Originally published at: 2024 Slowtwitch Awards: Men’s Short Course Athlete of the Year - Slowtwitch News
It’s our final athlete of the year article, as we debate the merits for the men’s Short Course Athlete of the Year.
To recap thus far, we’ve awarded the following:
Triathlete of the Year: Taylor Knibb
Long Course Athletes of the Year: Kat Matthews, Patrick Lange
Short Course Athlete of the Year: Cassandre Beaugrand
Ryan: To me, Kevin, this feels like it should be a two horse race between Alex Yee and Hayden Wilde. Kinda like the Olympics and WTCS season all over again.
Kevin: Yep, I do believe this is down to those two. I would love to add Léo Bergère to the discussion, but once again I feel like I’d just be throwing out a name then quickly setting myself up to discount it. (He was beaten by both the frontrunners at the Olympics, and finished behind Wilde for the overall supertri title, too.)
I think it’s hard not to put Alex Yee at the top of the list based on his Olympic win and then (finally) winning the world championship title. Granted, Wilde beat him at the Championship Final, but after two years of losing the world title thanks to a disastrous finals appearance, I think Yee’s one and only goal at that race was to not screw up. Yee also won when it most counted – he won every World Triathlon race he entered except the final. While he didn’t take the supertri title, Yee did manage two impressive wins in that series – taking both Boston and NEOM. (I captured this shot – and the one above – of the Boston finish – to me it pretty much expresses Yee’s dominance over Wilde when it counted the most.)
Supertri Boston. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
If we were to have an award for the year’s most exciting racer, it would have to go to Wilde. He certainly went for it all in Paris, setting up a truly classic race. He closed the season with a solid supertri season, and finally got the big day we’ve long expected at the World Triathlon Championship Final. While his Taupō performance doesn’t count on this front, he sure did help make that day an exciting one, too.
Am I missing something, Ryan? Is there a reason to give this award to Hayden Wilde that I am not seeing?
Wilde on the run at the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
Ryan: Yes, there is!
If we are looking line-by-line at their race results this year, you wind up seeing that Wilde and Yee split the supertri season against one another – they beat each other twice. But whereas Wilde was extremely competitive at all of the supertri events (his worst finish of the year was third in Toulouse), the same could not be said for Yee. He was 8th in Chicago, and 12th in London. Yee was never really in contention for the supertri standings crown.
Then when you factor in Wilde’s races with Yee in WTCS and the Olympics, it’s a much closer battle there than it was with supertri. Yes, Yee won more. But it’s not like Wilde was getting his doors blown off. And Wilde did, indeed, win the Grand Final, with a very sizable margin of victory.
I do put a bit of a premium on being able to showcase racecraft across multiple disciplines, even within our definitions of course length. Wilde did that more than anybody else last year.
Kevin: So, if I have this straight, Alex Yee, the Olympic and world champion, shouldn’t be our short course male athlete of the year because he had two “bad” supertri races and finished third at the World Triathlon Championship Finals? He beat Wilde in Cagliari. He beat Wilde in Paris, at the biggest draft-legal/ short course race of the year. He was well ahead of Wilde in Wehei (Wilde was 1:40 back there – further behind than Wilde was in Torremolinos), too. He also managed to beat Wilde at two of the five supertri races. To me, if you’re going to vote for Wilde, you’re saying that the supertri series means more in the big picture than the Olympics or the World Triathlon Championship Series.
I get the added premium on Wilde doing so well at 70.3 worlds, and he also won the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, but I am not sure we should be counting those results when we’re handing out the short course athlete of the year.
Good grief … another vote? I thought I was going to be safe on this one, as with the women!
Ryan: Didn’t you know I went to law school? I can argue just about anything and make some type of reasonable case out of it…
I think, similarly to how we did the women’s calculus, it means we should weigh the supertri and WTCS season championships similarly. So the tiebreaker comes down to the Olympics. And, well, Yee beat Wilde, despite Wilde throwing everything he had at him.
Therefore, much to the happiness of a couple of our *ahem* vocal forum members, Alex Yee is our men’s Short Course Athlete of the Year.
Kevin: Great choice, Ryan. I do admire your ability to argue almost anything. And, while I’m not sure I’m willing to weigh supertri and WTCS equally, I’ll happily concur that Alex Yee is the right choice.
