Surprises Highlight Final Round of Collins Cup Picks
With the team captains’ picks announced this morning, a few interesting and unexpected short-course faces will enter the long-course fray.
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It’s just over two weeks until the long-awaited Collins Cup will take place in Samorin, Slovakia, and the field just got a whole lot more interesting. Today, the Pro Triathletes Organization announced the “captain’s picks” that will serve as the final additions to a roster including world champions (now) across all distances. Most surprisingly, less than two weeks from Olympic medal performances, Americans Katie Zaferes and Taylor Knibb have been named to the U.S. team—alongside more familiar long-course late additions like Chris Leiferman and Justin Metzler.
RELATED: What is the Collins Cup?
The now-finalized 12-person U.S. team will face off against Team Europe and Team Internationals in a novel format pitting three athletes (one from each team) against each other, head-to-head, over a unique 100K distance. After 12 total races, points will be tabulated, and a team winner will be named with $1.5M on the line.
Up until now, the teams have been named via a slightly controversial, but objective process over the last few years (full team listing below with captain’s picks in bold) via the PTO’s own rankings system, but today’s announcement injects some surprising short-course names into the mix.
Conversely, the Euro team added slightly more predictable picks with Kat Matthews, Emma Pallant-Browne, Sebastian Kienle, and Daniel Bækkegård. And “Team International” selected Ellie Salthouse, Sarah Crowley, Jackson Laundry, and Kyle Smith to their squad.
| TEAM USA | |
| Skye Moench | Sam Long |
| Heather Jackson | Rudy von Berg |
| Jackie Hering | Matt Hanson |
| Chelsea Sodaro | Ben Kanute |
| Taylor Knibb | Justin Metzler |
| Katie Zaferes | Chris Leiferman |
| TEAM EUROPE | |
| Daniela Ryf | Jan Frodeno |
| Anne Haug | Gustav Iden |
| Lucy Charles-Barclay | Joe Skipper |
| Holly Lawrence | Patrick Lange |
| Kat Matthews | Sebastian Kienle |
| Emma Pallant-Browne | Daniel Bækkegård |
| TEAM INTERNATIONALS | |
| Teresa Adam | Lionel Sanders |
| Paula Findlay | Braden Currie |
| Carrie Lester | Sam Appleton |
| Jeannie Metzler | Max Neumann |
| Ellie Salthouse | Jackson Laundry |
| Sarah Crowley | Kyle Smith |