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Lisa Tertsch: Background, career highlights, quotes

A strong runner, Harvard educated, and Paris bound… let's meet the supremely talented German triathlete, Lisa Tertsch

A highly promising junior, not even a three-year absence from the sport has damaged the hard-running German’s steady climb through the elite rankings. Here’s everything you need to know about the Harvard-educated Lisa Tertsch…

Who is Lisa Tertsch?

“You always have to look where you’re at and not compare yourself to other people so much,” says Lisa Tertsch. “I’ve tried to go my own way and see what’s right for me.”

Certainly, the German’s assent through triathlon’s upper echelons has been a little unusual. Hers is not the path most travelled. After something of a stellar career in the junior ranks (national champion, European champs silver), Lisa prioritised her studies, heading to Harvard for a degree in economics.

Triathlon didn’t get a look-in for three years, but her running shoes still saw plenty of action as she represented the university as a distance track runner, winning plenty of medals in the process.

On her return to the multisport ranks after graduation, Lisa quickly found her winning ways, both as an U23 and an elite.

Her medal haul in major championships has been impressive, including podium spots at U23 level at both European and world champs, but arguably her finest elite performance to date was the surprise WTCS bronze she took in Hamburg in the summer of 2022.

Ranked fifth in the world at the start of 2024 – based more on her European Cup and World Cup pedigree rather than her still-lightweight WTCS palmares – Lisa still has plenty of time to truly make her mark, but her running ability should see more podium appearances in 2024. Maybe even in Paris, for which she’s already qualified.

How old is Lisa Tertsch?

Lisa Tertsch was born on 1 December 1998, making her 25 years of age.

Lisa Tertsch’s career highlights

L-R: Germany's Lisa Tertsch, Elena Burkard and Eva Dieterich pose after competing in the 2023 European Cross Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium.
L-R: Germany’s Lisa Tertsch, Elena Burkard and Eva Dieterich pose after competing in the 2023 European Cross Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium. (Credit: Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty Images)

March 2015: Perfect in Portugal

A year before she heads to the States to study at Harvard, Lisa stands atop a podium for the first time, having smashed the rest of the field on the run at a junior European Cup race in Quarteira in Portugal. She repeats the trick in the same competition that September in the picture-postcard Slovenian town of Bled.

May 2016: European championship silver

Lisa enjoys further success in Portugal when she takes silver at the junior world champs in Lisbon. However, she more than meets her match on the run when the older Cassandre Beaugrand overtakes her to take the win.

Lisa had already tasted golden success that season, having taken the European junior duathlon title on home soil in Kalkar the previous month.

July 2016: Junior national champion

Lisa takes her first national title in Nürnberg, comfortably holding off the challenge of her contemporary, Lena Meissner.

September 2016: The world champs podium beckons

Lisa Tertsch celebrates taking silver at the 2016 World Junior Triathlon Champs in Cozumel, Mexico
Lisa Tertsch celebrates taking silver at the 2016 World Junior Triathlon Champs in Cozumel, Mexico. (Credit: Delly Carr/ITU Media)

At the junior world champs on the Mexican island of Cozumel, Lisa puts in a terrific performance to take silver behind the USA’s Taylor Knibb. It’s her first notable success beyond the European circuit.

June 2019: Maiden elite victory

Lisa Tertsch wins the 2019 Antwerp ITU Triathlon World Cup
Lisa Tertsch wins the 2019 Antwerp ITU Triathlon World Cup. (Credit: Petko Beier/ITU Media)

After three years away from the sport at Harvard, when economics textbooks took precedence, Lisa makes a majestic return to triathlon with victory in a European Cup sprint race in Dnipro in Ukraine.

A fortnight later, she breaks the tape at a World Cup event in Antwerp, before a third quick success, this time back in the European Cup in the Dutch town of Holten. Quite a month.

August 2019: Another world champs medal

Lisa Tertsch, far left, runs alongside GB's Kate Waugh at the 2019 World U23 Champs, in Lausanne
Lisa Tertsch, far left, runs alongside GB’s Kate Waugh at the 2019 World U23 Champs, in Lausanne. (Credit: Wagner Araujo/ITU Media)

Lisa’s excellent form continues in Lausanne where, although still only 20, she takes bronze at the U23 world champs, in the process posting the fastest run split by far.

September 2019: Champion of Europe

Lisa follows up that bronze in Lausanne with a gold-medal-winning performance in Valencia to become the U23 European champion. The German U23 mixed relay squad, of which Lisa is an integral part, take silver the following day.

June 2021: Another national title

After a COVID-affected season that yielded just a brace of European Cup podiums, Lisa returns to winning ways when she leads home the field at the German sprint championship, taking top spot by just a single second from Nina Eim.

The same month, there are further medals at the U23 European sprint championships in Kitzbühel: bronze in the women’s race and silver in the mixed relay.

