Several top athletes will kick off their 2023 season in Oceanside at the start of April. This race will hopefully see the return of Kat Matthews after missing time due to her horrific bike accident.

Women’s Contenders

Paula Findlay – coming off her best long course season and closed out the year with a win in Indian Wells. She is one of the best cyclists in the sport and was only outridden by Taylor Knibb at this race last year. Since 2018 she has opened her season three times with this race however has never made the podium. Can she break this streak in 2023? Note she did win this race in 2021 but that is when it was scheduled at the end of the season.

Chelsea Sodaro – she ran away with the IM World Championship in Kona last year and had three other podiums across the year. She comes into this year with a lot more expectation as the reigning world champ. With a good result in Oceanside she could climb further up the PTO rankings due to her Hamburg result (81.74) dragging down her current average of 89.87.

Holly Lawrence – coming off an incredibly consistent 2022, where she was the only athlete to finish in the top 6 at the PTO Canadian Open, PTO US Open and the IM 70.3 World Championships. She is very familiar with the course having won in 2017 and has four other podiums in Oceanside. She has only not made the podium once the six times she has raced here.

Kat Matthews – returning from a horrific bike accident that happened in the lead up to the IM World Championships last year. She was one of the favourites heading into that race having had a superb year. It has been inspiring to follow her recovery process and I am looking forward to seeing her back racing. Her return has been focused on IM Texas later in April so this race could be treated as rust buster before going for her Kona slot in Texas.

Jackie Hering – finished off her year nicely with 7th at the IM 70.3 World Championships and 4th at Clash Daytona. She raced well in Oceanside last year, finishing 5th and beating Findlay and Sodaro. She could be one to watch out for if the higher ranked athletes are still building fitness.

Tamara Jewett – finished 20th in the PTO rankings last year, all while juggling triathlon with working in a legal practice. This year will be the first year where her focus is fully on triathlon and that could lead to big improvements. She is already one of the best runners in the sport but she tends to have a significant deficit to make up out of T2. Expect to see her reduce this deficit across the season. Another one to look out for on the run if athletes start to fade.

Preview
The top of the start list is strong with six athletes in the PTO top 20, however there are only another four athletes in the top 100. This results in a strength of start list of 34%. However 87.55 will likely be one of the highest SOF scores at a silver tier race. For reference that score is higher than the SOF from the IM World Championships in Kona last year, 87.07.

Holly Lawrence outswam Paula Findlay every time they raced in 2022 but the gap varied from 5 seconds to 1 minute 40 seconds. If Findlay has a good swim then she will quickly catch Lawrence on the bike. Sodaro and Matthews will be slightly further back and then there will be another gap to Hering and Jewett.

We have seen Lawrence and Findlay work well together on the bike before and could see the same in Oceanside. If Findlay is feeling strong then I’d expect to see her ride off the front and try to build a lead for the run. If dropped, Lawrence could be swallowed up by Sodaro and Matthews. Athletes will have to keep in mind the running ability of Jewett, she outran Findlay by six minutes at IM 70.3 Indian Wells at the end of last season.

If she rides like she did last year then Findlay could have a couple minutes lead coming into T2. This may not be enough to hold off Sodaro who could run 2-3 minutes into Findlay over the 21k. The run is where we will really see who has early season form and who is still finding fitness. I think Jewett’s deficit coming into T2 may be too big to overturn but if someone falters ahead then she will be there to capitalise.

1. Paula Findlay
2. Chelsea Sodaro
3. Holly Lawrence