Super League Triathlon

Being a closed league, only athletes who have a contract with the league for the current season may compete, most athletes that are considered to be the current best in the world are invited to sign contracts with additional contracts won in preseason qualifier events and others awarded to local athletes. The current split is the top ten from the previous season are awarded contracts with ten more split between the best placed at the two qualifying events and the final five being wild card invites currently favouring young or local athletes.[2] This gives a total of 25 athletes for both the men's and women's competitions.[3]

All athletes wear the same yellow jersey with the leagues sponsorship on it, however there is also space for personal or national sponsors. Each jersey is adorned with the athletes national flag for men on the left shoulder and for women on the side panelling under both arms. Special coloured jerseys are awarded to athletes to distinguish them, and each colour has a specific meaning:[4]

• blue-fastest swim split from the previous round
• green-fastest bike split from the previous round
• red-fastest run split from the previous round
• white-athletes under 21
• pink-overall points lead

A jersey of each colour is awarded to the relevant men and women before the start of the next round, except the white jersey which is awarded to all of the athletes under 21.

The women's jerseys are currently a more revealing design than that of the men. This continues to draw criticism from female triathlon participants across the sport with regards to objectification of female athletes and safety/health implications of a lack of breast tissue support and skin cancer risk, due to their open back design.

During every Round each race awards points towards an athlete's Round score then at the end of a Round athletes are ranked based on their total Round points and awarded League points based on placement, the athlete with the most League points at the end of the season is crowned the overall winner. Point distributions for Round and League points are the same using the following spread.[1]

Any athlete that gets pulled from a race due to a time cut will have Round points removed, if they are pulled in the first stage of a race the lose two points if they are pulled during the second stage they lose one point and if they are pulled in the third stage they are awarded 0 points for that race.

Before the 2021 season, it was announced that for the first time Super League Triathlon athletes would be competing as representatives of teams as well as individually. Each team would be picked and coached by a triathlon legend. Following the draft on 26th August 2021, the teams for the 2021 season were as follows:

Cheetahs, coached by Annie Emmerson: Sophie Coldwell, Maya Kingma, Léonie Périault, Anna Godoy, Jonny Brownlee, Tyler Mislawchuk, Tamas Toth, Aaron Royle

Rhinos, coached by Ronnie Schildknecht: Katie Zaferes, Rachel Klamer, Yuko Takahashi, Valerie Barthelemy, Marten Van Riel, Jacob Birtwhistle, Jannik Schaufler, Kenji Nener

Eagles, coached by Tim Don: Jess Learmonth, Taylor Spivey, Vicky Holland, Vittoria Lopes, Alex Yee, Jelle Geens, Max Studer, Marco van der Stel

Sharks, coached by Michelle Dillon: Beth Potter, Non Stanford, Carolina Routier, Simone Ackermann, Hayden Wilde, Jonas Schomburg, Vasco Vilaça, Tayler Reid

Scorpions, coached by Chris McCormack: Cassandre Beaugrand, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Ilaria Zane, Emilie Morier, Vincent Luis, Matthew Hauser, Mario Mola, Shachar Sagiv

Rank	Athlete	Team	Points
C	Alex Yee	Eagles	59
2	Hayden Wilde	Sharks	54
3	Jonny Brownlee	Cheetahs	50
4	Vasco Vilaça	Sharks	49
5	Vincent Luis	Scorpions	47
6	Marten Van Riel	Rhinos	39
7	Seth Rider	Eagles	26
8	Kenji Nener	Rhinos	21
9	Matthew Hauser	Scorpions	19
10	Tayler Reid	Sharks	17
11	Alessandro Fabian	Cheetahs	16
12	Shachar Sagiv	Scorpions	16
13	Aaron Royle	Cheetahs	15
14	Max Studer	Eagles	14
15	Kristian Blummenfelt	Rhinos	12
16	Jacob Birtwhistle	Rhinos	12
17	Gustav Iden	Eagles	7
18	Jannik Schaufler	Rhinos	5
19	Tamás Tóth	Cheetahs	4
20	Simon Henseleit	Rhinos	4
21	Gordon Benson	Rhinos	4
22	Jonas Schomburg	Sharks	3
23	Mario Mola	Scorpions	2
24	Oliver Turner	Sharks	0
25	Henri Schoeman	Sharks	0
26	Marco Van Der Stel	Eagles	0
27	Joshua Lewis	Eagles	0	As of 26 September 2021.[16]

  This athlete was the Run winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Run legs across the season

  This athlete was the Swim winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Swim legs across the season

  This athlete was the Bike winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Bike legs across the season

  This athlete only competed in London, after being given a wildcard

  This athlete only competed in Munich, after being given a wildcard

  This athlete only competed in Jersey, after being given a wildcard

  This athlete only competed in Malibu, after being given a wildcard

Rank	Athlete	Team	Points
C	Georgia Taylor-Brown	Scorpions	60
2	Jess Learmonth	Eagles	59
3	Katie Zaferes	Rhinos	49
4	Beth Potter	Sharks	39
5	Vicky Holland	Eagles	38
6	Taylor Spivey	Eagles	37
7	Léonie Périault	Cheetahs	34
8	Cassandre Beaugrand	Scorpions	33
9	Sophie Coldwell	Cheetahs	30
10	Rachel Klamer	Rhinos	25
11	Non Stanford	Sharks	24
12	Flora Duffy	Cheetahs	20
13	Maya Kingma	Cheetahs	15
14	Emilie Morier	Scorpions	11
15	Yuko Takahashi	Rhinos	11
16	Anabel Knoll	Rhinos	3
17	Valerie Barthelemy	Rhinos	3
18	Lucy Charles-Barclay	Sharks	2
19	Vittoria Lopes	Eagles	19
20	Anna Godoy	Cheetahs	0
21	Ilaria Zane	Scorpions	0
22	Gillian Sanders	Sharks	0
23	Alice Betto	Scorpions	0
24	Simone Ackermann	Sharks	0
25	Carolina Routier	Sharks	0	As of 26 September 2021.[17]

  As well as the overall Champion, this athlete was the Run winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Run legs across the season

  This athlete was the Bike winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Bike legs across the season

  This athlete was the Swim winner, meaning they accrued the most points during the Swim legs across the season

  This athlete only competed in London, after being given a wildcard

  This athlete only competed in Munich, after being given a wildcard

  This athlete only competed in Malibu, after being given a wildcard

Although it had been a somewhat open secret in the triathlon media, on 10 February Super league triathlon was officially announced and its website launched.[31] During the announcement one of the founders Chris McCormack declared it to be the future of triathlon with 25 of the best professional men competing in action-packed, innovative race formats competing for 200,000 US dollars.[32] It was stated that although this was a test event there were already plans to include an equal woman's event as well as age group races and a total prize purse of 1.5 million US dollars. The series was to be broadcast on television locally by Australia's Fox Sports and in Europe by Eurosport the series also stated that the races would be available to stream live on their own website.[32]

[33][34]