March 2022: Double European Triathlon Cup podium finishes

Lisa puts in medal-winning performances in successive European Triathlon Cup races. In Liévin in northern France, it’s silver as she loses out to compatriot Nina Eim, and it’s bronze in Quarteira.

July 2022: A shock WTCS podium appearance

L-R: Beth Potter (silver), Flora Duffy (gold) and Lisa Tertsch (bronze) celebrate on the podium of the 2022 World Triathlon Hamburg, Germany
L-R: Beth Potter (silver), Flora Duffy (gold) and Lisa Tertsch (bronze) celebrate on the podium of the 2022 World Triathlon Hamburg, Germany. (Credit: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images for Ironman)

Home turf clearly makes a difference as Lisa delivers a significant message to the WTCS ranks, taking bronze in Hamburg behind seasoned campaigners Flora Duffy and Beth Potter. Not only is it the German’s first WTCS podium, it’s her first top-10 finish in the series.

September 2022: A golden return to Spain

Valencia was the crucible for Lisa’s U23 European champs coronation three years earlier and it’s a happy return visit as she takes victory in a World Triathlon Cup race in the Spanish city, just about holding off the attentions of Mexico’s Anahi Alvarez Corral.

A European Triathlon Cup triumph comes the following month in the Turkish resort of Alanya.

March 2023: Top 10 in Abu Dhabi

Lisa kicks off the new season with her second WTCS top-10 finish, this time in Abu Dhabi. She improves on this two months later with eighth in Cagliari.

June 2023: A European silver

On the streets of Madrid, Lisa is uncustomarily outpaced on the run at the European championships and has to settle for second best behind Luxembourg’s Jeanne Lehair.

July 2023: Mixed relay gold in Paris

L-R: German athletes Laura Lindemann, Tim Hellwig, Lisa Tertsch and Jonas Schomburg celebrate after winning the mixed relay at the 2023 Paris Olympic Games Test Event
L-R: German athletes Laura Lindemann, Tim Hellwig, Lisa Tertsch and Jonas Schomburg celebrate after winning the mixed relay at the 2023 Paris Olympic Games Test Event. (Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images)

Lisa makes up one quarter of the victorious German quartet at the Paris Mixed Relay Test Event.

October 2023: Moroccan marvel

The run proves decisive for Lisa in the World Triathlon Cup in Tangier as she creates a comfortable gap between herself and the rest of the field to end the season with a handsome victory.

March 2024: Gets off to a golden start

In her first race of the season, Tertsch heads to Portugal for the Quarteira Europe Triathlon Cup and takes a 5sec victory over Cassandre Beaugrand in second and Georgia Taylor-Brown in third.

May 2024: Best WTCS result to date

Takes silver in Cagliari, but what’s more it’s a silver between the sport’s two biggest stars and rivals – Beaugrand in first and Beth Potter in third.

July 2024: Repeats in Hamburg

Another silver follows at the final race before the Olympics, and again splits Beaugrand in first and Potter in third.

A day later she’s part of the mixed relay team that successfully defends its world title.

Lisa Tertsch in quotes

Lisa Tertsch competing at the 2022 European Triathlon Championships in Munich, Germany
Lisa Tertsch competing at the 2022 European Triathlon Championships in Munich, Germany. (Credit: Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

On winning a World Cup race in Antwerp in 2019 after three years away from the sport: “I’ve been focusing on the running in recent year, but now that I’m also good enough to be in the first bike group, it makes it possible to put in that kind of performance. I did not expect this. It’s my third triathlon back and I wasn’t sure how it would play out.”

On her maiden appearance on a WTCS podium, in Hamburg in 2022: “This time, all the puzzle pieces came together and I could show what I am capable of. And thank you, the crowds. The atmosphere was amazing out there.”

On lining up next to her triathlon heroes: “You can get nervous if you get star-struck. ‘Oh my God, there’s an Olympic champion running next to me. I can’t do this.’ So I always try to tone it down. ‘We’re all just people…’”

What’s next for Lisa Tertsch?

There’ll be plenty of eyes on Lisa at the Olympic start line this summer, especially as she’s already become acquainted with the course with an individual ninth place at the test event last year.

But the German’s season won’t completely be defined by that one day in July. A win in the WTCS series must also be a huge priority for Lisa in 2024 after taking a spectacular silver in both Cagliari and Hamburg.

Top image credit: Chuso Dyanez/World Triathlon

Profile image of Nige Tassell Nige Tassell Freelance sportswriter

About

Nige has written about a variety of sports for numerous titles, among them The Guardian, GQ, Esquire, the Sunday Times, Rouleur, ProCycling, FourFourTwo, the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, The Blizzard and When Saturday Comes. He is also a prolific author whose books include Three Weeks, Eight Seconds: Greg LeMond, Laurent Fignon and the Epic Tour de France of 1989, and The Bottom Corner: Hope, Glory and Non-League Football. His latest book – The Hard Yards: A Season in the Championship, Football’s Toughest League – was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster.