Another stacked start list will toe the line in Singapore for the inaugural Asian Open. The start list includes 11 of the top 20 ranked athletes and has a SOF of 92.33. There are many of the same faces from the US Open but with some extra big names added.

I have ranked the start list top to bottom, splitting the athletes into four tiers.

• Contenders – athletes I can see winning the race
• Challengers – athletes I don’t think can win the race outright, but can challenge for the top 5 or sneak onto the podium
• Hopefuls – athletes I can see breaking into the top 10
• Bottom Half – athletes I expect to finish in the bottom half of the field
• If athletes are ranked in the same tier then I consider them to be closely matched and their numerical ranking is of a lower importance, especially further down the field

This is based on the current start list on the PTO website, with Magnus Ditlev removed as he announced that he is now skipping the race. Several athletes not on the start list have posted about racing in Singapore and I will update the rankings when the start list is updated.

Contenders

1. Max Neumann – he made the call to miss IM Hamburg after his stunning victory at the European Open. That means it’s been a long stretch with no racing and presumably a lot of solid training. Like others on the start list, he’s made the decision to race Singapore just 3 weeks out from Nice. As he hasn’t been racing maybe this isn’t as risky as it is for the likes of Ditlev and Laidlow. The win in Ibiza was another breakthrough for the Aussie, winning his first championship level race. He swam front pack, was undroppable on the bike and then chased down Brownlee on the run to breakaway for the win. Expect to see a very similar performance in Singapore. Brownlee’s aggression could be replaced by Laidlow and we could see them joined by Blummenfelt after he swam front pack in Milwaukee. Neumann will have the edge on the fatigued Blummenfelt and Iden is unlikely to make the front pack.

2. Jason West – he is coming off a frankly absurd performance at the US Open. After coming into T2 in 20th and 5:25 back, he ran the fastest split we’ve ever seen on the PTO Tour, beating his split from Ibiza. He ran a time of 56:23, while the second fastest split was 4 minutes and 37 seconds slower at 1:01:00. Crazy. He came home just 28 seconds behind Frodeno. You have to wonder what would’ve happened if West didn’t have problems with his extensions on the bike. Expect much of the same in Singapore, second pack swim, lose some time on the bike but a rapid run to move up the leaderboard. Will a smaller field help of hinder him? Less people driving the pace at the front but less people to work with further down the field.

3. Kristian Blummenfelt – his big month of racing got off to a rocky start in Milwaukee. His race got off to a great start, swimming front pack and then breaking away on the bike. He held around a 30 second lead until he was reeled in by Margirier, Ditlev and then Frodeno. As he was coming into T2 with this group, it looked like his race to lose. However as he was dismounting, his left quad cramped which flipped the race on its head. He battled his way through the run and incredibly stuck with West when he caught him. Blummenfelt answered all of West’s attacks but couldn’t match him in the closing stages and fell to 3rd. With limited time to adjust and more challenging conditions in Singapore, will we see a repeat? This wasn’t the first time this has happened, he suffered cramps with the same quad in Edmonton last year. Before he can think about the Asian Open he has to race the Olympic Test Event in Paris. He’s then got 48 hours to get to Singapore, recover and race. This is a mammoth task and I think the fatigue could be too much to overcome to win his first PTO race.

4. Gustav Iden – he comes into this race as a slight unknown, which is crazy to say given he won the inaugural Canadian Open last season along with the IM world champs in Kona. However he’s had a challenging year personally and performance wise. His chances for this race have increased recently though as he was substituted out of the Norway Paris Olympic Test Event team for a lower ranked athlete. He can’t have been pleased about the change but it does give him the chance to focus on Singapore. He’s struggled moving back to short course, racing five WTCS races but not cracking the top 30 once. This makes it incredibly difficult to predict how he’ll perform over 100k. Typically it wouldn’t bode well but there has to be credit given to what he has achieved. I think we have to assume he’ll be racing at a decent level however I don’t think he’ll make the front of the swim. With no Ditlev in the field he could be left dangling by himself. He’s one of the best runners in the sport on his day, I just don’t know what version we will get.

5. Sam Laidlow – after his breakthrough season last year, the 2023 season has been a bumpy ride. He kicked it off with a win at Challenge Gran Canaria and that put him in the fold as one of the favourites heading into the European Open. However he pulled out a week before due to personal reasons. He struggled at IM Lanzarote which ended in a DNF. Post the race it was discovered that he had a liver infection. After some initial doubts he made it to the Challenge Roth start line and rode with Ditlev for the entire bike. However he fell apart on the run but did battle his way to finish 8th. On that run he picked up a calf issue that kept him out of committing to race the US Open but he made a quicker than anticipated recovery to make it to Challenge London the same weekend, taking a fairly comfortable win. He’ll swim front pack and be aggressive on the bike. He has shown flashes on the run this year but we haven’t seem him at a championship field yet. Two 4th place finishes on the PTO Tour last year show what he can do so expect to see a lot of him on race day.

Challengers

6. Sam Long – what he did at the US Open was quite incredible. He rocked up the night before the race, following the birth of his baby the day before. He lost 2:37 in the swim and roughly maintained this deficit on the bike. He then had a solid run while others faded to move into 5th. He is one of only a handful of athletes racing all three championship races in August and he has said he will call it a season after 70.3 worlds. As with the US Open, expect him to lose 2.5-3 minutes in the swim. Depending on how aggressive the front of the race is then he could lose time on the bike if Neumann and Laidlow are pushing the pace together with Blummenfelt. The benefit he has is he won’t get caught up in the race dynamics and be pushed to over bike. Like the US Open I expect to see him moving through the field on the run and he could even move his way onto the podium if those ahead start to fade.

