Opt outs are:

Women: Holly Lawrence, Paula Findlay, Daniela Ryf, Skye Moench, Tamara Jewett, Emma Pallant Browne, Kat Matthews, Anne Haug, Laura Phillip, Taylor Knibb, Flora Duffy and Taylor Spivey.

Men: Mathis Margirier, Marten Van Riel and Rico Bogen.

Thanks for posting. So far it looks like the men have suscribed to the "season long narrative" idea, unlike the women.

Unless I'm reading it wrong and it has to do with Kona being "more of a world champs" than Nice and the guys wanting to accumulate T100 races earlier in the season to be able to alter their prep with their minds set on 140.6 Hawaii later on.


According to Pat Lemieux, if you are a contracted athlete who regularly opts out of races after DNFing, you're reducing your chances to get another contract next year. May not apply to people who genuinely got injured or ambulanced out of the venue like Matthews and Pallant.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Thanks for posting and well... Men list looks super exciting, but women list looks still exciting (Sodaro vs Gentle vs Charles-Barkley, plus others).

Singapore got bad reputation from the last year's sickness (whether it was covid in hotel, food or water, it doesn't matter that much now). It's also pretty far away for everybody, with the most convenient being for Gentle, Watkinson, Sodaro (quite established in Oceania) and Simmonds (she used to race in SE Asia quite a lot).

Great to see Max Neumann back, also happy to see Mika Nootd with the wild card.

What's wrong with the girls? More opt-outs than starters. Field gets weaker and weaker... If they already start missing races when the calendar is not super busy and they're not injured, it will be difficult to meet the 6 races. There will be many who don't fulfill the contract for sure.

yeah, it's strange - you're really putting yourself in a difficult position for later in the year.

on the other hand, singapore is a LOOONG travel for european and north american athletes, and - like florida - it will be really hot and humid for early season.

i think this is one of the big limits on the 'season long narrative' that they want to build. F1 drivers and ATP tennis players travel the world, but they fly first class with a team of physios, and sleep in 5-start hotels and so on. triathletes are grinding it out in economy and building their own bikes in their hotel rooms, putting a huge pounding on their bodies and then doing it again a few weeks later.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

PTO gives you the option to skip races to focus on others. Playing the long game to better prepare and bet that LCB and Indie Lee will be burned out and injured by the end is a reasonable bet.

At a minimum, simply taking the time to build into fitness for the season is reasonable.

LCB gambles on peak fitness season longevity. Anne Haug gambles her last races will be strong when the early season racers are weak.

Which is a better bet?

but don't you HAVE to do 6 races unless you're at the olympics? with 2 races down already, anyone who skips the first 2 is cutting off their other options.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Anne Haug and Laura Philips will have to do Ibiza after Nice. Very doable but none of them will have the legs do excel. Does indicate how much importance both place on the series overall

The PTO sorta hedged their play very well. They didn't make it "exclusivity" (so they can get credit for caring about all of pro triathlon) but for all intent purposes they have made it very hard to race a full T100 schedule + other A events. If this series can somehow stay long term (very much in question) you are certainly going to see an specificity of athletes racing this specific distance (again it still has to stick long term, and that obviously is very much in question). There was obviously going to be races skipped due to racing all over the world, and you have athletes primarily either Euro or US based. But the worst thing you can do is go to an T100 race and get injured/crashed out/DNF because you then have to go to another race to get a score on the ledger.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The season will be incredibly long from T100 Miami to the final in Oman.
The 70.3 Worlds won't see lot of the "stars" this year, I believe.

It's only natural that athletes focus on a solid build-up in the early months of the season an traveling to Asia (+racing) costs at least 2 weeks of good training during an important period.
Miami is/was a terribly boring course and Singapore has a strong reputation dept from last year.

The females leaning more towards long distance like Haug and Philipp will have a clear focus on Nice. London, Ibiza are relatively easy to reach from Europe.

Wait what? Oman for the grand Final? - when did that get announced

Last few women's races are going to have to be loaded by default. Just happy to see these lists being published well ahead of time. Now they can do their best to promote the race

Epb and matthews are out for good reasons.

But field still super stacked!
Lcb
Sodaro
India lee

Mathews had no plans to race Singapore anyway just like ryf so they can get their nice slots. Will be interesting to see if mathews can bounce back fast enough to race a stacked field in Texas.

Epb may have re think hot races the rest of her career. The more you get a heat related injury the quicker it can happen again.

Hope Matthews can clinched her Nice spot in Texas otherwise she has to do another IM which will make it even tougher for her to complete 6 T10 races although I believe she has another one planned for the summer as she is also “all in” for the Ironman series I believe

Off topic for Singapore (this thread), but she shared her programme (in late Feb) as T100 Miami and then Texas (as the first of the IM Series) and to IMWCQ (6xWPRO slots). That gave/gives her a full 7 weeks between: entirely doable, tho' injury means (assumes successful rehab) far less quality training in that 'block'.
A finish at IM Texas will surely be top 6 - am crossing fingers for her to treat/rehab her calf tear effectively. Then is San Francisco; six weeks after Texas. Not clear which summer IM she will do (it was 'tbc' on insta): options are Hamburg (but miss SF T100), Vitoria-Gastiez or IMLP (can't see her going to Cairns).
Or maybe can that full and do a half instead (eg Les Sables) and accept a 2500 point handicap (which is 'only' 41 minutes worth) but a 70.3 will be a darn sight easier on body and to recover from, in good time for T100 London and then an 8 weeks run in to Nice (with Tallinn as a sharpener).

