Hayden Wilde was virtually unbeatable in 2025, but a new challenger has entered the mix ahead of T100 Singapore. Photo: PTO
The 2026 T100 season kicked off with a women’s pro race in Gold Coast, Australia, in March. It’s now the men’s turn as they prepare to race in Singapore on Saturday. There are a number of familiar favourites set to race, including reigning T100 world champion Hayden Wilde of New Zealand, 2025 tour runner-up Mika Noodt of Germany and four other men who finished in the top 10 of the series standings last year.
Other big names on the start list include Germany’s Jonas Schomburg, 2024 T100 series standout Kyle Smith of New Zealand and 2025 World Triathlon champion Matthew Hauser of Australia, who will be making his T100 debut. With so many stars of the sport ready to race in Singapore, there will be a lot of storylines to keep track of on the weekend. Here are the biggest to watch for on race day.
Wilde versus Hauser
Despite a career-threatening bike crash in May, Wilde was essentially unbeatable last season in the T100. The only race he lost was at T100 Dubai, where a now-infamous lap-counting fiasco led to him finishing eighth. (Wilde almost certainly would have won this race if there had been no technical difficulties, as he was leading at the end of the bike and proceeded to run the fastest split of the day.)
Although Hauser was not perfect on the year in World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) racing, he also seemed unbeatable for much of the season. He raced seven WTCS events, won four and finished second in another two. He was the most dominant athlete in the series all year, and that earned him his maiden world title.
Wilde and Hauser have faced one another many times before, but only in short-course racing. Now, with Hauser stepping up in distance for just the second time in his career (he started 70.3 Geelong last season, but a bike mechanical forced him to a DNF), they will finally meet in a race that lasts longer than a couple of hours.
In addition to winning multiple WTCS races in 2025, Hauser also took home the Noosa Triathlon title. Photo: Noosa Triathlon
After last year’s T100 final in Qatar, Wilde said that he hoped to see Hauser at a T100 race this season. As Hauser said in a video posted to the T100 Instagram page, he was eager to “put [himself] in an unfamiliar situation” and challenge himself with a longer race than he is used to.
“Here I am preparing for Singapore t100,” Hauser says in the video while riding on his TT bike. “They offered me a wild card [and] I stupidly said yes.”
Wilde and Hauser faced off four times in 2025. Wilde won the first meeting at WTCS Abu Dhabi (a sprint-distance race where he beat Hauser by two seconds). Their next showdown was at WTCS French Riviera, which Hauser won, although the 11th-place Wilde was coming off of a T100 victory the day before, so he did not have too much time to recover.
The third time they faced off last season was at WTCS Karlovy Vary, where they both had sub-par showings. Hauser did get the better of Wilde on that day, although it was the worst race of his season, as he finished eighth to Wilde’s 17th. Finally, their last meeting came in Wollongong at the WTCS Grand Final. Once again, Wilde was coming off of next to no recovery from a T100 race a day earlier. He ultimately pulled out of the race and recorded a DNF while Hauser flew to the race win and his first world championship crown.
On Saturday, the tables will turn as Hauser enters Wilde’s domain. It very well could be a blowout win from the Kiwi as his Aussie rival tries to find his legs in the longer distance and non-drafting game. Wilde is used to blowouts in T100 events, and he certainly won’t be waiting around to see if Hauser can keep up.
Wilde and Hauser have raced against one another many times, including in Super League. Photo: Super League Triathlon
Or, perhaps, Hauser will show just as much of an affinity for middle-distance racing as he does in short-course triathlons. We have seen plenty of short-course stars make the jump to longer events, only to discover that they’re even better going farther than they are in sprints and Olympic-distance races. If that turns out to be the case for Hauser, it will make for a very fun, very fast and very competitive race in Singapore.
Can Noodt Grab the Win?
Noodt is triathlon’s living embodiment of the phrase, “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” He only entered T100 events last season, racing all seven on the schedule. He finished second in three, third in two, and fourth in the series finale to place him in second overall in the year-end rankings.
For a 25-year-old who is still relatively new to pro racing, second on the year in one of the most competitive race series in the world is great. However, it has to be frustrating to always be looking up at someone else on the stop step of the podium.
