Published November 11, 2025 08:11AM
Last year’s T100 season came to a close under Dubai’s desert sun – a thrilling finale where Taylor Knibb (USA) and Marten Van Riel (BEL), secured their titles with hard-fought wins. With just one race left before this year’s Grand Final in Qatar, Dubai won’t decide the champions – but it will define who is still going to be in the mix.
Several athletes have room to improve their totals, among them Van Riel and Taylor Spivey (USA), who have yet to post their fourth result. For Van Riel, a podium finish would lift him into fourth place overall and keep the door open for a strong final push in Qatar.
Others will aim to replace weaker results: Julie Derron (CHE), for example, already has four races but carries a 12th place from the Singapore opener. A podium in Dubai could bring her back into contention for the T100 title.
At the top of the men’s standings, Hayden Wilde (NZL) remains in a class of his own — five starts, five wins, earning the maximum 140 points. He arrives in Dubai already assured of pole position for the season finale, but a sixth win would underscore his dominance and deny his rivals any late momentum.
Some familiar names will be absent this weekend. Kyle Smith (NZL) continues his recovery from dental surgery, while Taylor Knibb (USA) opted for 70.3 Worlds instead of Dubai – a decision that effectively ends her chances of defending her T100 title.
The Dubai course will closely mirror last year’s setup. Athletes face two swim loops with an Aussie exit between them, and with water temperatures above 28 degrees C (82 degrees F), it will definitely be a non-wetsuit swim. The bike course opens with a 15K stretch toward the Meydan horse racecourse, followed by eight technical laps featuring frequent corners and 180-degree turnarounds. The run also unfolds over eight laps — seven full and one shorter to the finish — in conditions expected to reach 30 degrees C (90 degrees F).
With the men starting at 11:30 a.m. local time and the women two hours later, the field will face the full force of the afternoon heat. Smart pacing and heat management could prove decisive in the deep, competitive fields assembling in Dubai.
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Dubai T100: Men’s contenders
The tight men’s field will make for a crowded swim: The whole field – except for a few stragglers – can be expected to exit the water within one minute. Will there be a long stream of athletes, or will there be distinct groups with gaps that can’t be erased with a fast (or botched) first transition?
The bike leg is likely to increase the time gaps, and it should also see the race favorites move to the front. Will there be a lead group after the opening section to the Meydan course?
Possible candidates are Wilde, Van Riel, Mika Noodt (DEU), and Mathis Margirier (FRA). Is anyone able to stay with them? Will they form a well-working group, or will everyone be on their own? Will someone try to save their legs for the run, letting others do most of the work on the bike?
So far this season, Wilde has been the strongest runner in the field; can he once again show that in Dubai? Are we going to see a tight run duel similar to last year, when three athletes stayed together for most of the run?
Van Riel was the strongest runner in that race; can he become the first athlete to beat Wilde in a T100 race?
Hayden Wilde
28 years old, New Zealand, PTO #1, 1st T100 standings (140 points, 5 results)
Hayden Wilde already has the maximum score going into the Grand Final. But racing Dubai T100 allows him to play defense and possibly earn the $25,000 race prize. (Photo: T100)
Seven races into the 2025 T100 season, Hayden Wilde is the dominating athlete with a clear lead in the standings. After his initial win at Singapore T100 in April, a serious accident and subsequent surgery for a broken shoulder seemed to take him out for the season. But he was able to return in August, and he returned with a bang, winning the London T100.
He has continued to race and win the next three T100 races, and only some disappointments and a DNF in World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) races showed that he is not completely invincible. But how many athletes on the Dubai start line will race believing that they will beat Wilde?
Wilde is the clear favorite for Dubai, but his win isn’t a foregone conclusion. Any winning streak must come to an end at some point, and he can’t afford to have an off day.
Wilde is likely to lose a few seconds in the swim and will need a strong initial effort on the bike to put him back into the lead group. He has consistently out-biked all his competition, and that was even before his strongest leg, where he was untouchable on the 18K run.
Wilde has been on form for more than three months; can he continue to race his best between the London T100 in August to Dubai in November and Qatar in December?
Marten Van Riel
32 years old, Belgium, PTO #3, 7th T100 standings (73 points, 3 results)
Marten Van Riel (left) is the reigning 2024 T100 Tour champion. But he started racing the full distance in 2025, which seems to have impacted his middle-distance run speed. (Photo: T100)
The first T100 World Champion was able to dominate the 2024 T100 races similarly to Wilde this year: Push the pace on the bike, then have the best run of the lead group to take the win. That was the successful recipe for three of his four T100 starts last year; only 70.3 World Champion Jelle Geens managed to beat him at Lake Las Vegas T100.
This year, Van Riel also raced the full distance, and maybe that took away some of his run speed. He also had an ankle injury that kept him from racing over the summer, and he barely made it back to finish a strong fourth at the Ironman World Championship in Nice.