Matthews doesn’t need to complete six races as only four races count for scoring… I’m sure that Miami counts as one of the required six races/appearances… likewise for EPB…

I would assume anyone who starts the race but doesn’t finish still gets credit for the race, paid for the appearance but no points for the dnf in the series.

Yes: for the contracted athletes they are required to 'race' 5 regulars (3 for Olympians) plus the GF (and yes, starting meets their contractual obligation). As you say only 3 regular scores will count towards the T100 ranking, which will, with a GF score, determine series prize winnings.
But also keep in mind that an athlete's 3 best T100 scores will likely determine their end 2024 PTO ranking (some might count IMWC (Diamond tier) if they're top 5 but the SOF there will be lower than any T100 race).
PTO Ranking will thus be important for the athletes outside the T100 top 10 and it will AQ them for a contract in 2025.

I think the 1 obstacle that is added. If you say Singapore is a bad travel location. What alternative do you have? You’re forced to travel to US 1-2 times if you skipped Miami + Singapore and just wait til later in the year.

And then the final 2 months is 4 races (3 which will require 1 full day of travel requirements for most athletes) in a 60 day period, in a time of year when you are priming for A performances.

So if you have skipped early season races because you aren’t ready or your DNF/ DNS last min you pretty much are going to suddenly get caught up in a very complicated very busy last few months to gain scores to do this again in ‘25.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

The fact that they didn't pony up the money for Knibb to fly first class last minute to Miami and used an excuse that they didn't want to set a precedent (of supporting their number 1 ranked athlete who has Olympic commitments that got canceled? -- how often does that happen?) suggests to me a serious tightening of the purse strings. So I hope there is even a PTO worth considering next year. -- source for this the triathlon hour podcast.

So either someone dropped the ball there, or they were already overbudget and someone calling the financial shots isn't happy with them. If that's not the case, it seems like a big missed opportunity over small concerns about "who pays" when there's a huge breaking story you can suddenly factor into the race.

Point being, I wonder how much these athletes are really factoring in "next year" or just getting the money that's promised to them this year because they see the writing on the wall.

Knibb was on the record as saying she wanted to go to Miami after AD got cancelled or are you talking conjecture? PTO knew it was going to basically get no Paris bound athletes early season. Knibb likely has zero thought about T100 and she certainly isn't going to travel completely around the world in 1 week just to race an event (that she's not trained for). Knibb is far too smart of an athlete to just throw in a half assed attempt. She's an quiet assassin with everything she does in her life. See how they were adding longer TT bike rides in the early season of her training (on the down low) before even the idea was avaliable after AQ'ing the test event. So to think she was going to want to do that, that was not going to happen; even with a private jet travel.

1/2 the women are only taking the money this year because of IMWC being in Nice.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Apparently Knibb called Pat L as soon as Abu Dhabi was cancelled to inquire about getting back to Miami to race. Pat went through the proper channels to request a lay flat seat to fly Knibb to Miami and eventually heard back that it was a no go. I don't think this suggests a tightening of the purse strings. I can totally understand them not wanting to have to deal with LCB or Magnus or Kristian or Hayden/Alex or any other athlete requesting business class tickets once they heard Knibb was given one. Seems rather sensible to me.

Interesting, fair point Lurker (although I don't think that is necessarily a sign of tightening wallet or not, I think at some point you either are in or out for a race, and you can't get too many last second advantages; as Lagoon said, I don't think this was a big deal against PTO that they said no). I had only heard on the socials that a few of the boys wanted to "let's go race Miami" after AD cancelled. The timeline for the event still left seemingly things to be moved around especially for a location that is screwed if it rains; but that's an whole other point.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I’ve heard this rumor. Do you have a precise source you can point to, because I’m with Brooks that it does sound like a load of horseshit?

If nothing else, because the start list goes through World Triathlon and earlier USAT; and these organizations - even if they decided to violate their own rules - couldn’t fart in one day, let alone shuffle a heap of paperwork?

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

This is Comment of the Month.

And yeah, the start list needing to go through various GBs (of which the PTO is essentially a pseudo-one at this point) makes this way, way more complicated.

On the money front -- not sure if anybody has posted this, but there are reputable reports of the PTO putting together another funding round. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/...-tour-160000574.html

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Talbot told the story on Jack Kelly's podcast. He was in touch with Taylor.

Interesting there were other guys who def wanted to go race Miami (whether in jest or not). I don't necessarily think that's something we should really shit on PTO that they didn't want to get ahletes to travel half way across the world at basically the last min. I'd put that way down on the list of things that concern me about PTO's future. The number of athletes in each race and the race distance are the biggest concerns I have for the future of T100. (I'd have 30 athletes and race closer to an T70 distance; cut off 20-30 mins off the bike. If the goal is commercial viable product. I'd also cut it down to 6 races which I think would allow more athletes to potentially race full series and not skip events.

