Paris Olympics 2024: Triathlete Luke Willian hones trial prep with home World Cup win
Luke Willian had his spot on the Tokyo Olympics ripped from his grasp at the last second. His efforts, so far, to reach Paris have been struck down by an ill-timed Covid bout. Now he wants nothing to be left to chance.
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Luke Willian wants nothing to be left to chance.
Three years after he missed a place on the Australian Olympic team for the Tokyo Games, the Brisbane triathlete is desperate to snare an automatic berth to ensure he is not left in selection limbo again.
Ahead of Tokyo, Willian, who represented Australia at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, was in a three-man race for two spots which eventually went to young buck Matt Hauser and experienced campaigner and Rio Olympian Aaron Royle.
This time around, Hauser is the only triathlete guaranteed an Olympic place in a sport Australia used to dominate.
Willian, who won the World Cup event in Wollongong at the weekend, 23 seconds ahead of South Africa’s Jamie Riddle and Chile’s Diego Moya, is making his case.
His win capped a successful month during which he finished second in the Oceania sprint championships in Devonport (highest placed Aussie) and a fourth placing at the World Cup in Hong Kong, where he finished fourth as the highest placed Australian and was just 14 seconds off the podium.
After a bout of Covid left him unable to finish the Olympic test event and first of Triathlon Australia’s selection events in Paris last year and injury and illness left him languishing in 28th place in the second selection race at the World Triathlon Championship Finals in Spain, Willian is determined to make his mark in Japan next month.
If he can finish in the top eight in the World Triathlon Championship Series leg in Yokohama as the highest-placed Aussie other than the already-qualified Hauser, he will snare an automatic berth and leave nothing to chance.
“(Needing discretionary selection) happened to me in 2020 and it didn’t go my way, so I definitely want to make my own destiny,” he said.
“Hitting that auto spot you can really control everything.
“That’s what Matt (Hauser) did at world champs (the WTC finals) and that’s why he’s got his spot.”
Hauser bounced back from a bout of Covid that left him unable to race in the Paris test event.
His roommate heading into that event was Willian, who fell ill on the morning of the race and dragged himself through two legs of the event before having to retire, eventually testing positive to the virus himself.
He was still recovering a month later when a second qualification event was held at the WTC finals in Pontevedra and remained hampered by nerve pain which earlier in the season had been so debilitating he struggled to even stand.
Now back to his best form – Wollongong was Willian’s first major race win since 2019 and the first time an Aussie male had won a World Cup on home soil since 2017 – the 27-year-old will head back to training this week for a short block of work before freshening ahead of Yokohama.
Australia’s will only qualify two men and two women for Paris, down on the six spots – three men and three women – it gained for Tokyo and at every Games since the sport’s introduction in Sydney, except the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
While no women have yet qualified – Natalie van Coevorden is the highest-ranked Aussie woman heading into Yokohama while young gun Ellie Hoitink was the best finisher in Wollongong, coming in seventh in just her second World Cup start – just one place remains for the men.
Willian is locked in a tight race with Tokyo Olympian Jake Birtwhistle and Brandon Copeland for the second spot but wants to take things out of selectors’ hands.
“Hopefully I can get it done in Yokohama, that’s what I’m planning is to get it done there so I don’t have to leave anything to chance,” he said.
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Originally published as Paris Olympics 2024: Triathlete Luke Willian hones trial prep with home World Cup win
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