He’s now had two months to recover from that effort and maybe rebuild his half-distance speed. Will he be able to run with Wilde in Dubai and after another four weeks in the final in Qatar?
If Van Riel wants to finish this season on the podium of the T100 Tour, he has to start his early winter racing with a good result in Dubai. Typically, he’ll want to stay in the lead group in the swim, then look for Noodt on the bike. Finally, can he have the good run he has been working for? Can he challenge Wilde for the win or Noodt for second place in Dubai?
Mika Noodt
25 years old, Germany, PTO #10, 3rd T100 standings (110 points, 5 results)
Mika Noodt has several podiums during the 2025 T100 season and is currently in third place in the standings. (Photo: T100)
The young German raced consistently well in 2025, taking two third places in San Francisco and Vancouver and two second places in London and Wollongong. Can he secure another podium – or can he even challenge Wilde for the win in Dubai?
With his previous results, Noodt’s position in the standings won’t change after Dubai, and he can afford to take some risks to go for a big result.
Last season, he was happy with his first T100 podium finish in Ibiza. This season, he’s racing for the top spot. What will be needed for that?
Noodt’s run has become much more stable this year, but so far, there were always one or two athletes who ran faster. With Wilde and Van Riel in the race, that also seems likely for Dubai, meaning that he has to start the run with a gap to them. How hard will he go on the bike, and can he start to ride away from the field?
In past T100 races, it was often Rico Bogen (DEU) who pushed the pace on the bike. In Dubai it’s probably going to be Noodt.
At the 70.3 World Championship in Marbella we had a big lead group into T2, even after a much hillier bike course than in Dubai.
Will the 20-meter draft rule make a difference for Noodt? Can he at least make it hard for Wilde to take his sixth title – or will Noodt be able to take his first T100 win?
Dark Horse 1: Mathis Margirier
28 years old, France, PTO #11, 5th T100 standings (82 points, 4 results)
Mathis Margirier just race the Ironman 70.3 World Championship. Can he be ready a week later for Dubai T100? (Photo: T100)
Mathis Margirier continues to race hard for a good result in big races. He has one T100 podium result (at Miami T100 back in March 2024), and he was very close this year with fourth places at the French Riviera and Spain T100s.
Once again, he was active on the bike at 70.3 worlds and had the second-best bike split but then fell back on the run. Maybe he can work with Noodt on the bike and then have a better run in Dubai for his first podium of the year?
Dark Horse 2: Morgan Pearson
32 years old, United States, PTO #23, 15th T100 standings (48 points, 3 results)
Morgan Pearson is a strong swimmer but has struggled to put together a good bike to reach the podium. (Photo: T100)
In any T100 field, Morgan Pearson is one of the strongest swimmers, and he was leading the field into T1 in Vancouver and the French Riviera. He’s also had the best runs at these two races but only finished seventh and sixth, clearly pointing to an ongoing weakness on the bike.
He has also raced WTCS this season, closing the series with an 11th place mid-October in Wollongong. Has he been able to make good use of the four weeks since then to address the specific T100 demands?
Dubia T100: Women’s contenders
With quite a few wildcards in the Dubai field, we could see a repeat of Kate Waugh’s (GBR) dominating win from Wollongong. However, in Dubai, she may have company on the bike by countrywoman Jess Learmonth (if she turns around with a quick recovery after 70.3 Worlds just one week before).
In addition, Derron or Spivey could challenge Waugh for the fastest run split – and perhaps even for the win? Or maybe another Dark Horse, such as Holly Lawrence (GBR), can make a difference in the Dubai heat.
Kate Waugh
26 years old, Great Britain, PTO #4, 1st T100 standings (128 points, 5 results)
Kate Waugh is the current T100 Tour leader, nine points ahead of Lucy Charles-Barclay. (Photo: T100)
Kate Waugh now has the two biggest winning margins in T100 races: Singapore T100 at the start of the season (6:40 minutes over Lisa Perterer) and the most recent T100 in Wollongong (5:09 minutes over Ashleigh Gentle). But she’ll be more focused on winning in Dubai than looking for a specific gap: Only a win would allow her to improve her total points after four races.
Even if that improvement would be only another six points, it would be a meaningful difference: Her lead over Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR) is currently nine points, and Charles-Barclay would take the title with a win in the Qatar final, regardless of how well Waugh finishes. A win in Dubai would extend Waugh’s lead to 15 points, meaning that a third place in Qatar would be enough for her to become the 2025 T100 World Champion.
From the start, Waugh should be at the front of the race. She’s usually one of the best swimmers, likely in a small group with athletes such as Learmonth, Spivey, or maybe Sara Perez-Sala (ESP). Can they push the pace and create a gap to the rest of the field?
