inner circle, she found her way onto the Olympic podium.
In the 12 months since that triumph in Paris, Derron has been one of the best triathletes in the world, collecting four second-place finishes and three wins in nine races. She is competing this weekend at T100 London, where she will be one of the favorites in the women’s race and looking to carry on what has been an incredible streak of races over the past year.
Breakout Years
Derron’s success in 2024 came before her silver medal in Paris, but the Olympic spotlight is of course much brighter than anything athletes experience in other areas of the sport. In June of last year, she won 70.3 Switzerland and Challenge Walchsee, giving her momentum as she worked toward the Olympics. After winning silver, she banged out three straight second-place finishes at T100 events in Ibiza, Lake Las Vegas and Dubai (the T100 World Tour Grand Final). She then finished fifth in a strong field at the 70.3 worlds in New Zealand to end the year.
In 2025, she has only missed the podium in one race — T100 Singapore, where she finished 12th. She won T100 San Francisco in May (delivering Taylor Knibb her first loss in the T100 series), finished second at T100 Vancouver, won the Swiss national sprint championship and won IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain by 38 minutes.
“It’s been a wild year,” Derron says. “Since [the Olympics], a lot has happened.” She says she is “really enjoying the longer distances,” which is no surprise considering her many stellar results since making the jump. She has several T100 races to go before the end of the year, giving her the chance to show off in more middle-distance events, but she will also have the opportunity to test herself at the full distance once again, as she qualified for Kona with her win in Spain.
Going Longer
While Derron has found success in longer events, she says she doesn’t have a favorite distance of racing — she simply loves to race.
“I enjoy everything,” she says. “I just love triathlon.” Still, she does touch on what she likes about longer races, noting that they require athletes to be “a bit more self-reliant” than in shorter, draft-legal events.
“It’s just a different style of riding if you go from Olympic distance, where you’re staying in a pack most of the time, to riding 90 kilometers or 80 kilometers or even more by yourself,” she says. “It took me a bit of time to get used to that style of riding.” She adds that another bonus of the longer T100 events, 70.3s and IRONMAN races is that they are more forgiving than short-course triathlons.
“You can have a bit of an off swim and you can still rectify it before the end of the race,” she says. “You have a bit more time to play out your strengths and maybe also correct for some of the weaknesses.” As for how she feels she fares in these longer races, Derron says she thinks she might be built better for them compared to shorter ones.
“I feel like maybe my body is made a bit more for the longer distances,” she says. Despite her remarkable streak at the longer events over the past year and a bit, she says she thinks there are “a lot of improvements” she can make, specifically on the bike.
“That’s something I’m working a lot on in training,” she says. If she can dial in her cycling as she expects to, the rest of the women’s field in T100 racing and beyond (many of whom she already beats on a regular basis) should be worried.
Derron competes at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo, New Zealand.
Ready for London
Derron says she enjoys T100 events, which she feels are closer to the sprint and Olympic style of racing.
“There’s a pack dynamic sometimes,” she says.
Athletes are of course not allowed to ride in a pack or draft in T100 races, but with the looped bike course and only a handful of top athletes in the field, Derron says it feels like a WTCS race but just longer.
“[T100] brings together the best racers, which you don’t always get in other half-distance races,” she says. “It keeps it really exciting.”
For London specifically, Derron says she is eager to race the 17 other women on the start list, and although she is on a hot streak as of late, she refuses to acknowledge her status as a pre-race favorite.
“We have a really strong women’s field here,” she says. “For me, it’s important to focus on myself, to do the best I can. I know I train really well and I’m fit, so I can just do what I can do on the race course and try to put my best foot forward.” She says it would “of course be really nice to get another podium position this weekend,” but she “can’t influence” what the other women do on race day.
Although Derron won’t admit she is among the few favorites to win in London, everyone else will. She has had one of the best seasons of any triathlete, male or female, this year, and if she can carry the form she displayed earlier this summer into this race, she will be tough to beat.
The women’s race kicks off at 12 p.m. local time on Saturday, with the men following at 2:45 p.m. Click here to find out how you can tune in. The T100 Triathlon Live Data Dashboard is also available here.
Start the discussion at forum.slowtwitch.com