You can’t really play up a season long narrative when you allow athletes to skip what 40-50% of the events. The whole point of a narrative is to build rivals and such. If only 1/3rd of your roster is racing a full race schedule you will likely miss out on the head to head racing element.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I agree it would have been a cool story but I can’t see the pto going for a last minute add like that. They want to hype these races up to get viewers and people at the races. A last second add even of Taylor’s caliber likely doesn’t sway the needle much for the well over $10,000 dollars it would have cost them to fly her. They hyped up the kb move weeks before the race in Singapore because it was planned. They used it as marketing. This they wouldn’t have been able to use as much to their advantage.

If the story is true it would have been interesting to understand the math. I guess Taylor didn't feel she could influence the race to a point where she could cover the $10k with $x race payout and $y improved ranking at the end of year. If she couldn't impact the race, why do it ? Why should PTO do it ?

I’m now curious the time zone math. Did I hear somewhere I think PTN say the men (blu) would have had shown up 2 hours before the race. So roughly 6 hours for Knibb.

I think that’s one of those stores that it sounds great to hypothetical but in reality would be sorta eeek in reality. It’s sorta the opposite of caring about well being of athletes.

Great idea for the first few mins after AD was cancelled (and a lot of people pissed off) but a “wait a min let’s think this through” in reality.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Going from memory, on the podcast Talbot said Knibb allegedly had a flight lined up to land at 11am race morning. The women started at 4:50pm.

My list of possibilities for rejecting her offer is:
1. Tight purse strings with top down pressure to stay on budget.
2. Lack of vision of leadership, maybe partially influenced by a bit of structural ethnocentrism from the Brits about a last minute American coming in lay waste to the field.
2A. Subset of lack of vision, but being so overwhelmed with race day logistics, not wanting to complicate things further. Ultimately lack of vision is still the issue here, as it suggests not wanting to complicate things is more important than a last minute calvary charge story.

Regarding inability to execute on the last minute development, PTO can easily put up a graphic announcing that Knibb is back and hammer that in social media and their live broadcasts. It's not like they need a week long campaign. In the overall scheme of costs of the event, it's relatively minor. If you are already overbudget and have upset management? Then maybe not.

Regarding this new round of funding linked earlier in the thread (seeking $40million), I get the feeling that we are looking at the play right here. Put money in. Get the talent. Get everyone talking about how everyone is putting money in. Get more money while everyone talks about how much money is put in. Get the people who have already put in money, put more money in via sunk cost fallacy. Use that sunk cost fallacy to get other unwitting investors to put more money in because of the current investors and other new ones keep putting money in, there must be something here, so others put money in too.... AND REPEAT.

So in all of this talk of the PTO books, it would be interesting to see who exactly is getting paid. Who gets a % of the funding rounds and what does their ownership look like, etc. etc. I used to think the ultimate goal was to supplant Ironman or create the investment potential to buy it out. Maybe that's still the case*, but it's interesting if the real goal was just to take piece of the action of everyone jumping on to this idea. If they strike gold (unlikely), great. If not, there will at least be some people who made money here.

* And if the goal is to buy Ironman, Ironman owners wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that if the price was right as long as PTO hasn't reduced the value of Ironman through being a viable competitor. Which is at least one reason why Ironman's Pro Tour makes a lot of sense -- it's a lower cost to administer alternative to the PTO that has the same (or greater) marketing value than the T100.

One contributor to so many opting out of this race was that last year a heap of athletes got very sick after Singapore... which messed their race schedules up. Just a theory, could be wrong.

Can I just counter that I think it's a bad idea to have an athlete be forced to fly half way around the world and then show up and perform on a world class stage like this in a what 6 hour time frame to "be ready". I'd have never thought in a million years anyone would take this "trip" serious, other than "we'll we can ask" of course it's a no-go. And I hope that we aren't going to then bust their chops when Knibb DNF'd and we shit on PTO for "not caring about the athletes". So I cant get on the shit on PTO for *that* decision with Knibb train. I think there are some other better options, but not that one. That seems to be a reach.

Like it was never going to happen. It would have been stupid to happen, full stop with that tight of a timeline.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Well you also basically said Kona was stupid for her if I recall. Based on her training. She disagreed. And I agree with her. That was smart then, and this was smart now.

But Knibb was ready. And reached out (Allegedly). There's no reason why she couldn't have flown in to make it happen. Sleep on an airplane in an apartment room of a first class seat and go race. It's not a whole lot different than a recovery day if she has everything lined up for her when she arrives.

She appears to be a fierce competitor and recognizes that in long course she's really more in control of her success. The latest WTCS fiasco just illustrates that athletes who put their eggs in that basket are really rolling the dice. We can easily (tragically) imagine all these athletes who have put their lives and careers on the Olympics only to see a bureaucratic French entity cancel the swim and change the race come time for the Olympics.

It's not foolish to take your own fate into your hands when the opportunity presents itself.

My personal take on it is Knibb should have simply told the PTO she's buying her ticket, and would like them to pay for it IF she doesn't take top 3. Of course, maybe she did just that. But in any case, she literally got on a plane and flew home. And then likely went and trained the next day. So... why not race instead for fortune and glory?

