USA TRI Elite Paratriathlete McClain Hermes Finds Her Stride Following First Para Series Win

USA TRI elite paratriathlete McClain Hermes is riding high with newfound confidence, a month removed from the biggest win of her paratriathlon career. 

She's running faster than she ever has in her life. 

She's going harder in the pool. 

She's more aggressive on the bike. 

Clicking on all cylinders across swimming, biking, and running, the 25-year-old Hermes has ascended to a new level of fitness and confidence two years ahead of the LA 2028 Paralympic Games. 

“I’m definitely more confident now,” said Hermes, a USA TRI Development Team athlete based at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "Andy (Potts, her coach) is really big on having self-confidence. Any time I start to doubt myself or my training, he reminds me how hard I’ve worked.”

That confidence has a clear origin point: spring 2026, with back-to-back wins at World Triathlon races in Uzbekistan and Japan. Just two weeks after her win at the World Triathlon Para Cup Samarkand, her big breakthrough came at the World Triathlon Para Series Yokohama where she scored her first Para Series win — the highest level of paratriathlon racing. 

Racing alongside guide Kirsten Sass — her first guide, and the woman she calls her mentor — Hermes won the women’s PTVI race with a time of 1 hour, 3 minutes, 56 seconds, a result two years in the making.

The pair had trained together for two years in pursuit of Paris 2024 before falling short of qualification. In Yokohama, in their first race together in roughly 18 months, everything clicked.

“To win Yokohama with Kirsten felt so fulfilling and rewarding,” Hermes said. “We trained together for two years and ended up not qualifying for Paris, so we had to focus on getting stronger." 

The race wasn’t originally on Hermes’ schedule. However, once she committed, the partnership resumed where it had left off. Hermes had a strong swim — even with jellyfish in the harbor — and she and Sass attacked a technical bike course that had given them trouble in past years. The last time Hermes raced Yokohama, the course was wet. This year it was dry, and the pair carried speed through every corner.

“The bike was so fun,” Hermes said. “It had a lot of turns and technical pieces. We work so well together on the tandem — we’ve trained hours and hours together.”

By the time they hit the run, Hermes knew she had the lead. She held it through every mile, and, with the race essentially won, she allowed herself a moment in the rose garden along the course.

“The rose garden is beautiful,” she said. “I could smell the roses while I was running through.”

She crossed the blue carpet about 3 minutes ahead of the field. For a two-time Paralympic swimmer turned paratriathlete, the win marked a meaningful shift and confirmed her win at Samarkand was no fluke. 

The training as a professional paratriathlete is grueling. Hermes, originally from Dacula, Georgia, trains full-time, works part-time, and takes classes part-time, all under the guidance of Coach Andy Potts, who leads the USA TRI Development Team program, which is based at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Andy is such a great coach, and we work well together,” she said of her coach, who competed at the 2004 Olympic Games and won the 2007 IRONMAN 70.3 world championship. "He cares about me as a person first. Every morning, he walks into the pool and asks me how I am doing and what is going on in my life. That connection is really important — trusting each other and working hard to reach the goal.”

That trust matters more than splits, she said. 

“I’ve been, quote-unquote, a professional most of my life. I’ve lived in this elite atmosphere for so long, and that comes with a lot of self-doubt — ‘What am I doing with my life?’" said Hermes, who competed in para swimming as a teenager at the Rio 2026 and Tokyo 2020 Paralympics. "Being a professional athlete, I've learned there’s no such thing as a perfect practice. There are always ways to improve. You have to have hard days to be able to have good days.”

Hermes has learned how to stack hard days of training, leading to significant improvement in her run fitness and bike power. Important with LA28 only two years away. 

"The opportunity to compete at a home Paralympics is definitely motivating," Hermes said, who will race with several guides throughout the summer competition. 

With Sass returning to her own racing and training schedule, Hermes will rotate through a small group of trusted guides moving forward, including Jenna Haufler and Julia Day. 

“Guiding is so demanding,” Hermes said. “You have to train on your own, and all of these girls race on their own as well. Racing with me is a lot, so it’s nice to have a rotation of people.”

Up next: the World Triathlon Para Series Montreal on June 27, followed by the Americas Paratriathlon Championships Antofagasta in Chile on July 5, the USA Paratriathlon National Championships Aug. 9 in Milwaukee, and the 2026 World Triathlon Para Championships Pontevedra in September. 

For now, Hermes is racing with a quiet confidence, the kind that comes from knowing what she’s capable of, and from a guide who taught her the sport, and a coach who reminds her how hard she’s worked.