7. Daniel Baekkegard – a one place improvement from Ibiza to Milwaukee but he still came away from the race disappointed. For a second PTO Tour race in a row he wasn’t able to stick with the leaders on the bike, getting dropped by Blummenfelt early and Margirier and Ditlev when they passed. He was caught by Sam Long in the closing stages of the bike and came into T2 just behind him. But he lost touch in T2 and couldn’t bridge back up, running most of the 18k by himself. He’ll get another shot of riding with the leaders in Singapore but with the extra power of Neumann and Laidlow he may find himself falling back again. I would like to see him go with Long when he catches, I think we could see a good battle between them on the run.

Hopefuls

8. David McNamee – he has surprised me this year on the PTO Tour. He ran well in Ibiza, finishing 11th, and improved on this performance in Milwaukee with the second fastest run split, finishing in 7th. He is consistent across the swim and bike and then unleashes a quick run to move through the field. He seems to manage his effort a lot better than the front pack athletes that get carried away on the bike and fade on the run. He said he was disappointed with his swim in Milwaukee so that is something he’ll be looking to improve on in Singapore.

9. Ben Kanute – a day to forget for the American racing on home soil in Milwaukee. He swam front pack but it all went downhill from there. He went backwards on the bike and had the slowest run of the day to come home in 23rd. With two more big races this month he’ll need to recover quickly to feature at the pointy end of the race. He has shown he can compete on the PTO Tour with his 8th at the European Open. It feels like he just had an off day and this performance will be the anomaly for the year. Expect to see him in the front pack again on the swim and maybe we see him be more cautious on the bike early to save his legs for the run.

10. Aaron Royle – like Kanute, he struggled in Milwaukee. After leading out the swim he was dropped on the bike and then struggled on the run. He is another culprit who over bikes in these PTO Tour races and he hasn’t been able to replicate his debut on the PTO Tour where he ran through to 3rd at the Canadian Open. He will lead out the swim with Kanute and Laidlow but could be better served by preserving energy on the bike. No athlete wants to admit defeat from the start but he could have a better result by letting the front of the race go on the bike and banking on his run to outperform this ranking.

11. Mika Noodt – he was one to watch after an impressive end to the 2022 season where he was top 10 at the US Open and 4th at IM 70.3 worlds. However his 2023 season was derailed by a bike crash in the build up to the European Open where he broke his fibula. This will make the Asian Open his debut race of the season, getting in as a wildcard. Expect to see him in the chase pack on the swim with the likes of McNamee and West. He’s solid on the bike but will lose time to the front. He showed his run pedigree at 70.3 worlds where he ran up to 4th, with the 2nd fastest split. As he’s returning from injury, his fitness is a bit of an unknown so he could have the most variability on the start list. 

12. Denis Chevrot – as a primarily full distance focused athlete, he’ll make his PTO debut in Singapore. He’s a front pack swimmer over the full distance but could struggle with the pace at the front of these 100k races, this could see him drop to the chase pack. He’s weakest on the bike but is an elite runner, outside of Kona he’s run sub 2:40 in his last five IM races. He’s showed at the World Triathlon Long Distance Championships in 2022 that this pace translates to the 100k distance, where he was one of only two athletes that ran under the hour for 18k. He’ll definitely lose time on the bike but if he can swim and ride with Jason West then they would make a dangerous pair running through the field.

13. Bradley Weiss – he well out performed my expectation with 8th at the US Open, improving from 17th in Ibiza. He had a solid swim-bike but earned his money on the run, with the 4th fastest split, moving up nine spots from 17th. Weiss, along with McNamee, embraced the “bike for show, run for dough” mentality and they both doubled their earnings from the race on the run. Despite his performance in Milwaukee there are athletes who had bad days I expected to finish above him in Milwaukee and I don’t think this performance changes my outlook on this.

Bottom Half

14. Pieter Heemeryck – he’s enjoyed success since his 14th at the European Open, taking 2nd at IM Hamburg and winning the IM 70.3 European champs. He was able to follow Mike Phillips on the bike and put 2 minutes into him on the run to take the win. He struggled on the bike back in Ibiza but if he can work with Phillips again then he could be in for a better result. Apart from Challenge Roth where he DNF’d, he’s had a top 3 run split in every race since the European Open. If he loses time on the bike, expect to see him make it back on the run.

15. Florian Angert – another disappointing result for the German, who extends his streak to four races in a row finishing outside the top 10. The drop off from last year has been significant, 5th at the US Open to 19th. Looking back at last year, he swam front pack and rode off the front of the race with the 2nd fastest bike split. He suffered on the run but still came home in 5th. This time round he was out swum by Frederic Funk, someone he has beat out of the water in their last six meetings, and was in the bottom half of bike splits. He’ll be hoping to turn it around in Singapore but his form isn’t promising.

16. Mike Phillips – he’ll make his PTO Tour debut in Singapore and is coming off a 2nd place at the IM 70.3 European champs. He couldn’t shake Pieter Heemryck on the bike but built up enough of a lead over the rest of the field to run home for 2nd. He is a strong rider that will likely swim with the chase pack of athletes. It would’ve been fun to see him try and ride with Ditlev but with the Dane out of the race Phillips may have to take charge on the bike. He is probably weakest on the run so he’ll have to be careful not to get drawn into the trap of over bike in his first race over this distance.