Waugh will be interested to put a minute or more into Lawrence, Derron, or Georgia Taylor-Brown (GBR).
Once she’s on the bike, only Learmonth can be expected to stay with her – can these two extend the gap to Derron and the others to more than two minutes?
Even a three-minute gap to the fast runners seems possible, and then they would definitely be outside of striking distance to her in the closing leg. As Waugh has consistently outrun Learmonth, often by a wide margin of more than five minutes, a Dubai win for Waugh would be quite likely. Will she put herself in the best position for the 2025 T100 World Championship?
Julie Derron
29 years old, Switzerland, PTO #5, 4th T100 standings (96 points, 4 results)
Julie Derron is among five female winners in the T100 this season. She’s looking to increase her score going into the Grand Final. (Photo: T100)
Julie Derron is one of five different female winners in the 2025 season, claiming the win on the prestigious course in San Francisco, also becoming the first athlete to beat Knibb in a T100 race. Over the summer, she also won Ironman Vitoria with a fast time but then crashed on her bike while training in St. Moritz.
Recovery took her longer than expected, and she missed three T100 races as well as Kona. She returned to racing at the start of November with a win at the hot and humid 70.3 Langkawi, a good sign that she should be back in form for Dubai.
But racing a T100 is different from a 70.3 in Asia, and Derron will be under pressure from the gun. In last year’s race in Dubai, she swam well and was just a few seconds behind leaders Perez-Sala and Spivey. Will Waugh or Learmonth make the swim faster this year, and will Derron be able to stay with the leaders?
On the bike, she was consistently out-biked by Waugh and Learmonth – with one notable exception in San Francisco. On the other hand, Derron swam with Waugh and Learmonth in Singapore but then struggled on the bike, losing 15 minutes to them. Will Derron be chasing another win, or will she be mainly focused on improving her 12th-place from Singapore?
A podium finish in Dubai would see her jump into third place in the standings, and a great chance to improve on her third-place at the end of the season. How aggressively is Derron going to race in Dubai?
Taylor Spivey
34 years old, United States, PTO #19, 12th T100 standings (48 points, 3 results)
Taylor Spivey has raced both T100 and WTCS this season. She needs a great race in Dubai to bump her up from 12th place. (Photo: T100)
Spivey’s season plan for 2025 has two major focus areas: short-course WTCS racing and the half-distance T100.
At the start of the year, she switched back and forth and even contemplated racing twice at the French Riviera. However, she had to pull back to take care of run niggles.
Now that the WTCS season is over and she finished fourth in the tight race for the title, her focus returns to the T100. It’s unlikely that she can jump into a podium position in the series, but with two solid races in Dubai and in Qatar, she should be able to finish higher up than 11th last year.
Spivey is usually one of the fastest swimmers and can be expected to reach T1 in the lead group. If the pace is on, will she try to go with them, or will she be more cautious in the hot water in Dubai?
The main challenge for her will be on the bike – last year in Dubai, she only had the 16th bike split, losing 10 minutes to the leaders. If she can find a solid group to ride with this year, she might be able to limit her gap to six to eight minutes.
Spivey has run well in T100; last year in Dubai, she had the second-best run split, as well as in Singapore at the start of the season. If she can ride hard and then still run well in Dubai, she might be able to fight for her first podium in a T100 race.
Dark Horse 1: Jess Learmonth
37 years old, Great Britain, PTO #10, 6th T100 standings (86 points, 6 results)
Jess Learmonth has two third-place finishes so far this season and needs another solid performance to leap ahead of Taylor Knibb into fifth place. (Photo: T100)
Learmonth is always fun to follow in the swim and on the bike, and she’s often leading the field into T2 as part of a small lead group. Even if her run isn’t quite where she wants it to be and she’s unlikely to be a factor for the win, she was able to get two third places in Vancouver and in Spain.
Aside from racing for herself, she’s also helping to push the pace at the front. In Dubai, she may help Waugh to build an insurmountable lead into T2. But hopefully, she can have another solid run day, and a top-five finish would see her overtake Knibb in the standings before the final race in Qatar.
Dark Horse 2: Holly Lawrence
35 years old, Great Britain, PTO #17, 16th T100 Standings (38 points, 3 results)
Holly Lawrence has had a solid 2025 season so far, finishing sixth at the Ironman World Championship. (Photo: T100)
After giving birth to daughter Poppy in the fall of 2024, Lawrence has made a great return to racing. Not only did she finish fifth and sixth in San Francisco and Vancouver, but she also completed her first Ironman in Lake Placid and finished sixth in her first Kona race in October. Has she recovered from that effort, and can she once again be competitive in the field in Dubai?
With just two T100 finishes so far, she’ll improve her total with any finish and could be fighting for a top 10 in the overall series. With her strong swim and bike, she should be close to the podium positions at the start of the run – is she going to be the dark horse for the Dubai podium spots?