A last minute add was probably half jest, how can they add someone at the last minute if they had already filled their field by then. They state 20 (I am with you, needs be 30) if she was to be 21 then nope can't be done, no matter who she is.
Also for all those saying Singapore is a long way to travel, think of the Oceania athletes who have to travel to USA or Europe for all the other races, and still have a minimum of around 8 hours to fly to get to Singapore if they are from one of the cities that close. It's actually only 4hrs flying longer from London than from Sydney.

Why not tell the PTO that she's on a flight and will be there by race time, and pay for it herself? Why ask PTO to fund the bill if it's about taking advantage of the opportunity. Just do it yourself, if that's the case. By asking them to foot the bill, you then sorta put the onus on them. Again, would you have shitted on the PTO if she DNF'd because of all that transpired the past 24 hours?


I just am not with you that because the PTO said no, they are the idiots in this case. But cool to disagree. I thought it was sorta all done in jist, not really taken seriously that it would really be achievable by any of the WTCS athletes with the tight timeline.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I think this was also blown out of proportion and used by a bunch of athletes for poor performances when they tried to go to 70.3 worlds. Imogen was already sick when she showed up and so was Sam laidlow. Sam didn’t do the swim the day before in the lake because he wasn’t sure he was going to race. That was the first swim in the lake possible. He then went out partying the night after his race so I’m not sure how sick he really was.

I'm a bit curious as to all this last second maybe race across the world stuff. Where were they going to get a bike for the race? I think the plane flight would be the easy thing to organize, but where are they going to get a sponsor bike at the last second that fits them? Small detail that I think many have left out of the discussion...

She was probably going to just take her road bike like she did many times in her early 70.3 days (though she rode w clip ons then). The new cockpit these days on road bike likely don’t allow for any type of clip ons if she’s using some type of flattish handlebar setup. It certainly would have been easier to just race the road bike than try and ship her tri bike in etc…again the timeline was way too tight. I didn’t think it was really a serious attempt. I assumed it was going to easily be turned down, nor did I think that was going to cause pto to catch flack for saying no.

They give any athlete a chance to race. When they priotize another race, you can’t turn exprext pto to drop everything to make it happen, when they’ve then gone through the start list procedures. At any point Knibb could have raced Miami, she chose not too. Cool everyone moved on, end of discussion.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Sam Long rolled up last minute for Milwaukee. There's been other races he had flight issue and showed up last minute. It's not all that uncommon as I'm sure you're aware for flight delays to happen and athletes do whatever they can to get there just in time. Taylor was exploring the possibility of showing up after a good nights sleep in a flying hotel room. Which she had to do anyway (in coach?) to get back home and then go do some light training the next day. I can see from Taylor's perspective that if she dropped 10 grand to show up and the flight gets delayed that's a big gamble on her end that is reasonable to try to get the PTO to foot the bill in advance.

If you've got the crew to handle the bike setup, etc, it seems stupid to NOT do it from her perspective. No offense if you disagree ;) I just don't see this likely injury that you do. It seems like this was far more than messing around with flights and text messages based on the conversation in the podcast that broke the story. There was some real back and forth involved at all levels from higher ups in the PTO, their pro athlete manager, Knibbs manager, Trek, etc.

Regarding getting upset if she gets injured? No way, of course not. Kat is injured already at the start of the season and we're likely to see more as the season progresses and athletes try to do it all. Athletes who commit to the T100 or IM Series and focus on one alone will be less likely to get injured. This might be a big stretch here, but I wonder if Kat would have been injured if she was only training for the T100 and not building up to bike for 5 hours and run lots of miles for Ironman as well. Of course, I don't know her training and maybe she does the same volume either way... in which case I'd suggest it would seem wise to do a little less if you're just doing T100. She got injured coming off the bike within minutes. Is it possible to assume she might have been spending too much time on the bike in training (calf tears are a common cycling injury)? This isn't blaming her or her coach, but I can see a world where less volume going into Miami would have had her more resilient.

If anything, I'm more annoyed at Ironman. I can see doing a handful of PTO races just fine. I think doing three to four Ironman's mixed in with the other 70.3 races you have to fit in is asking for trouble. Ironman should only have included two full distance scores. I think they acted in the way they did to force athletes into the corner, but it's a useless corner. We're going to see athletes get injured doing all the above. Two 70.3 races and two Iron distance races would be ideal to count to the score. If they need to race more to pad their score, that's on them.

One of the best lessons from last year was Ash Gentle going all in on PTO and doing very well. Sam Laidlow doing very little other than focus on Nice and doing very well. LCB being practically forced to do less as she recovered from multiple injuries and doing well in Kona.

Taylor Knibb had EVERY opportunity to race Miami. She chose to race AD. Cool everyone moves on. At the last min things change, she tries to race, she finds out it's not possible. Cool, I can understand why it's not possible for as many valid reasons as the reason you suggest PTO was in the wrong for not letting it happenn.

Getting her TT bike from Boulder to Miami and setup was likely as big of a hurdle as it whether PTO could fund the $10k flight...Your getting the bike at min likely 12pm noon time frame. 4-6 hours prior to the race BEST case scenario.

You can't use last year as examples as the PTO now has start list procedures that they have to sorta follow through (whether they want too or not). So you can't really use that as an example of making it work. They have more "devil in the details" that they are being held to by joining forces with WT. So they likely ran into far more red tape than even if they wanted too with houw they've setup there season this year. So again, Knibb had every chance in the world to race Miamai. SHE, not PTO, SHE chose not to race that event. At that point, everyone basically has to move on.

So I think this was far more in jist, see if we can, vs the only thing that held it up was PTO's refusal to pay $10k flight. If that's the case, Knibb is as stupid not to have just paid for it herself, if she wanted to race it so badly. And if that truly was the only thing stopping her from racing (which I don’t believe).

$10k for Knibb is nothing. She made what $200k last year if not more? If the only thing holding her back from racing was who was paying for the $10k flight…that’s as much her fault as pto.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

A couple of years ago Trek built a Madone specifically in mind as a cross for triathlon. https://www.trekbikes.com/...-disc-speed/p/28014/

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

It would be interesting to know if she uses that model (I'm looking at a pic from Paris test event and can't tell what model it is) and if she travels all the time with the spare clip on's readily available to add on, on a whim. I wouldnd't think she'd have them with her because the road setup is likely setup just for itu and now that they have banned the shorties, there wouldn't even ever be a situation where riding in aero bars would be of benefit. And using an road bike + clip ons wouldn't really help with "TT position" practice becuase the likelyhood of the angles not being the same, so road bike = road setup and TT practice on the actual TT bike.

But I would assume Trek could have gotten a set of clip ons either from a local shop or sent from their headquaters that would fit whatever bike cockpit she has (if it allows a clip on setup). It should also be noted, unless they have fit coordinates to handle road bike w/ TT cockpit setup, it's probaly a bad idea to use her ITU road bike and just slap on TT bars to get in better aero position. And she likely wouldn't have had enough time to "adjust"/ bike fit, so it would have been better to just go with a road bike if that was the only bike that she could get. I'm guessing for the most part for her, she's not using a road bike with a TT configuration ever anymore. It's either road bike = ITU work or TT bike = aero work. I would guess there's been no instances of her riding her road bike in the TT cockpit position.

In a March 7th article, she talks about she has 2 Trek bikes (assuming road + TT bike). A pic of her road bike from Paris is in there, but again I can't tell what the specific model is? I assume it's a Madone??
https://racing.trekbikes.com/...-2024-season-preview

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

To wrap up the reasons why Knibb might not pay the fee is that she has an agent that advises her to get the most out of it.

If you always say yes, because you want to do it anyway, you reduce your value. If she's not working at that level she's making a huge mistake.

I imagine every athlete who went to Miami got a decent paycheck to go. I assume the Olympians didn't. No sense in giving PTO a free one from that perspective.

There's a principled reason not to pay out of pocket from the perspective of an athlete preserving their value.

Moritz gave them a $10M grant which allowed them to do Daytona and the bonus pool. Then he funded their Series A. Then there was a Series B which he was not the "funding leader" but my presumption is that he was the second highest funder. Not sure how much was thrown into the kitty in Series A or B, but with how they burn cash they're looking at spending like 3M/year on athletes alone. Then they have like 20 employees plus dozens of contractors. That doesn't factor in Broadcast so they're burning like 20-30M/year easy. Oh and the PTO board is an executive board that takes a salary. So add like another 1.5M in burn rate. I have no idea who creates these structures, but can I get a board seat?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

If they had allowed her to race then she most definitely would have gotten her appearance fee based on her ranking like everyone else. The pto pays for lodging while at the races but not travel so she would have had to pay her way like everyone else did.

Don't see why they wouldn't give you one. Can't think of a better advocate for the Moritz event company!

No disrespect for your analysis, but a wrap up should include the fact that it was i m p o s s i b l e to add an athlete to the start list the day before the race, period. No matter how much the PTO would've wanted it. The PTO does not control the start list the way you think it does.

Also, they would not have wanted to arrange a last minute addition at a significant cost only to see the athlete travel for 20 hours with little to no sleep, get off the airplane, start, and finish last. Sam Long arrived in Milwaukee the day before the race, not several hours before, after a good night of sleep and 4-hour flight.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

But let me ask the other way do you go to work if your contract says we pay you only if you get a certain benefit for us.

Kacper Stepniak to race in T100 Singapore based on a wildcard. He finished 7th there last year.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

In her Triathlonish newsletter today Kelly O'Mara did a good write up on the financial side of this you've been hammering PTO/T100/Mortiz on for the last few years.

It’s a good write up but nothing we don’t suspect. PTO’s cash burn is high and they are definitely won’t be seeing a profit anytime soon but most tech startups tend to be forgiven for this as long as they have a growth trajectory.

The challlenge for PTO is that they ain’t a tech startup so investors might not have so much patience. My guess the next 2 and maybe 3 years will be critical for them. That big broadcasting contract must come otherwise money will dry up. Investors as she rightly put it have a 5-7 timeline and they want to exit.

