Grit and Guts

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In their second year of competition, the Arizona women’s triathlon team won it all.

By Sarah Kezele Last August, Wes Johnson, head coach of Arizona women’s triathlon, posed a simple but powerful question to his team: “Why not us?” It was the start of the program’s second season, and belief was high after a top-five national finish in the program’s debut year. He hoped the mantra would help his athletes shed mental limitations and embrace their full potential.

“It wasn’t necessarily 100% to do with winning nationals,” Johnson says.

But on Nov. 9, those three words delivered Arizona to the top of the podium at the 2024 Women’s Collegiate Triathlon National Championships in Clermont, Florida. It was the U of A’s 23rd team national championship. Four Wildcats finished in the top 10, including Kelly Wetteland, who completed the 750m swim, 20k bike ride and 5k run in a blistering 59:20 for second place overall.

Wetteland says that early in the season, she and her teammates would joke about the “Why not us?” mantra. As time passed and the team got faster, something changed.

“We really started thinking about it,” Wetteland says. “You get on the line at nationals, and you’re looking at all your friends like, ‘Really, what’s stopping us from doing it?’ It became more personal the more we said it.”

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Building a program

The university announced Johnson as its first women’s triathlon head coach in December 2022. At that point, Johnson had been a full-time triathlon coach for about 13 years, coaching international talent and spending nine years with USA Triathlon. He guided triathletes at the Paralympics, World Championships and Pan American Championships, and was honored in 2021 as the USA Triathlon Developmental Coach of the Year.

His move from the pros to a college program came with a considerable learning curve: By the time he had all of the NCAA rules and regulations down pat, he only had six months to put together a roster for 2023 and lock in a recruiting class for 2024.

“We got creative,” Johnson says.

Taking advantage of the sport’s mainstream status in Europe, Johnson trekked to Hamburg, Germany, to recruit rising stars at the 2023 Junior World Championships. The miles were worth it, as he landed a commitment from the crown jewel of the 2024 recruiting class, Margaréta Vráblová of Slovakia. (In November 2024, Vráblová took third overall at nationals as a true freshman and was voted the National Freshman of the Year by the College Triathlon Coaches Association.)

Johnson also found top-tier talent already on campus at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center, attracting Wetteland and Grace Reeder from Arizona’s swimming and diving program. Wetteland, a double major in law and political science, ran distance in high school but had no competitive experience on a bike.

“Honestly, it’s a little delusional,” Wetteland says with a laugh about pursuing triathlon. “It was like, I think I can do two out of the three, so I can probably figure that one out.”

That grit paid off in spades at the national championships in November. Damage done by Hurricane Milton forced a late change to the racecourse and split the event into two days: the swim on Friday, Nov. 8, and the bike and run on Saturday, Nov. 9.

“If anything, the swim probably hurt us more than it helped us, because we were really ready for the continuous swim, bike and run,” Johnson says. “Just a swim, we don’t necessarily train for that. But I also knew how fit they were, how strong they were and how good they were, and so I really wasn’t nervous about it. I still had the same kind of belief.”

Two Wildcats produced top-five times in the swim — Wetteland and Dana Přikrylová — solidifying the team’s position for the bike and run the next day.

Why not us, right?

Now the focus has shifted to year three. How does such a young program follow up a national title? Johnson is taking a page from the playbook of Emma Hayes, head coach of the U.S. women’s soccer national team: “Break what isn’t broken.”

In other words, challenge the status quo and deny complacency.

“We’re living it right now,” Wetteland says. “Every day we’re trying to find things we can refine and perfect so that when fall does come, it almost feels like a celebration again.”