TIM HELLWIG ACHIEVES AN OUTSTANDING 2ND PLACE AT THE WTCS GRAND FINAL IN PONTEVEDRA
Tim Hellwig finished second at the Grand Final of the World Triathlon Championships Series (WTCS) in Pontevedra, Spain (23 September 2023) and has thus virtually secured his Olympic starting place for Paris 2024.
This 24-year-old triathlete from HYLO® Team Saar is “overjoyed about this best race of his career so far”, as he told us after his return from Spain. Considering the competitors present, to have held his own against the world’s best triathletes at the Olympic distance, only just behind the first-placed athlete at the end, makes Hellwig: “extremely satisfied and super happy”.
Tim and his team are particularly pleased that the four-week altitude training camp in St. Moritz has had the desired effect. This elite triathlete was able to call on the additional energy and strength reserves gained from training in the Swiss Alps at an oxygen-poor altitude of almost 1850 metres above sea level, just in time for the season’s highlight.
The race over the Olympic distance (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run) went well for Tim right from the start. He was able to stay in the leading group already during the swim, without risking too much in the sometimes hard-fought scrambles for positions above and below the water. On the bike course, this national squad athlete, who trains at the Saarbrücken Olympic Training Centre, was part of a 24-strong leading group and was also right at the front most of the time during the run. In the last of four running laps Hellwig stepped up the pace again, aware of the strengths in the final sprint of the eventual winner from France, Dorian Coninx (1:42:22 hours). After his national team colleague Lasse Lührs also had to drop off in this last lap, the German had an exciting and highly dramatic fight for the podium places with three Frenchmen right up to the finish. In the duel with the three Frenchmen, Hellwig ran ahead for most of the last 1.5 kilometres, but it was not quite enough for the second WTCS victory of his career after the success in Hamburg in 2021. In the final sprint Tim Hellwig crossed the finish line only one second behind the winner in 1:42:23 hours in second place and thus as runner-up.
With this, the HYLO® athlete crowned a strong season, in which he had already achieved fourth (Montreal) and eighth (Hamburg) places in the highest international race series. By finishing seventh at the Olympic Qualifier in Paris in August, he had already taken a big step towards an Olympic spot next year. The high points score for his second place in Pontevedra now makes next year’s Olympic participation almost certain.
To finally meet the nomination criteria of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) and the German Triathlon Union (DTU), Hellwig must finish among the top 30 in the Individual Olympic Qualification Ranking at the end of May 2024. He is currently in 23rd place in this ranking. The final nomination is up to the DOSB.
At the end of the season, three more Asian World Cup events were originally scheduled for Tim in the calendar. As he has almost certainly already qualified for the Olympics, he will probably reduce the programme, as he only needs a maximum of one good result to definitely fulfil the second qualifying criterion for the Olympics.
After the long and exhausting season, it’s time for a well-deserved two-week holiday and training break before the national team heads to Fuerteventura for a fortnight in the sun in December to get the new season off to an easy start. Next spring, another training camp is scheduled in Namibia for 4 weeks.
Congratulations to Tim Hellwig for his 2nd place at the Gran Final of the World Series in Pontevedra and his outstanding season and we wish him all the best and much success for his upcoming challenges and goals.
