Five Things We Learned From Supertri Toulouse

Supertri League 2025 got the Grand Final it deserved as Toulouse stepped up to deliver a spectacular end to an incredible series of racing action.

The huge crowds the French event has always attracted turned out in force again, with some fans waiting for hours to grab the best vantage points around the course following Supertri’s first mass participation Toulouse Triathlon event, which was a complete sellout.

This day was always about the winners, and the losers, after several months of intense action. Here’s five things we learned in Toulouse:

Hoodoos are there to be broken

Sometimes in sport you can argue that the hyperbole around something far outweighs the reality of it. That was not the case for Jeanne Lehair heading into Toulouse.

Lehair is based in Toulouse, she has her friends and indeed her entire life in the city. This race means everything to her.

The previous two years have been nothing short of a disaster. A DQ in 2023 for a helmet infringement left her in tears. A puncture that ended her race in 2024 left her in tears.

She arrived in 2025 the Supertri League leader needing to finish the job in Toulouse…and she was palpably scared it was all going to go wrong again.

Except sometimes sport has a fairytale ending, and that was the case. She won the race. She won the title. She got a marriage proposal on the podium (she said yes).

What. A. Day.

John Anthony raises the bar

First it was Tim Don that really brought the Teams concept to life. His meticulous attention to detail and determination to win elevated Teams, and forced everyone else to follow in his wake.

Don’s acrimonious departure to Brownlee Racing at the start of 2025 left Podium Racing owner John Anthony not only frustrated but with a massive problem to overcome.

His solution? He would manage the team himself.

Some questioned it. An owner naming themselves as manager…egotistical? Crazy? Doomed to failure?

But the end product is a Teams title, $350,000 in prize money for Podium Racing, and the bar being raised again.

It is a real challenge to Crown Racing, the self-styled big guns off the sport for whom winning is everything. They were left frustrated by injuries to top athletes and didn’t have the full commitment and depth of squad they required.

Brownlee Racing delivered on their next gen British talent development pledge, but for them to step up they need a couple of the bigs guns to race regularly again, or to pivot.

It was a big series for Stars & Stripes, who briefly climbed off the bottom of the table and overtook Brownlee by two points in Toulouse following the men’s race before falling back after the women.

For them it has been a tale of two teams, a men’s side which has brought on Project Podium stars impressively and had a lead man in Lehmann, while the women’s has been more volatile. Parker Spencer would surely have expected more from the likes of Nina Eim, such a great athlete who had a poor season, while Taylor Spivey only featured in one race in 2025. Much to ponder on that side for him.

But the way Anthony has gone about building his team, and monetising and professionalising it in a whole new way, has elevated the whole concept still further. He has laid down a marker. Will the others be able to follow?

Lehmann living the dream

After his first Supertri League win in Jersey, Csongor Lehmann admitted it was a dream come true to win a race in this series…so where do you go from there when you make it back-to-back wins and take the League title?

The Hungarian owed a huge debt of gratitude to his Stars & Stripes team manager Parker Spencer, not only for the faith he showed to select him, but also for bringing in Seth Rider for the last race in Toulouse.

Rider was hungry for redemption after a disaster in Toulouse in 2024, and is on good form. And wow did it show. The American really grabbed the race by the scruff of the neck and took Lehmann with him for good measure.

The two totally dominated the race and one early poor swim from Vasco Vilaca saw him shut out no matter how hard he tried.

This was a career defining moment for Lehmann and the elevation of a new star in the sport.

The nearly men

While sport focusses on winners, there are also those who came up just short. For some that is a failure, for others a massive success to have gotten themselves to that stage.

In the men’s it felt like a disappointment for second placed Vilaca who has grown up in Supertri racing. He was consistent, but the difference was that Lehmann took two wins. Vilaca picked up a second and two thirds. Fine margins.

Ricardo Batista didn’t even know he had finished third but again consistency paid dividends, as did competing in all four races. It meant his aberration in Jersey was wiped from the slate thanks to the best two results plus the Grand Final counting. He used his free hit wisely.

Tayler Reid and John Reed will be ruing a couple of issues here and there. They ended up just three points behind Batista and know there were opportunities to challenge for that third spot, while Mathis Beaulieu was a breakthrough star in sixth, despite a disappointing finale in Toulouse.

The nearly women

For the women, Lehair was just too strong. Three wins in a row is domination territory, and again competing in all four races was crucial as her less impressive opener in Toronto didn’t end up counting. Leonie Periault was good but her three second places were just not enough.

Georgia Taylor-Brown is a three-time Supertri League champion, so you would think a third place finish would be disappointing, but that’s where the nuance of sport comes in. Given she had basically had a year off her expectations were actually exceeded with her competitiveness.

Jolien Vermelyen in fourth probably did have a case of what might have been having won the opening round in Toronto. Her issue? In truth, opting to skip the second race in Chicago looks like a costly choice.