Triathlon New Zealand have outlined why Ryan Sissons missed out on the mixed-team relay world championships in Hamburg

Sissons was the only member of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games bronze medal winning team left out, with Sam Ward selected instead to compete alongside Tayler Reid, Andrea Hewitt and Nicole van Der Kaay.

Triathlon NZ's high performance director Mark Elliott says with Sam Ward and Tayler Reid racing and training extremely well the selectors went through a strong process so they could select a team early for this world champs.

The statement adds that with Sissons one of the five strong members in the MTR squad, they are certainly going to have lots of pressure for two spots in each race going forward.

The relay is tonight.