Matt Hauser won in Hamburg, one of his three World Triathlon Championship Series wins in 2026. (Getty Images: picture alliance/Philipp Szyza)
Australia's world champion triathlete Matt Hauser says it feels 'quite surreal' to be the best triathlete in the world.
Hauser says he has been honing his craft with an eye to win an elusive men's Olympic medal for Australia in LA.
Hauser is set to compete in the World Triathlon Championship Series in Weihai, China on August 29.
Matt Hauser has delivered Australia back to the top of world triathlon.
His sensational victory on home soil at Wollongong ended a 15-year title drought for Australia.
But he knows that the race that matters is not for another two years, when he takes to the start line in Los Angeles at the 2028 Olympic Games.
Heading into the next leg of the World Triathlon Championship Series in Weihai on August 29, Hauser sits in third place in the standings.
Only Brazil's Miguel Hidalgo and Portugal's Vasco Vilaça are ahead of him, having completed four races to the Australian's three.
But Hauser has won each of those three events, recording race victories in Yokohama, Hamburg and London.
Matt Hauser (left) ran clear of Brazil's world championship series leader Miguel Hidalgo in Yokohama. (Getty Images: Nobuo Yano)
His current success makes him the number one target for the entire field, something that still takes some getting used to.
"It's a bit of a pinch me moment, honestly," Hauser told ABC Sport at the AusTriathlon Performance Hub at Miami on Queensland's Gold Coast.
"It just feels quite surreal to now be at the top of my game and I keep kind of pinching myself, knowing that this won't last forever, so I really need to take a step back and realise that I'm one of the best, if not the best in the world at the moment in my sport, and I need to try and capitalise on that and make sure the opportunities that I have I made the most of."
Hauser's climb to the top of the world is far from an overnight success story though — the ascendancy to the summit in sport's as gruelling as triathlon are rarely straightforward.
