Posted on May 28, 2026 at 06:00 AM
After winning the USA Triathlon Junior Cross National Championship at Oak Mountain State Park in Alabama and In his defense XTERRA North American Junior Championship title On May 18, Lucas Wright was somewhere else to be.
There was no extended celebration or slow drive home. He took a flight to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to be there for his sister Zoe’s graduation from Muhlenberg College.
His racing weekends got bigger, and more opportunities began to take shape, but his family, including his parents Michael and Mary, remained constantly there for him. They’ve been there through mountain biking, road racing, legal qualifiers, college competitions, and now the season that Xterra, USA Triathlon and Wingate University They all started to gather together.
“My dad did an Ironman in his day, or at least a half-Ironman,” Wright says. “He’s done some triathlons and some local triathlons here. The Columbia Triathlon was big for a while. He stopped doing it when I was really young, maybe when I was 4 or 5, but when I started, I knew he did it, so it helped me when I got into it.”
Before Wright created a racing calendar divided into three parts of the sport, swimming had dominated his younger years. Baseball stayed by her side for a while, but year-round swimming eventually required too much time to pursue both.
How Lucas Wright achieved success in off-road triathlon
“I just want to enjoy what I’m doing,” Wright says. “I haven’t stopped swimming yet, but I’ve started cycling and running a little bit, and I’ve had a little fun.” “Then I did my first triathlon, which was EX2, my local XTERRA in Maryland, between ninth and 10th grade.
Growing up in Ellicott City, Maryland, with the mountain bike trails at Patapsco Valley State Park close to home, entering off-road triathlon on the same bike he was already riding for fun was a natural first step.
“The first sign that this could be something bigger was my second year in EX2. I won it when I was a kid, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is so crazy.’ I didn’t really expect to do that.”
“Then 2025 was the year I really knew I was on to something. I went for it Xterra Puerto RicoI think I beat the entire professional field there. That was where I thought, okay, I really think this is something I want to do. This is something I can compete in.”
Mastering the Draft: Lucas Wright’s entry into USA Triathlon and junior legal racing
As Wright began to build momentum off-road, an Olympic triathlon on Maryland’s Eastern Shore qualified him for the USA Triathlon Championships the following year, putting him on a championship weekend in Milwaukee where the age group races, legal competition and the PTO US Open were being held together.
His first legal race came later that fall. Wright entered as a rookie athlete without much experience in the format, racing among college athletes in a collegiate conference event. Coach Rad (Nicholas Radkowich), now his coach at Wingate University, noticed him there before either of them knew where this introduction would lead.
“I ran a random legal race that fall, and that’s where I met my now college coach, Coach Rad. The next year, I joined the team with the coaches from that summer camp, MC Elite. I ran three races that year, two qualifiers and a national race. This year, I plan to do four qualifiers and a national race. I really just want to finish my final junior season and enjoy this track.”
“Draft-legal is a very fast-paced race. You’re definitely on the threshold all the time. There’s a lot of fast kids, all young, pretty much the fastest rookies in the country in every race. After the first race I ran, I noticed it was a lot of fun because you’re always around people. There’s always people around you in draft packs and on the run, and that pushes you really hard.”
The two racing styles were not developed separately for him. “I think there’s a back and forth between Draft Legal and
Balancing academics and athletics
Years after his first legal race, the coach who noticed Wright among college athletes came back into the picture when he began looking at colleges.
“Coach Rad found me for the first legal race I ever ran. It was a conference race that year, and I was just a random kid who had never raced legal, racing with all these college kids,” he says. “I think he approached my mom in that race. There were years between then and when I actually committed, but when I started looking at colleges again, my mom reminded me that he had emailed her all those years ago. I applied, I got accepted, and it just kind of fell into place.”
at Wingate, where he majors in finance and practical science. It’s the triple cross: learning to develop in a collegiate racing environment while keeping the off-road calendar and junior draft-legal schedule active alongside it.
“Every XTERRA experience counts toward USAT recognition if it’s in the US, they collect it all in their ratings database. I think I’ve been an All-American every year since I started, and last year I was nominated for USAT’s U20 Off-Road Athlete of the Year award.”