In addition to Knibb choosing not to race...I think it's accepted that Dan Lorang is her coach. He doesn't seem like the "fuck it let's go halfway around the world to race tomorrow" type. I can't see this being more serious than, I wonder if I could do it - hey, the timing kind of works - but there was no upside for Knibb really and lots of downside in my view. You could legitimately argue that the PTO was looking out for one of their best "assets" by not encouraging this with a $10K carrot.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

I thought this was more of a "of course we can't, but let's ask" hail mary. Of course it was never going to work out. You don't do this type of planning on the fly with that tight of a window. Like no duh she was never going to be able to pull this off for a myriad of valid reasons, so if we are putting blame on parties for not pulling it off......That seems completely unnecessary. Nothing was gained or lost by Knibb not racing, at some point you gotta lay in the bed you make. No harm, no foul more social media "urban legend" fodder. Sorta easy to put all the blame on PTO in this scenario because well Knibb wanted to do it, so shame on PTO for not allowing her....meh.

The bigger fuck up to me was WTCS straight up cancelling the entire weekend, that raises far more questions than shitting on PTO for not flying an athlete last min half way around the world to do a triathlon race.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Following the Series A in which Moritz invested 12.5M (after the 10M grant) the profit share went to 50%. So following Series B the profit share was cut by 17%. Clear to me that this is not an athlete owned company (not that it ever was, they didn't have much at the table, sorry but globally the cache of even a Blummenfelt isn't enough to give him equity at this level, this isn't Michael Jordan or even Stephen Curry).

I've seen this before, the athletes have a responsibility every time there is funding round, and they aren't meeting it. So every time they fail to meet their burden of the funding round their shares get diluted. This happens in bigger sports when leagues are struggling and/or [are] start ups and the team owners have to centrally fund league operations through capital calls.

Effectively at some point the athletes will own 0% (not that they owned anything). The question is, what becomes the guaranteed pay out long term if they don't have a profit share. Right now there are contracts and prize money that are sunk costs. But my supposition here is that eventually those are strictly from profits.

Also making the assumption that this will be a 600M valuation is pretty ridiculous given how small Triathlon is. If you look at the MLS, MLS teams when Beckham was signed for $250M (weird contract structure) MLS teams were trading for less than $20M. They had spent almost 300M by 2007 (maybe 400M) and they were not valued as a league at close to 1B.


Sports valuations are interesting, Angel City is supposedly valued at 130M, but there is infighting in the ownership because the eclectic group of investors is trying to get out as it is costing them a lot. Mind, they made 31M in revenue last year and they're spending a ton more. Their costs compared to other NWSL teams is kinda wild too.

Point is to say, there isn't that interest in Triathlon that there is in F1 or Soccer, and Triathlon already has the Oil Money involved, so it doesn't have much more to go I think.

At the end of the day being a mass participation sport is ok.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I see Sam Long is attempting to do Oceanside and Singapore back to back.

Not sure what his season plan is but he really seems to be front loading it? If this is the case I don't know why he's potentially sabotaging the T100 race by competing at Oceanside.

You would assume he would try get 3 good results in the first few races and then take it easy/take a break before prepping for the grand final at the end of the season.

Now if he has a shit Singapore he's going to have to get up for another race. Seems strange to me unless he's trying to Q for Taupo as well??

Because T100 isn't as valuable as people think. As stated clearly in a bunch of threads. 6 Appearances but only 4 results matter.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Actually I think t100 is as valuable as you the athlete put into it. If you think you’re going to race bare min events and go race full IM series, something will have to give. If you go all in on this series and race max races to get max score and block other athletes, you will find huge success.

So I think it’s all in how each athlete views it.

I think it’s almost a given they’ll have closer to 30 athletes next year w so many coming off Wtcs series either full time or first 2 years in non qualification period.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Committing to 6 races is putting a lot into it.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Really doubt they will have 30 athletes for each gender. All this means incremental cost which serves no purpose. Top 20 fighting it out is exciting enough. Think the problem is getting all top 20 committing and having that season long narrative

I'd assume Sam has already qualified for Taupo?

I think he's racing for glory in Oceanside. He's racing for points and victory in Singapore. He has a decent chance of a 2nd or 3rd in Singapore if a couple competitors get unlucky with travel, humidity, local food/water issues.

I see Miami as an early season play on the fact that the field was a little less deep, early season fitness and humidity. I see the same thing being the case in Singapore.

I'd give the win in Singapore to Alistar though. I think he'll be a little more run fit, and be a little less stupid on the run this time. He keeps racing like he's breaking people early on in a 10k, but he's only just breaking himself in the last half of his 18k. Why he doesn't just run with the leader and then kick in the last 5k is beyond me. He's not going to break a well paced and practiced long distance athlete with his early-run leads.

Either that or he's pulling a season long Laidlow narrative of blowing up when you let him run away. And eventually he'll hold it together the entire time and shock the field.

How is Brownlee in heat?

Think it will be hot and/or humid in Singapore?