Could Singapore wind up being his first win on the tour? Looking at his first two cracks at the race suggests not. Of the 10 T100 events Noodt has raced so far in his career, Singapore is where he recorded his two worst results, with a sixth-place finish in 2024 and ninth last year.
Noodt on the bike at T100 London, where he finished second behind Wilde. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
In both of the past two seasons, Singapore has been Noodt’s first race of the year — which is also the case on Saturday. He may be an athlete who simply needs a race to work off the rust from an extended off-season, because in both 2024 and 2025, he was stellar in competition after Singapore. If that is, in fact, how he operates, then he very well may need to wait until later in the season for a shot at his first T100 victory.
The Other Guys
Wilde and Hauser are bound to be the talk of the week leading up to Singapore. Noodt’s regular podium appearances are going to garner him some attention, too. But there are 17 other men on the start list for Saturday’s race, and many of them could steal a podium or the outright win.
After dedicating years to short-course racing and Olympic dreams, Schomburg officially made the jump up to middle- and long-distance triathlon last season. He raced 10 events ranging from the 100-kilometre T100 distance up to full IRONMANs, and it didn’t take much time before the rest of the pro field realized he was a threat no matter how long the race.
Schomburg finished second at 70.3 Oceanside in March, sandwiched between a pair of Norwegians (Kristian Blummenfelt and Casper Stornes) on the podium. Photo: Eric Wynn
He finished third at his IRONMAN debut in South Africa, second at Challenge Roth and sixth at the IRONMAN World Championship. In 70.3s, he recorded multiple top-10 finishes, including fourth at the world champs. Although he only raced three T100 events, a third in Spain and top-10s in the other two earned him 13th in the series rankings.
So far this season, Schomburg has a win at Challenge Sir Bani-Yas, second at 70.3 Oceanside and seventh at last weekend’s wildly quick IRONMAN Texas, where he went 7:30:10. He doesn’t have much recovery time between that race and T100 Singapore, and the jet lag could hit him hard, too, but he has proven that he can thrive no matter the conditions, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if he charges to a big result.
Another man to watch is Smith, Wilde’s fellow Kiwi. After finishing second in the T100 rankings in 2024, Smith had some bad luck last season, ultimately ending the year early after requiring surgery to repair a broken collarbone. He is now back to full health and already has a race under his belt — IRONMAN New Zealand, where he finished 11th. There is a big difference between IRONMAN racing and the T100, but in years past, Smith has shown he can do both, so he could drop another big result on Saturday.
Dutchman Menno Koolhaas is yet another athlete who could wow the crowd in the pro men’s T100 season opener. After finishing fifth in Kona in 2024, Koolhaas raced almost singularly T100 events in 2025. His lone non-T100 event came at IRONMAN Arizona, which he won in a course record time of 7:28:52. In T100 action, he posted a pair of fourth-place finishes in London and Wollongong — results that helped lift him to 11th in the year-end rankings.
As his past results have shown, Koolhaas may be better-suited for full-distance racing, but he can still kick it with the best in the world in a 100-kilometre race. He might not be a threat for the outright win, but if he makes it to the podium it won’t be the most shocking result in the world.
Like any T100 race, the pro field is small and stacked with talent, so any of the 20 men racing could do something special on Saturday. Take a look at the full start list below to get yourself acquainted with everyone set to race.
| Athlete | Nationality |
|---|---|
| Hayden Wilde | New Zealand |
| Mika Noodt | Germany |
| Mathis Margirier | France |
| Samuel Dickinson | Great Britain |
| Youri Keulen | Netherlands |
| Gregory Barnaby | Italy |
| Menno Koolhaas | Netherlands |
| Jonas Schomburg | Germany |
| Wilhelm Hirsch | Germany |
| Kyle Smith | New Zealand |
| Pieter Heemeryck | Belgium |
| Henry Räppo | Estonia |
| Jake Birtwhistle | Australia |
| Henrik Goesch | Finland |
| Jannik Schaufler | Germany |
| Dylan Magnien | France |
| Kurt McDonald | Australia |
| Gregor Payet | Luxembourg |
| Henri Schoeman | South Africa |
| Matt Hauser | Australia |