It was in September 2023 when Pontevedra hosted the second Aquabike Standard Distance World Championships, following the event’s debut in Abu Dhabi the year before. Three years ago, 340 athletes started the aquabike race in Galicia in north-western Spain. This year, almost 500 athletes are on the start list. It will be the second-largest aquabike race in our sport’s history, behind only the 2024 Worlds in Torremolinos in southern Spain. The course will certainly be busy, but we should not see a repeat of the chaotic drafting party we had in Andalusia.
The Swim
But as always, let’s start our course review with the first discipline. Aquabikers who regularly travel to the major events will know this course quite well by now. It is not only the second time the Standard Distance Worlds have been held in Pontevedra: the Long Distance World Championships also took place at the same venue in 2019 and 2023. As usual, the swim will be in the Lérez River. The one-lap course sends the athletes upstream first. Plot twist: the Lérez is tidal, and the aquabike swim will take place on an incoming tide. That means the second half of the swim will probably be the slower one.
The first aquabike wave starts at 13:05, 15 minutes after the final wave of triathletes, with the seventh and last wave leaving the shore 45 minutes later.
The athlete guide gives an expected water temperature of between 17°C and 20°C. As of today, seatemperature.org reports 16.9°C for Pontevedra, so conditions are currently at the lower end of that range. A wetsuit-legal swim therefore looks almost certain. If the water cools a little further, wetsuits could even become mandatory, which would be the case at temperatures below 16°C.
The Transition
From the swim exit, it is a 300-metre run to the stadium, where the transition zone is located. The full distance from the swim exit to the stadium, through transition and back out to the mount line is roughly 600 metres. That is certainly not ideal for athletes who choose aquabike because an injury limits their running. But with around 2,000 athletes on the start list across triathlon and aquabike, a somewhat longer run to and through transition is difficult to avoid at most venues.
The Bike
The bike course is unchanged from 2023: a 20 km out-and-back with a fair amount of climbing. The first half is predominantly uphill, with the main climb a 2 km ascent averaging 5.5% and reaching a maximum gradient of about 11%. The calculated elevation gain over the two laps is 475 metres; in reality, it is probably closer to 500 metres. And climbing is not the only challenge, with plenty of obstacles through the city streets of Pontevedra. At last year’s Long Distance Worlds, a race official told me they had counted 23 speed bumps within a 2-kilometre stretch. There are probably a few fewer on the standard-distance course, but make sure your water bottles are sitting securely in their cages.
For my Torremolinos preview, I did a rough calculation showing that up to 1,300 athletes could be on the 13 km bike course at the same time. In Pontevedra, the maximum should be around 900 athletes on the 20 km course. So it will not be as busy as Torremolinos, but it will still be crowded. There are also fewer U-turns, where bunching and dangerous situations are most likely to occur. The main safety concern, however, will be the fast descents. If you are not one of the fastest riders, keep to the right and check behind you before pulling out to pass another athlete. At 50 or 60 km/h, perhaps wearing a closed TT helmet, you are unlikely to hear shouts of “on your left” from a fast-approaching rider. And if you are one of the fast riders, remember that the slower athletes probably will not hear you either on the downhill sections. Stay cautious and alert when passing.
The Finish
If you have read some of my earlier previews of major events, you will probably know that the location of the finish line has often been one of my main concerns, especially at races in Spain. So you may be surprised to hear that I really have nothing to complain about this time. At last year’s Long Distance Worlds, I criticised the finish-line location because it was just before the right-hand turn into transition. In practice, though, the turn proved much wider than it looked on the satellite images. For the standard-distance race, the finish line is now about 100 metres before the turn, and the road should be wide enough for a safe sprint finish. It is probably one of the best finish arrangements we have had at a major aquabike race – and certainly the best we have had in Spain.
The Weather
As of now, the weather forecast for racetime on Saturday looks quite promising. 26°C, some broken clouds and only a very light breeze from the west sound like perfect racing conditions. For Sunday the forecast gives a very different picture though, with heavy rain and thunderstorms. So it looks like a quite lucky decision, that the race was moved from Sunday to Saturday. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the rain doesn’t come a bit earlier than expected.
The Favourites
The aquabike field in Pontevedra will not only be one of the largest we have seen, but also one of the strongest.
The Men’s Race
All five men at the top of the current Aquabike World Ranking will be competing in Pontevedra, but they are far from the only contenders. In our competition analysis, just about 90 seconds separate the predicted finish times of the top ten athletes. That makes it very difficult to narrow the field down to only a handful of favourites.
Tommy NIELSEN looks like one of the safest bets to be near the front. The former pro triathlete from Denmark has been a regular at the major aquabike races since 2023, with fourth place overall his worst result to date. At this year’s European Championships in Banyoles, he finished third, exactly two minutes behind the winner, despite serving a two-minute penalty.
The winner of that race was Frenchman Paul VANOTTI, who will also be racing in Pontevedra and should once again be right in contention.
And the athlete who finished between them will also be on the start line in Pontevedra. Last year, Igor FRANKO won the Long Distance World Championships overall in Pontevedra. He will now be looking for another victory at the same venue, this time over the shorter distance.
