The 21-year-old from Eastbourne has had a disrupted season after suffering a stress fracture early in the year, meaning this will mark just her third race.
But having finished fifth at Mallory Park after only been back running for two weeks, she is hoping to build on that display as Bala hosts the Grand Final for the first time on 7 September – an event which will be live streamed for the first time since 2014.
“This would be my first championships. I had to miss the qualifier last year because it was just too much travel with school.
“I’m excited this year, and hopefully I’m able to earn the spot on the team and see what I can do in Australia. But I’ve definitely got a hard race ahead of me.”
Securing that qualification would provide welcome celebration in a season full of challenges.
Cook, who attends Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, was unable to train as she let her stress fracture heal.
And despite a strong result, her return to racing provided challenges of its own.
“I’d only been back running about two weeks, and back swimming and biking three or four after having three months off,” Cook explained.
“I was pretty nervous going into it. I hadn’t raced since Abu Dhabi, and racing against Olivia Mathias and all those girls like, it was quite intimidating.
“But when I stood in the start line the next day, I was just really excited again, and I was really happy with where I was.
“The goal was to just see where I was at, and get back in racing. I had a lot of fun. It was nice racing those girls.”
The Super Series is an integral part of the British Triathlon performance pathway, with many athletes, including Olympians Alex Yee and Kate Waugh, making their competitive debut in the Series.
It pits high-performing athletes from across the country against each other in highly competitive races at locations around the UK.
And for Cook, it offers a unique opportunity to experiment in a fresh racing environment.
“[I like] the ability to try new things,” she said.
“At a World Cup, that’s not really the time and place that I want to be trying things because that, for me at the moment, is the highest level.”
But at Gala the focus will be firmly on securing qualification for the Under-23 World Championships, with Cook keen to take the lessons from a strong performance at Mallory Park as she looks to build back stronger than ever.
“The biggest thing since coming back from injury is just trusting my body again,” she said.
“Training has been going well. Mentally, it’s just believing in myself and believing in what I’ve been doing in training and putting it out there in the day.
“If you get in your head that’s probably the biggest thing that will affect me on Sunday. I just need to do what I’ve been doing, go through my processes, knock out a good swim and put the race together how I’ve been training for it.”
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