Kate Waugh

Having taken part in all five rounds of last year’s Super League Championship Series, the 24-year-old has gained the experience to help her mix it with the best. A series-best sixth place in London was the highlight of a consistent run of performances that placed her 10th overall.

For this year, the psychology student from Gateshead has decided on a different training focus, leaving the familiar surroundings of Leeds to join new coach Paulo Sousa’s squad in Portugal. It resulted in a career-high fifth place in the Yokohama leg of the World Series in May.

Waugh has been a longtime Super League convert having taken part in both the Enduro and Triple Mix formats in Jersey in 2018. She has also competed in the Arena Games – where in 2021 she finished seventh in London and sixth in Rotterdam, and has since returned to the UK capital to place eighth last year and 13th in April.

Progressing from domestic to international success in the sport, she won the British Triathlon Female Elite Junior Triathlete of the Year in 2015 and her success continued into 2016 as she rounded off the year with a silver medal at the ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Cozumel in the combined junior-Under-23 mixed relay.

Crowned European junior champion in Kitzbuhel in 2017 and runner-up in the junior World Championship in Rotterdam later that summer to USA’s Taylor Knibb, Waugh then placed third on the Gold Coast the following year, before stepping up to finish fourth in the Under-23 Worlds in Lausanne in 2019. Having finished 10th in the same event in Edmonton in 2021, she finally claimed the coveted Under-23 world title in Abu Dhabi in November following a breakaway on the bike with team-mate Jess Fullagar.

A consistently high level performer and strong across all three disciplines, Waugh is now gaining success at senior level, having placed fifth in the 2021 European Championship in Valencia and ninth on first appearance in the World Triathlon Championship Series in Hamburg.

Two second places behind Commonwealth bronze medallist Beth Potter in Tongyeong and Haeundae in the Far East helped gain her WTCS starts last year, including in front of a packed home crowd in Leeds and then a return to Hamburg, where she was also part of a very young British quartet that won the mixed relay alongside Sian Rainsley. After narrowly missing out in Pontevedra, a first World Cup podium was achieved in Bergen, Norway before the triumph in Abu Dhabi. The results have continued to impress throughout 2023, with a top 10 in the Madrid World Cup to go alongside the fifth place in Japan.