Updated September 2, 2025 10:30AM
Triathlon's Insider on A Wilde and Gentle Weekend at French Riviera T100, Plus WTCS, Ironman, and Challenge Results
Can an athlete win a middle distance one day and a sprint the next? That's what the back-to-back T100 and WTCS races aimed to answer.
(Photo: T100)
A big weekend of racing, and just two weeks out from the men’s Ironman World Championships in Nice. I’m also caught up with UTMB fever, watching all the athletes hitting the mountains. It’s incredible to watch the stories unfold among the professionals and amateurs alike.
I’ve been following the Alpine Run Project. Founder John McAvoy (convict turned athlete and avid outdoor activist) brings a group of youngsters from the streets of the UK and shows them how to run, how to love running, how they can achieve and be something, and brings them to compete in UTMB each year. It’s a program of love and passion from McAvoy and the team, who guide the athletes from the streets to the peaks!
Amid the ultrarunning excitement, triathlon put on a show this weekend in Frejos on the French Riviera for the double header of T100 and the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS). Back-to-back days, with some athletes doubling up in both races. Then in Austria, we also have the last of the Ironman Pro Series races before the three World Championship events, with Ironman 70.3 Zell am See.
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French Riviera T100 results: Fifth winner for women, while Wilde takes his third win for the men
There was a different excitement about this course. The bike being one large hilly loop, it is completely different from what we have been accustomed to with the T100, usually, short multiple-lap courses. The multiple laps allow athletes to see their competitors regularly. On the French Riviera, it would be out of sight, out of mind.
A few of the bigger names were missing on the women’s side. In fact, all the winners from the previous races in the series did not race in France. It would be another new and different winner for 2025, and while Taylor Knibb (USA), Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR), Kate Waugh (GBR), Julie Derron (CHE) were all missing, it was a quality field.
Ashleigh Gentle (AUS) finally found her way back onto the podium and top step, taking the win, her first for 2025. Many would consider Gentle to be having an “off” season and not performing at her best. Perhaps, she’s a little off, but she’s still a quality athlete with an incredible resume, and I just think the other women have stepped up. That, with the style of racing fast from the gun in the swim, then the short multiple-loop bike courses with exceptional swim/bikers, doesn’t necessarily suit Gentle. However, in Frejus, a course more similar to general middle-distance and 70.3 races, she shone. Perhaps there was less firepower at the front from the swim and onto the bike, which helped Gentle have a smaller deficit out of the water and be in a bigger chase pack.
But the podium and results did look a little more like the familiar faces that we have come accustomed to over the middle/70.3 distance – Gentle, Paula Findlay (CAN), and India Lee (GBR). For all three, it was their best T100 results to date. Gentle will and should take great confidence from this.
Gentle’s win moves her up to fourth in the overall standings with 89 points. Now just one point behind Waugh and Knibb, and five points ahead of Charles-Barclay. Julie Derron is still at the top with a six-point lead. Waugh, Knibb, and Charles-Barclay only have three races, compared to Derron (four) and Gentle (five). Only the best four plus the Grand Final count.
In the T100 so far, I’ve been impressed by Lucy Byram (GBR) and Hannah Berry (NZL). Byram is one of the few athletes to fully commit to the T100 Series and consistently performs. She may not be winning, and in fact hasn’t actually finished on the podium, but she’s always in the top 10, and very regularly around fourth through sixth. She currently sits sixth in the overall T100 rankings, the highest position among athletes who have not yet won a race.
Berry, who qualified for a T100 contract off the back of her 2024 ranking, I think, is better known over the full distance (even though she has had some quality half wins). I think while being a little more suited to the full, she’s outperformed this year in the T100, or rather surprised a few, again with pretty consistent top 10 results.
In the men’s race, Hayden Wilde (NZL) won it, making it three wins from three races, and had the first race ticked off in going for the T100/WTCS double in Frejus. Wilde has stepped up to the middle distance in style, second at Ironman 70.3 Worlds 2024 and then three wins in the T100, the last two coming after a horrific bike accident. With a win at WTCS Abu Dhabi at the start of the year, he’s unbeaten so far. So can anyone beat him in the T100? Can anyone beat him this year? Jelle Geens (BEL) finished second, and Sam Dickinson (GBR), as a Wild Card finished in third.
It’s been a remarkable comeback for Wilde, taking the win in London T100 and then, with a few more weeks, another win on the French Riviera. While he’s been undefeated in the T100, he sits in second behind Geens in the rankings. This is because Geens has four races to Wilde’s three. (Geens has one win, two seconds, and a third. So all high scoring races.)
WTCS French Riviera results: Matt Hauser and Cassandre Beaugrand take top podium step
Following the T100, the World Triathlon Championship Series took place the following day over the sprint distance. Both Wilde and Morgan Pearson (USA) doubled up.
It was always going to be hard doing the double, and if achieved, incredibly impressive and remarkable. However, it was not to be; Wilde finished 11th. Perhaps a relief showing he is human and that actually the men at the front of the WTCS should be respected for their speed over the shorter distance. That’s not to say I don’t think Wilde can compete and win at both. I think coming back from his crash, he just lacked the speed and the extra bit of fitness to race back-to-back days.
It was, however, a story of the season, and came down to a three-way battle with the three men who have been dominant this season, and sit at the top of the World Rankings. Matt Hauser (AUS) managed to just about get the gap over Vasco Vilaca (POR) with Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) in third. For Hauser, another win in his impressive season, and he now has maximum points in the world rankings.
For Vilaca, another second, a win still eludes him. Three races left, including the Grand Final in Wollongong, Australia. I’m sure it’s a pretty big motivation for Hauser this year to be the man to beat in Wollongong, and hopefully take home the World title at home.
While Wilde was attempting the T100/WTCS double in Frejus, he’s probably going for the T100 Series champion and World Triathlon Championship Series champion. He’s second in T100, but down in 14th in the WTCS. He does, however, only have two races to everyone else’s three. But with Hauser, Vilaca, and Hidalgo being so dominant this year, it’ll be a hard one to crack. However, if anyone can, it’s Wilde. But I think he’ll need to be strategic about his racing for the rest of the year. Wilde only needs one more result in the T100 Series and then the Grand Final to achieve the maximum number of races to count. For the WTCS, he needs another race and a good result, but will also want to improve on his 11th place on the French Riviera. The WTCS Final has more points, so he’d need to finish ahead of Hauser to have a chance of taking the title.
With September being busy with races three consecutive weekends of Karlovy Vary (WTCS), Spain (T100), Weihai (WTSC), Wilde may be focusing on the shorter distance for the next little while, and improving his speed, (he’s clearly got the endurance), and then hit Karlovy Vary and Weihai to go for the win, and then Wollongong. Not doing the T100/WTCS double in Wollongong, but then taking a month after the WTCS Final, to come back to T100 for the two Middle East races in November and December. But this is Wilde we are talking about here, so nothing would surprise me with his race calendar and which races he chooses, as he just loves to race.
In the women’s race, it also came down to a race between the current WTCS series leaders. Jeanne Lehair (LUX) attacked on the run to really challenge Cassandre Beaugrand (FRA) and Leonie Periault (FRA). She said afterward that she “hopes Beaugrand is afraid of her.”
Although Beaugrand looked to wobble on a few of Lehair’s surges, she held tight and timed it right to up the pace, sprinting around Lehair, to take another win. Lehair finished in second and Periault in third. It was nearly a French podium sweep, with Emma Lombardi finishing in fourth. Beaugrand, Periault, and Lehair sit first, second, and third in the WTCS Rankings.
Ironman 70.3 Zell am See results: Kat Matthews bags another W, newer faces atop men’s podium
The women’s start list was stronger than the men’s, but no real surprise with the Ironman World Championship in Nice just two weeks out and Kona further away.
Kat Matthews (GBR) delivered another win, now making it maximum points for 70.3 in the Pro Series, and with it, she moves back to the top of the rankings. Matthews still has another Ironman to add, assuming Kona, but looks in control, sitting 862 points ahead of Solveig Løvseth (NOR), who moved up to second. Løvseth finished third in Austria and, like Matthews, has two Ironmans and two 70.3s counting to date. Austrian Lisa Perterer would have very much enjoyed her second place in her home country race, and also now moves into third on the overall series. Like Matthews and Løvseth, she has another Ironman she can add to her score.
Barring disaster, Matthews looks good to take the series win. However, that obviously would be the icing on the cake, as I’m sure the Ironman World Championship win in Kona is the main objective. She also has the option of scoring points at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship to replace one of her 2,500 scores. (Can you believe one of the races you drop from your scores at the end of the year is a win and 2,500 points?)
Want to see it all from start to finish? Outside+ members can watch the Ironman 70.3 Zell am See race replay on demand on OutsideTV.
In the men’s race, Fabian Kraft (GER) continued his stellar season with another win. Two seconds and now two wins, one of which was the Ironman 70.3 European Championship in Sweden on his resume. He seems to do things in pairs. Kraft raced two middle-distance races in 2024, both of which he finished fourth. Then two seconds, and now two firsts! He’s probably not as well known on the triathlon circuit, as 70.3 Zell am See was his first race of the Pro Series, the races that have been getting more focus and attention. Gregor Payet (LUX) was second and Nick Thompson (AUS) third. No change in the overall Ironman Pro Series in the men, only Dominik Sowieja creeping into the top 10.
View Zell am See highlights and hear from the athletes after the race
Vittoria Lopes and Danilo Pimentel win in their home country at inaugural Challenge Fortaleza
The inaugural race in Fortaleza for Challenge Family (keep an eye out for our upcoming travel guide to Fortaleza), and it was a typical Brazilian festival.
It was also a family affair. Local Vittoria Lopes won the women’s race, and partner Danilo Pimentel won the men’s. Lopes’ cousin, two-time Olympic swimmer Luiz Altamir completed the swim as part of a relay with Zibi Szlufcik (president of Challenge Family Board) and me. I can assure you, running a half-marathon in Brazil at the last minute and with no training for the last seven weeks aside from the odd very easy 8km run was not fun!