After his success Title defense In the XTERRA North American Championship, there are still two more qualifiers and nationals on the junior circuit schedule, with another opportunity likely after the summer tournament.
“Based on this year, I’m first at Collegiate Nationals, Texas and Claremont. Texas was a legal qualifier, and Claremont was a legal race earlier in the season. I have two more qualifying races and then nationals this summer. There’s also probably an opportunity for me to go to a USAT camp right after nationals, based on my rankings in mid-June. They’re taking the top three young athletes and flying them to Utah to train with Project platformthe Molokhiya teamand their high-performance team. Basically, all the big guns in the USAT organization will be there for training.
Double win at 2026 Oak Mountain Championship
the 2026 Weekend at Oak Mountain Bringing two paths to the championship in the same race for Wright. The previous year, he had won the XTERRA North American Junior Championships while the USA Triathlon Cross Triathlon National Championships were held in Oregon, creating a conflict with his legal racing schedule. This time, both titles were decided on Alabama tracks. Wright finished 11 minutes and 18 seconds ahead of fellow junior athlete Jacob Hamblin, earning 1:32 in the swim, 4:36 on the bike, and 4:32 in the run.
“XTERRA offers really great racing, really professional racing,” he says. “Bringing the National Cross Country Championships to XTERRA was a really good move. Defending the title was different. There was definitely some pressure.”
But the pressure is where he thrives: “I’m very used – at least in legal races – to being the hunter and trying to catch people, because there are a lot of fast people in those races. Hunting is definitely different.”
BIKE GEAR SETUP SECRETS: TECHNICAL MODIFICATIONS FOR XTERRA RACING
The time spent preparing for a group race has also left him away from his mountain bike. Returning to his Santa Cruz Blur
“This is my baby,” he says of his bike. “I’ll be honest, in college there was a lot of road and TT to prepare for collegiate races, and I got back on my mountain bike and felt weird for the first couple of miles. But once I got into it, getting down the slopes, and having fun, I got used to it again.”
Equipment options for off-road racing are part of what Wright now has to read about every time he returns to XTERRA. Surface and weather determine tires, pressure, tread and suspension. Conditions also change what he can carry and where he can put it on the bike.
“When I choose to set up my bike for the different XTERRA variants, the most important thing is the tires. Depending on the dry or wet conditions, I think about pressure, different tire types and different tread patterns. I’ll worry a little bit about the shocks as well, whether I want them a little firmer or a little more flexible depending on the terrain.
“The other big thing is nutrition, whether I want it in bottles or whether I stick chews on the top tube. If it’s raining, obviously you can’t really stick things on the top tube because it will wash off. Those are the three big things for me right now.”
Switching from road preparation and time trial back to mountain bike changes his position atop the bike and the way his body has to work throughout the course.
“The biggest adjustment from the project legal road triathlon to the
“Everything else is fine. The handlebars are a little wider, but that actually helps in the woods turning and stuff. Actually, the biggest thing is that seat position.”
Training Focus: Prioritize run and bike volume while maintaining a champion swim base
The swimming background that first brought Wright close to burnout became the part of the triathlon that needed the least rebuilding. With this base still available to him, he can direct more training towards running and cycling while maintaining the discipline he first introduced to competitive sports.
“Running is still something I’m working on, but the maintenance is definitely a lot easier than building,” he says. “I have this swimming base. I’ve swum a lot of yards for a lot of years, and I’ve gotten really fast. My form is very hardworking, and I try not to stray from that.” “Even though I’m covering less yards now, I’m maintaining some high power there, and that’s the maintenance part.”
As the swimming volume decreases, and by alternating between the bike and running volume, Wright says he can put more effort into the running and bike while still swimming.
Oak Mountain had two championship titles next to Wright’s name, but the next part of his year was already waiting: his sister’s graduation, remaining legal qualifications for juniors, nationals, Wingate, and the possibility of training in Utah through USA Triathlon. The mountain bike, road bike and TT bike are all part of the same season now, just as XTERRA, USAT and collegiate racing all occupy a place where his career could go.
His triple-cross is in the works, and at the age of nineteen, he discovers where all three paths can take him.
