Dive into to four big stories beyond the podium at the Rome World Cup
The men’s podium at the Rome World Cup gave us a taste of the recent past as Olympic champion Alex Yee (GBR) delivered a resounding victory and a taste of a possible future through French duo Martin Hubner and Tristan Douche winning medals on their World Cup debuts. Just a hair removed, however, was the top performer from the home team, Nicola Azzano of Italy.
“Racing in Rome is always special, I have to admit,” he said of the event, “especially when you’re wearing an Italian tri-suit. The atmosphere is electric, and having the home crowd behind you gives you that extra motivation to push through the tough moments.”
A World Cup medallist in Haeundae in 2021 when he placed 3rd, Azzano has twice missed out on a second medal in recent years, finishing 4th in Valencia and then again in Florianopolis last autumn. In Rome, he did so again by a mere 2 seconds from 2025 World Junior champion Douche.
Nevertheless, in the bigger picture Azzano’s result slots in alongside a series of high finishes this season. Having cracked the top-10 at a WTCS race for the first time this year, he improved his personal best to as high as 5th in Weihai.
“The main goal before the season was to be consistent at a high level, and I think I’ve managed to achieve that,” he said. “I would say the key has been the work I’ve put in over the past year with my training group, The Triathlon Squad, following a project of constant growth and improvement, despite the physiological highs and lows that come with high-level sport.”
Having added a medal in the Mixed Team Relay on Sunday to ensure he did not leave the weekend empty-handed, Azzano heads out to Asia for the next stops of the World Cup circuit. Based on his recent form, that coveted second podium might be around the corner.
Meanwhile, Rome was not the day out World Cup winner Petra Kurikova (CZE) had in mind as she finished 50th. That result, however, was not in line with her previous WTCS and World Cup results this season. Furthermore, of greater interest is the story behind Kurikova’s recent racing.
A Paris Olympian, Kurikova took a maternity absence from the sport in 2025 and only came back earlier this summer. “The season 2024 was my best,” she described, “because I raced in Paris, I won my first 70.3 Ironman (Hradec Kralove in her home country), I was 2nd at the World Cup Karlovy Vary and 4th at the European Championships. Even so, I knew it was the right time to take a rest in 2025.”
“I was lucky enough to get pregnant without any problems. I kept the training going during pregnancy and our son was born at the end of October. I was looking forward to being back on the startline again in 2026 and I am thankful for the frozen points policy where I got enough time to build my position.”
At this stage in her career, Kurikova’s goal is to show my son her passion. Within that overarching hope, lies qualifying for another Olympic Games.
“My plan was all in on LA 2028 but sometimes adapting the plan is the plan. It's new for me because I am a person who likes order in life. Sometimes I feel under pressure from myself and I'm not sure how my return to top form will go. But I will go our way. One thing is certain: I have already won the most valuable trophy. I gave birth to a healthy son, for whom I am first and foremost a mom - regardless of race results.”
Rome saw a return of a different sense as the 2023 and 2024 winner Nina Eim (GER) made her first start since injuring her hip at WTCS Yokohama in May. Prior to that, she had won the Lanzarote World Cup and was in promising form. Yet she appeared not to have missed a beat as she placed 4th at the weekend.
“It feels so good to be back racing!” she said. “It’s hard to miss so many races and not being able to do what you love doing. So I was just really happy that I was standing on a start line again.”
“Overall, I am very happy with the result. Especially with my run (Eim recorded a 5km split of 16:03, only 15 seconds off what race winner Diana Isakova achieved). I wasn’t sure about how the run would feel like because of the very little amount of run training I had coming into this race. It was the first time for me running 5km again since Yokohama, so I was surprised that I was able to run so well.”
Eim was joined by another returning German athlete in Rome as Paris relay gold medallist Lasse Lührs (GER) made only his third world-level appearance of the year and fourth since Paris 2024.
“After Paris, I had surgery on my heel due to an injury,” explained Lührs. “The rehabilitation itself went really well, but I found it quite difficult to get back to my old form. Throughout 2025, I worked really hard on my comeback, but unfortunately, the results I was hoping for didn’t come.”
“The winter training in 2026 finally started to look really promising. In the meantime, though, I had dropped quite far down the World Ranking — from around the top-15 after Paris to roughly 580th by February 2026. Since I’m usually in Namibia with the German National Team for a training camp in February and March, it made sense to race the three African Cups while we were there (two wins and a silver medal followed). It was a good opportunity to get some racing in and, more importantly, to start climbing back up the world rankings. Thankfully, that worked out really well.”
“I felt like I was finally on a really good path again, but then I had a pretty heavy crash at a Europe Cup in May, which set me back quite a bit. In August, I had another crash during a training camp in Livigno, when a car failed to give me the right of way. So a lot of up and down this year but right now, though, I feel like the momentum is finally back on my side. Training has been going really well lately, and I’m feeling very positive about where I am again.”
That momentum has really started to show. Lührs placed 13th at WTCS Weihai in August despite the crash and in Rome he came away with 8th place. Both are his best individual results since finishing 5th at the 2023 WTCS Final, and like his fellow WTCS medallist Eim he hopes to parlay this positive finish into even bigger results.
“It was definitely a big step in the right direction. Missing out on the medals by less than ten seconds is a little frustrating, but that was all I had today. Considering where I was this time last year, though, it’s a big achievement for me, and I’m sure there’s still a lot more to come.”