I think this year will basically filter out the half in / half out athletes; the ones who race the "mimimum" requirements. Add in the WTCS athletes that filter in their spots next year and I think you'll get to the point where T100 is an legit series where 90% of the athletes are "all in" for most of the events. The T100 is going to let the athletes decide how successful they want to be, and I think the ones who want to race all race distances and series are going to end up cramming a lot of races in a short period of time.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Brownlee said in interviews post Miami that he thought he's be fine and he felt fine the first few laps and then he felt himself starting to redline so he had to back it off and walk some aid stations and that at his age he wasn't going to keep pushing when he redlines it anymore. He expected he could slow his pace and then hopefully go with Magnus when he caught him, but he was unable to when he got caught. He also said he's only had 3 weeks of run volume if I recall. I'd expect him to be a lot better. But by the same token I should expect that or Magnus or Sam Long as well.

I do wonder what Sam's heat prep was. It clearly isn't training on cold dry desert mornings.

HaHa!!!!!

T100 Miami had:

1. A 2x Olympic Gold medalist
2. Current IM World Champion
3. Current IM 70.3 World Champion
4. Current 140.6 record holder
5. A 2x IM 70.3 WC second place finisher

ETA: And only 1 of those 5 dudes ended up on the Podium!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

If it had Knibb, Laura, Sodaro, Spivey, Haug, etc. would it have been deeper?

If it had Van Riel, Gomez and Neuman would it have been deeper?

"a little less deep" != "weak field"

Incidentally, when I typed t100 male start list in google, the initial search suggestion was t100 testosterone booster. HAHA. From "paid time off", "parent teacher organization" to "banned drugs for athletes". I wonder if anyone suggested the EPO100?

Yes & no. Sam is fit rn & raced & won before T100 Miami. So maybe he's riding that out at these early season races. He grew up on IM racing so maybe he couldn't resist not going to the unofficial 1st big race of the year. One of the narratives for the PTO Tour will be if people who arrive fit & ready to race early can carry that fitness throughout the entire year. It's a hard thing to do & Sam Long hasn't shown that kind of consistency in the past. I would be skipping Oceanside, especially after that 1st big result in Miami. It's right that you need to fulfill the T100 appearances & that you don't necessarily have to do well in all of them. But it gets harder in harder when you add races on top of the series. The best athletes can peak 2-3 times/year. I'm not sure adding in some IM races puts you in a better position to hit in the right # of PTO races. We'll see. It's certainly going to be entertaining.

Glad to hear AB is in midseason form about he's only ran for 3 weeks, did he call the other athletes, wankers for full affect? I think he's been using the "I havent even properly run trained" for 10+ years, even while smoking the wtcs world's best for many of those years.

#ABspeak

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I definitely agree with your analysis. Oceanside is all about glory and attention. But I can't help look at the overall season like it's a race itself from March to November/December. Sam likes to say he trains and races well at high intensity, but I would be worried about him digging himself into a hole. I suppose it is possible he's going to just make Oceanside into a training day and not compete for the win though. Why not if that's the case? But otherwise if he's racing for the win (or if he smells blood and pushes himself beyond what he intends to), I would worry he might put himself in a Brownlee-running sized hole that takes a few races to recover from. If you're in second place, what can you do to ensure you stay at that level or advance? Is the answer to do back to back weekends of races?

Ya I really don’t understand this move. Capitalizing on good fitness? The paycheck for the win isn’t that huge and unless he’s going to throw in some fulls he won’t score well in the im pro series anyway. We will have to wait and see how it will affect him but I could see this being one of those mistakes people make who coach themselves and don’t have anyone to be a voice of reason.

Here's how I make sense of it:

The day of the Oceanside race he was planning on doing a long training day anyway. Then the next day heading over to LAX for his Singapore flight.

So he does a nice promotional appearance for the sponsors and fans at Oceanside and gets in the top 10. Gets some attention on the webcast with people talking about his name. And doesn't over do it. Then heads the next day to Singapore via LAX.

I'm sure he's capable of handling the volume. Afterall, we had Gustav and Blu doing heavy volume in the heat a couple days before Kona and placing well. But then Gustav fell apart in St George and all the next year, and getting off the bike in Kona Blu said he felt empty and couldn't contend with Gustav or Laidlow for the win.

So being able to do the volume and getting the best possible performance out of oneself with the volume are two different things. Let alone the possibility of injury or other unseen fatigue issues setting in at a later day because of the long season.

Kristian Blummenfelt wasn’t there.

The entire lie flat seat request is a massive can of worms at any organization. You quickly go from a $800 airfare to $6000 if it is last minute. In volume you blow your travel budget quickly. Once you open the gauntlet then everyone wants that treatment. I would have told Taylor she makes plenty of money and can upgrade herself if she wants to perform, It is an unfair competitive advantage if she gets that treatment.

Cozumel is properly excluded from 'best time' considerations because its swim is well 'downhill'.
https://www.trirating.com/...an-distance-records/

What’s the over/under on Gomez being on the start line?

And Challenge Roth is a tiny bit short, and yet it stands.

You shared a link, let me do the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_Triathlon

Btw. Dietlev did IM Cozumel in 2022 with a time of 7:50, while KB did in 2021 with a time of 7:21. That's 29 minutes difference. If the 'downhill' is such a factor, why wasn't Dietlev faster?

Btw. again, ST wrote an article on 2021 Cozumel saying the bike was short (https://www.slowtwitch.com/...IM_Cozumel_8149.html). Funny, since my own Garmin recorded 181.5km.

