China’s Xinyu Lin delivered a historic moment for Chinese triathlon at the 2026 World Triathlon Cup Beijing, outsprinting Hungary’s Márta Kropkó in the final 150 metres to claim the country’s first ever World Cup win. Kropkó took silver five seconds behind, while Great Britain’s Kate Waugh completed the podium with bronze, her second straight top-three finish.
The victory crowned an outstanding few weeks for Lin, who won the Asian Games a month ago and with it secured China a spot in the women’s race at the LA28 Olympic Games. In Beijing she added 500 points to her Olympic Ranking on home soil, in front of a home crowd.
If the men’s race had been wet, the women’s race was a downpour. The rain grew heavier through the morning, leaving the roads at Yanqi Lake waterlogged and full of potholes, and making an already demanding Olympic distance course even harder.
Keeping up the Hungarian tradition of excellent swimming, Kropkó led the field through the 1500m swim and out of the water. She was joined by six others: Waugh, Lin, Italy’s Angelica Prestia, New Zealand’s Brea Roderick, Japan’s Manami Hayashi and France’s Mathilde Gautier. The seven committed to the breakaway from the first pedal stroke and worked hard together across the eight-lap bike course to stay clear of the chasers.
Behind them, USA’s Gwen Jorgensen, wearing the number one bib, could not stay with the first chase group and slipped back to the second, struggling in the cold and wet conditions on the hard bike course. She eventually finished 25th.
Off the bike, Kropkó and Lin quickly took control of the run, with Waugh following and the three soon opening a gap on the rest of the breakaway. Running in her swim goggles to protect her contact lenses from the rain, Kropkó kept pushing until even Waugh could no longer follow. The Hungarian and the Chinese athlete then ran shoulder to shoulder for the rest of the race, until Lin found an extra gear with 150 metres to go and pulled away on the blue carpet to take gold. Her 33:51 was the fastest run of the day.
For Kropkó, silver was the perfect response to her disappointment at the Championship Finals in Pontevedra last month, where she crossed the line in a remarkable fourth place only to be disqualified for mounting her bike too early. It capped a memorable day for the Kropkó family, with her brother Márton finishing fourth in the men’s race earlier in the morning.
Waugh’s bronze in 2:01:28 confirmed she is back on track after an injury-hit season that kept her from racing consistently, following her third place in Pontevedra.
Behind the podium, Anqi Huang made it two Chinese women in the top four. She came through from behind the breakaway with the third-fastest run of the day to finish fourth in 2:01:53, equalling the fourth place at WTCS Weihai that is the best result by a Chinese woman in Series history. Prestia was fifth, ahead of Luxembourg’s Eva Daniels and Gautier. Germany’s Nina Eim, Iana Chenskaia (RUS) and France’s Léa Coninx completed the top ten.
