Kate Waugh: A vision of success

Words by Andy Waterman. Photography by Orbital Studio.

August 21st, 2021. Edmonton, Canada. Kate Waugh, a 22-year-old British triathlete, has just crossed the finish line of the under-23 World Championship Finals in 10th place. It’s a good result, but Waugh is neither satisfied nor sad: she’s inspired. 

“I remember crossing the line and thinking, I'm winning next year. No question: I'm going to win this race next year, and I'm going to be the under-23 world champion,” she recalls. Waugh, who had recently graduated with a degree in psychology, set to work visualizing that success. “Every single session I did for the next year and a half was based towards that race,” she says.

On November 25th, 2022, Waugh lined against the fastest under-23 women in the world in Abu Dhabi with ambition and a plan. It worked. With 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) remaining of the cycling element of the Olympic distance event (1500m swim, 40 km  (25 mile) bike, 10 km run), Waugh attacked the front group, creating a split. She was joined by her British teammate Jessica Fullagar, and by the time the pair passed through the final transition and out onto the run, they had a 65-second lead on the chasers. “I knew I couldn't just win from the run,” says Waugh, “so my training was based around needing a breakaway.”

That time cushion was all Waugh needed. She ran fast and strong, going under 35 minutes for the final 10 kilometers to take the win, 25 seconds ahead of her nearest rival.

“It was a super special day,” she says, “just knowing that I can set my mind to something and execute. I took so much confidence from that race.”

Waugh went on to have an incredibly successful 2023, her first year in the senior ranks. With a seventh place finish at the Paris 2024 test event in August, she has earned the right to be talked about as a potential Olympian, even if she hasn’t booked her spot just yet. “I still need to qualify,” she says, “so that's the big task I have ahead of me.” 

Seventh place in Paris was followed by second place in the Elite Women’s World Championship Finals in Pontevedra, Spain, in September: “after I won the U23 world title I set my expectations of two podiums at Paris and Pontevedra,” she says. “Honestly, I felt a bit crazy saying that to my coach, but he fully supported me. When I finished seventh in the Paris test event, I was disappointed to not get the auto qualification (a podium position would have earned an automatic spot at the Olympics) but when I got the second in Pontevedra, I think it showed that if you set the bar high, even if you fall short, you'll be happy.”

The UK is a strong triathlon nation, particularly in the Olympic distance, and 2023 proved Waugh is competitive on the world stage. The beginning of 2024 is dedicated to earning a place on the start line in Paris. “The aim,” says Waugh, is to be “fit and healthy for our main qualification race, Cagliari WTS at the end of May. If you win the race, I think it's a sure bet. The aim is just to leave no doubt.”

From the outside, Kate Waugh’s rise to the top of triathlon looks meteoric. Delve a little deeper and you’ll see she’s been on a journey that, even at 25, is almost two decades in the making. Growing up in the northeast of England, she started out swimming, was drafted into family bike rides with her cycling-mad father and grandfather, and participated in gymnastics seriously until the age of 12. Triathlon came calling early and she was winning races as young as seven or eight: “I absolutely loved it. I loved combining the three sports,” she says.

Waugh was glad to leave the regimented world of gymnastics, but she credits the sport with instilling in her more than a love for the athletic process. “Although it was intense, I think it gave me a really good overall base. It makes you super strong, and I think I have carried a lot of that through in terms of core strength, flexibility, discipline and timing. That was really important for me.”

Great Britain has a broadly egalitarian approach to youth sports, but in the teenage years, the participation rate for girls drops off dramatically. Did Waugh ever think about quitting sport as her academic career progressed and pressure to have an active social life increased? 

“It's really difficult between 16 and 21,” she says. “For me, I always knew I wanted to do sport, but even then it was hard. I was different from other people—they wanted to hang out all weekend and party. I'm grateful actually that my mum encouraged me to be with my friends, even when I was like, oh I just need to train. It allowed me to have a bit of balance so that now at this age, I feel like I can just go all-in.”

As a young woman excelling in elite sport, does Waugh feel like a role model? And does being in that position feel like pressure, or a privilege? “Pressure is a privilege,” she says, immediately. “I found it quite sad to watch so many talented people drop out at an early age. It's still a bit of an enigma, particularly with females–how do you encourage them to stay in sport for longer? I've always wanted to try and help, encouraging people to keep that balance in their life and stay in competitive sport for longer, because I'm so glad I pushed through those difficult years.”

Having spent five years training and studying in Leeds, the UK’s hub for all things triathlon, Waugh, along with her partner, the triathlete Max Stapley, have relocated to the warmer training environment of Monte Gordo in Portugal. It’s a “runner’s paradise,” says Waugh, and over recent years, it’s become a popular destination for northern European athletes seeking vitamin D and good training facilities. 

Alongside the right training and nutrition, part of the significant mental load of triathlon is everything that goes on around the sport: triathletes have more sponsors than most single sport athletes, races all across the world that require complex travel arrangements, and even the laundry requirements for 20+ sessions per week can be double what a runner might experience. What does a typical day look like for Waugh?

“We have to be very disciplined with our time,” says Waugh. “Ultimately I prioritize my training above everything else, but I won't lie, it's super difficult. It's 24/7.”

When we speak, Waugh is on an easy day after a particularly tough day of training the previous day. Even on an easy day, she’ll train three times. “Typically,” she says, “on one of the harder days like yesterday, we woke up at seven and then went for a morning run for about 50 minutes. And then we had about an hour turn-around to have some breakfast and get to our swim session. That was about an hour and a half with steady, solid reps. After that we had about an hour off and then we headed out for a two to three hour ride with some hill reps. In the evening, we went to the sauna because we're trying to do a bit of heat prep ahead of Abu Dhabi. And then we had a meal with some of the people in the group. I think we went to bed at about 10:30. So that's a day in the life.”

Triathlon may be a sport of three disciplines, but running, which comes last of the three, is often where races are won. Under the guidance of Paulo Souza, Waugh is running more than she ever has before: “I’m running between 65 and 80 km (40-50 miles) per week and a lot of it is focusing on slower easy miles, just building up a bit of an engine. For sessions, we have some hill strides that we do that are more strength-based, then we have some faster reps on a Tuesday and some longer, slower reps on a Saturday. In the past I would do quite a bit less mileage and I was obsessed with just running fast all the time, but yeah, my running made huge moves last year. At first I was really apprehensive, but now I trust it completely.”

The move to increased mileage has led Waugh to an epiphany with shoes. “I'm team Cloudmonster for all my training” she says, “and then carbon shoes come race day. We kind of shy away from carbon shoes 90% of the time. Maybe for our last few sessions before a race we'll put them on right at the end of a session just to get used to the feel of them, but Paulo's not a fan of using carbon shoes in training and I understand that – you just want your legs to do the work.”

With new, big money race formats, and an exciting cohort of athletes across all of triathlon’s niches, 2024 looks set to be an exciting year for the sport. Do the athletes feel that buzz? “Yeah, it's an exciting time to be involved in triathlon,” says Waugh. “I hope everything lives up to the hype. I'm so intrigued to see how people plan their calendars because obviously you can't do everything.”