Jessica Fullagar

Born in Ascot, Berkshire in the UK, Fullagar moved to France with her family as a child, but after a stellar junior career racing in the Tricolore, switched allegiance back to Britain in 2020 and looks destined for more success in the senior ranks.
All all-around triathlete but a particularly strong swim-biker, Fullagar joined her first triathlon club at the age of 11 and was rarely off the podium from the start.
Victories in junior European Cup races in Portugal, Switzerland and the Netherlands were among the highlights, and after finishing seventh on Australia’s Gold Coast in the 2018 junior World Championships, she improved to win bronze in the 2019 worlds in Lausanne.
Three weeks before Lausanne, Fullagar also won a first senior race on debut in Malmo where she finished in front of soon-to-be GB team-mate Kate Waugh. More success has come on the French Grand Prix circuit with her club, Tri Val de Gray.
While injury setbacks, including undergoing foot surgery, and the trials of the pandemic saw Fullagar require a break from elite racing, as an international business student at the University of Leeds, her love for the sport was reinvigorated by switching allegiance to Britain.
A change of focus also meant selflessly – and successfully – becoming a para guide athlete, where last summer in Birmingham she guided 18-year-old Katie Crowhurst to gold for England in the visually-impaired class in the Commonwealth Games – the only paratri category contested at the event.
Turning back to solo competition after the Commonwealth Games, Fullagar picked up the British national sprint title in Sunderland, won the British Triathlon Senior Super Series and was at the sharp end of more European Cup racing when she finished fourth in Turkey.
A first step up to the standard distance also proved an immediate success. Although Fullagar placed seventh at the Under-23 World Championship in Abu Dhabi, she was also part of a two-woman breakaway on the bike leg that allowed Waugh to hold on over the 10km and take the title.
There have been more highlights since. Having won the British Super Series round in Sunderland on the last weekend in July, Fullagar was a last-minute replacement for Olivia Mathias in the World Triathlon Championship Series mixed relay,
Just as in Birmingham the previous summer she once again found herself racing outfront in front of a bumper home crowd, but while the situation could have been overwhelming, Fullagar handled it like a seasoned pro and anchored the British quartet to a runners-up spot – with only Cassandre Beuagrand of the eventual victors France posting a faster anchor leg.
2023 will be Fullagar’s first full Fullagar season in the Super League Triathlon series, although she was a wildcard for Bahrain Victorious Scorpions in Malibu in 2022 where despite picking up a tummy bug before the event, still managed to grab one of the short chutes for the team. For her 2023 return she is back in the familiar company of Waugh racing for an almost all-British team RTP Sharks.