Two more Brits – Hall and Mitchell- in the final wildcard round for Challenge-Daytona
Lucy Hall and Simone Mitchell are the two Brits who have gained two of the last four wildcard spots for the PTO 2020 Championship at Challenge-Daytona and a chance to pursue the landmark $1,000,000 million purse as published by the Professional Triathlon Organisation.
As newer professionals to long distance racing, both Lucy Hall and Simone Mitchell fall firmly in the PTO’s Category 2 criteria. Hall’s performance at Bahrain last December had her finish ahead of three athletes who were automatic qualifiers for the PTO 2020 Championship, while Mitchell’s only professional race in Wales last fall saw her crush the course record. Both demonstrated that they were well on their way to climbing up the PTO World Rankings had 2020 not seen most races cancelled.
We were lucky enough to get Olympian Lucy Hall onto the TriNation Podcast a number of weeks ago. You can listen to her explain how her career took her from junior to senior to Olympian to long distance triathlon below:
The last two wildcard spots go to American Chris Leiferman and South African James Cunnama who have both demonstrated the ability to put in big performances which were not reflected in their current ranking. Leiferman’s recent race performances would have put him in the top 20 of the PTO World Rankings, while no one can question Cunnama’s talent to deliver a monster race. Both fall into Category 3 which encompasses professionals whose PTO World Ranking, does not accurately reflect their ability to compete at a championship event.
$1,000,0000 – Challenge Daytona World Championship Prize Fund
CATEGORIES
Broadly speaking, there are three main categories of athletes who will be considered for a wildcard selection:
1) Previous Historical Performance
2) World Class ITU Short Course Athletes
3) Up and Coming Athletes
WHO’S IN?:
Olympian Lucy Hall has a raft of experience behind her. She won the National Junior Aquathlon age 8 represented GB in European Youth Triathlon at age 13 she was selected to represent Great Britain in the European Youth where she took gold in 2006 and bronze in 2007 as part of the relay teams. In 2017 she won the ITU Triathlon World Cup and the 2016 Alanya ETU Triathlon European Cup and competed at the London 2012 Olympics and has now successfully transitioned to Long Distance Triathlon.
Simone Mitchell has had some great results in her career including 70.3 Age group World champion, 70.3 European champion, placing 2nd female overall at Ironman Lanzarote and setting a course record at Outlaw full distance triathlon. In 2019 she turned Pro and her debut race in Wales last fall saw her crush the course record.
American Chris Leiferman is one of the most exciting talents on the long-distance triathlon scene. Chris had an outstanding year in 2018 winning two Ironman events (Ironman Boulder and Ironman Louisville) and securing his qualification for the 2019 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and coming 10th on his Kona debut.
James Cunnama is a professional triathlete from South Africa competing and winning in multiple long courses, Ironman, and Ironman 70.3 triathlons having gained a 5th place at Kona in 2017. In the same year at Ironman Hamburg he won in8:00:36 time which gave him a huge victory margin of almost 22 minutes, and a 4:24 bike split combined with a 2:40 marathon.
These four now join the other 16 wildcard choices of Vincent Luis, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Kristian Blummenfelt, Nicola Spirig, Flora Duffy, Gustav Iden, Jess Learmonth, Tim Don, Jonny Brownlee, Henri Schoeman, Lisa Norden, Angela Naeth, Sam Long, Magus Ditlev, Danielle Dingman and Renee Kiley who have all been selected to join the 80 automatic qualifiers on the start line for the PTO 2020 Championship.
The top 80 men and women in PTO World Rankings who automatically qualify can be found here:
