Interesting. McDonald was a late entry onto the World Tri maintained Waiting List (joining list on 6th March) and was top of that list after Hukka promoted. I wonder if the jungle drums informed that move.
The IRONMAN ‘Fighting Chance’ video of Knibb when she revealed that she would be racing IM Texas dropped on 18th March. From then it was a good bet that Knibb would not race Singapore so McDonald could reckon a good % chance of a wildcard and was the catalyst for McDonald to start some heat prep training, as advised by her coach.
From her Week 12 video (to which you refer @sfjab ), she’d started heat prep on 21st March (to the extent one can in Midlands England).