Fanni Szalai

Despite being the youngest athlete to ever tackle Arena Games Triathlon’s infamous format, Szalai breezed through the heats at her first ever event in Sursee, finishing third in her heat behind teammate and training partner Zsanett Bragmayer and Olympian and Commonwealth Games medallist Emma Jackson.

In the finals, she produced further heroics, once again finishing in third behind winner Bragmayer and narrowly missing out on silver to part of Team Wales silver medal winning relay team, Olivia Mathias. However, this time she finished ahead of the far more experienced Jackson.

At the AGT ’23 final in London, more eyes were on Szalai following her exceptional performance in Switzerland. However, the 15 year old did not fold under the pressure. Qualifying for the finals via the repechage, Szalai took full advantage of her strong run and slick transitions to stay in contention throughout the race, and finished a respectable 8th in a strong field.

Despite her youth and limited experience (especially compared to her fellow competitors), Szalai was able to finish the 2023 AGT World Championship Series in 6th place overall.

Now less of an unknown quantity, but still yet to take her first start in an SLT Championship Series race, all eyes will be on Fanni Szalai later in the year.