FISU Nyon 2026: Peszleg, Bettin Take World Titles

The World University Triathlon Championships took place in Nyon, on Lake Geneva, over the weekend of 8 and 9 August. Dominika Peszleg won the women’s race by one second, and Benedikt Bettin capped the best season of his career.

Bettin runs away from the field on the run

The race was over sprint distance: 750m swim, 21km bike and 5km run.

Bettin won in 55:11, finishing 12 seconds ahead of German runner-up Jan Scheffold. Hungarian Gergő Dobi completed the podium.

This was no one-day fluke for Bettin. Every one of his international gold medals came this season: the Africa Cup, the Asia Cup, and now Nyon. He also placed fourth at the sprint European Championships.

His rise up the world ranking opens a path to a first WTCS start, a series he has not yet raced.

Peszleg wins by a second, bronze two seconds off gold

In the women’s race, Peszleg won in 1:01:57. Frenchwoman Elena Polaert led out of transition first, but the Hungarian caught her over the closing stretch.

It came down to the fastest run in the field, 17:00 for 5km. Peszleg won by one second in the end.

Another Frenchwoman, Appoline Foltz, took bronze a second behind Polaert. Gold to bronze came down to two seconds, on a distance that takes just over an hour.

Peszleg is aiming higher than a university podium. In a stacked Hungarian squad she is fighting for an Olympic spot, and Nyon was just one stop in her season.

Why this matters for amateurs

FISU Nyon will not turn up in a prime-time broadcast slot. But the opening of the qualification window for Los Angeles 2028 means every international start, even a student one, now carries more weight than it did a year ago.

Athletes such as Bettin and Peszleg are not there just to take part. They are racing for ranking points that will decide, two years from now, who goes to Los Angeles.

Bettin is building a season without an international defeat and climbing the rankings without a single WTCS start, a rare trajectory. When Olympic spots start to be decided in 2027, some of these names will already be well known.