Long-time leader of the Aquabike.World Rankings Frank ERK currently sits in second place and will also be racing on Saturday. Cycling is clearly his stronger discipline, so the longer distances probably suit him better. Even so, seventh place at the 2023 Standard Distance Worlds in Pontevedra showed that he can stay close to the leaders, especially on a bike course as demanding as the one in Galicia.
Several other contenders have yet to race internationally in aquabike, but have already produced very promising performances at domestic events.
Two-time Irish national champion Martin MIZGAJSKI will make his international debut in Pontevedra. At this year’s nationals in July, he put more than two and a half minutes into his closest rival over sprint distance and is yet unbeaten in the seven aquabike events he competed in over the last 16 months. It will be interesting to see how that performances translates to the international aquabike stage.
It is a similar story for the leading British contender. In his only aquabike race so far, Ross HOSKING produced a remarkable performance, winning a field of more than 100 competitors by almost four minutes. Based on the swim he showed in that race, he could well be among the first athletes out of the water. The question is whether he can hold that position on the undulating roads of Pontevedra.
Jorge SERRA DE LA NATIVIDAD has started four middle-distance races in Spain this season and won all three he finished. His only blemish was a DNF in Pamplona, so he arrives at the World Championships with three wins from four starts.
Although 2024 champion Filip ZABOROWSKI will not be competing in Pontevedra, Poland still has another strong athlete to watch. After claiming the national sprint-distance title in June, Karol JOPKIEWICZ also won the long-distance nationals around two weeks ago, with a particularly impressive bike performance. This will not be Karol’s first World Championship appearance: he also raced in Torremolinos in 2024. With cycling by far his stronger discipline, he was one of the fast riders who got stuck in traffic on the crowded bike course and could not work his way into the leading positions. That should be less of an issue this year, so it will be interesting to see how high he can climb on the hills of Galicia.
German Thomas WINKELMANN has several international age-group titles under his belt as a triathlete. At multisport championships he occasionally also races aquabike and has consistently finished near the front. He was fourth overall at the 2022 and 2023 Worlds. In his most recent aquabike appearance, in Torremolinos in 2024, he missed the top ten, but he certainly has the potential to contend for the podium.
There are also two North American athletes worth watching. Neither US athlete Tiago DEPAULA SOUZA nor Canadian William THRIFT has competed internationally yet, but both have produced strong performances in domestic races.
The Women’s Race
The women’s aquabike race could be shaped largely by athletes from two countries. Twelve of the top 14 athletes in our competition analysis are either from Great Britain or – somewhat surprisingly – Canada. Team GB is a familiar presence near the front of women’s aquabike races, while the increase in Canadian participation may partly be linked to next year’s Long Distance Worlds in Edmonton.
Unlike the men’s race, our analysis points to three particularly prominent podium contenders. The clear leader of the Aquabike.World Women’s Ranking, Kerry HICKSON, will make her first appearance in an international championship race. After missing the overall win at the GB Nationals in July by only a few seconds, she is firmly among the leading contenders in Pontevedra.
The same applies to Stephanie OECHSNER. Since 2023, the US athlete has competed in seven aquabike races over a range of distances, including several national championships. The number next to her name in the results has always been the same: 1. Stephanie arrives in Pontevedra undefeated over the past three years and will try to keep that record intact.
Canada’s leading contender is no newcomer to aquabike World Championship racing. Andrea DAMIANI finished fourth in Pontevedra in 2023 and improved by two positions the following year.
The runner-up from last year’s race in Australia will also be on the start line in Pontevedra. In Wollongong, Hayley LYALL missed the overall title by only four seconds and will be looking to go one better in Spain.
Hayley DAVIS was third in Australia last year. At this year’s European Championships in Banyoles, she had to settle for sixth despite leading the race out of the swim. The shorter format in Galicia, however, should play more to the strengths of such a strong swimmer.
Another British athlete to watch is Victoria ROTHWELL. She took the overall win at the 2024 European Championships and finished second last year. As a strong cyclist, she will likely have time to make up after the swim, which is more difficult over the shorter World Championship distance. But the demanding bike course should give her more opportunity to move through the field than the flat and crowded course in Torremolinos in 2024, where she finished 11th overall.
Other Team GB athletes with top-ten potential include Catherine SEN, Ella CARTER and Pascale WEHR.
Canada also brings several more strong athletes to Spain. Aquabike fields at domestic races in Canada tend to be smaller, which makes it harder to judge how those performances will translate to a World Championship field. Chelsea RAYMOND at least has an international benchmark: she finished 17th in Torremolinos. With cycling her stronger discipline, this course may suit her better and bring her much closer to the front.
At last year’s Canadian national championships, Alicia SLADE completed the podium behind Andrea DAMIANI and Chelsea RAYMOND. That means the entire 2025 maple-leaf podium will be lined up at this year’s World Championships.
Poland also has two podium finishers from this year’s nationals competing in Pontevedra. Edyta MROZ and Anna WYPARLO finished second and third at the sprint-distance nationals in June, and both look capable of challenging for the top ten at the World Championships.
I’m really excited to see how the race will unfold on Saturday. Good luck to all competitors in the aquabike race!
Some helpful links:
Aquabike Standard Distance World Championships 2026 Pontevedra Race Details