To me training volume and race volume are very different stimuli on a person. Even if said person is saying “mate I’m just training through it”…..bullshit. You’re adding travel stress, race morning stress (3am wake up, he’s not doing that for training) race stimuli stress that at some point you have to account for. That’s not even pretending that he’s 100% “not going to over do it”. By default you’ve already over done it if your equating this the same as “well I would have trained anyways” with all the extra factors that come into a race situation. You are only going to get so many bites at the apple- would be foolish to waste one knowing ahead of time “training mode race” mindset. Why even show up then?

I get it an series where you have to race you may prioritize events as “check box” situation but to add an non series race as a “meh just training purposes” seems to be way counter productive. Again I get sometimes you’ll have to just show up for an T100 event but to do it for a non T100 race seems to make no real sense if your truly only going to shoot w blanks that day.

So if you truly are going to check the box for sponsor obligation that makes makes even less sense because what are the chances he mails it in? I would assume it’s going to take an “honest effort” to gain top 10 here.

Sam Long doesn’t have the ability to mail it in front the start and still gets top 10. He will 100% have to go for it on the bike and run for a large percentage cus he’s so far back in the swim. He doesn’t get any “free” passes thah a front pack athlete sorta can get within race dynamics. So for the most part of it, this is going to be an event that he’s certainly going to have to account for especially if you’re saying to come in top 10.

So I dont think this is a "just train through" setup. If he wants to go top 10, that's going to take an get after it mindset and tactic, he's not just going to "meh" race through and get a top 10 and get on the broadcast. His swim won't allow that. So I think he's got to put this on the ledger of events that add up in a season long narrative. Why do it just to finish 8th? Seems very counter productive?

So if you wanna race to secretly chest pump and see where you are in the overall standings of the sport- go for it. This is not going to be one of those situations where Sam Long can just "train through it" race style/mindset and finish top 10. So I think that's the jist here, not some "he would have trained anyways" so it's the same. No where close will that be the case...UNLESS he truly mails it in fron the start of the bike. But if your talking about wanting to go top 10....no Sam Long can't "mail that in" like others likely can do because he's such a weak swimmer and thus has to "ride through" 75% of the field; that is going to cost you in a season. Full stop

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I just feel like he's not going to Oceanside for an appearance fee/training day. He raced & won in January. Now he's coming off of a 2nd at T100 Miami & took down a ton of big names. No start list yet for Oceanside but he is going to have to be a favorite or at least in the top few. $7500 for the win isn't a ton of money, considering what's at stake on the PTO tour. Feel like he just likes to race & grew up on IM & doesn't want to miss out. Will be interesting to see what kind of fitness he can sustain. There is a 2 month lull late-July to late-September so maybe he figures he'll race hard until then but I can't see him not racing during that stretch.

Re AB I just don't get why he can't run for the win. Setting out a 3min k's in that heat brought him from 1st to 5th. Just going out at 3:15-3:20 or running steady 3:30s could've gotten him the win. I appreciate the style of racing but there's an alternative reality where he wins that race comfortably. He's got more run speed than everyone he came out of T2 with, regardless of how much run training he's done. Why not run side by side with Magnus for a bit?

The main issue I see with the T100, it is severly back loaded. So if your already skipping races now, at some point you dont get to "skip" races in the end and that 4 races in 9 weeks, 3 in 6 weeks oh boy....You suddenly are stuck traveling late season to US and Middle East in your schedule all in a 6 week period. So if I'm Sam Long, I'm striking early, skipping 1 of the 2 Euro races and then being able to "stay home" and race locally (yes it's not really local, but it's not going through international travel, etc). 2 more times in the US before racing GF in Middle East. That would give you 5 scores out of 7 regular season and then GF score. But with the break in the schedule, you could still race 2 Euro races and basically skip the 2 week prior regular season final before the GF 2 weeks later.

So it's about patience but also striking early, especially if you get people who basically purposely are skipping races already (either through not ready or "broken" themselves already). Those who have to race 3 of 4 in the final 6 weeks, that's a loooong time to hold "A" fitness with all that travel (that likely plays more on you with getting sick, and disrupting training than anything).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Also with some heavy hitters skipping early races it’s a great way to get points that will be really hard to come by when the fields are stacked at the end. I don’t see India lee getting top 3 in one of these races if all the heavy hitters are there. But she scored big the first one which probably all but guarantees her top 10 at the end.

What do we think of knibb doing Oceanside? She could have theoretically done Singapore instead. Getting her validation for taupo or think she will do a second so she can do nice?

Well Taylor probably doing Oceanside with both Nice and Taupo in mind. This gets her validation for Taupo and probably will wait till post Olympics to decide if she wants to do another 70.3 for Nice. It’s doable but she has 4 T100 races as well so that’s 7 races in the second 1/2 or the year if she wants to do it all

It’s interesting all of these dynamics. You take a look at Wtcs. For the most part all the top athletes race most of the races. Sure every race in the top 20 will skip and they even build it into the rules to allow athletes to skip. Maybe it’s because the depth is so deep that it really doesn’t matter who skips, it’s always a stacked field.

T100 is paying athletes better money than federation stipends and you are seeing a portion of the pros basically showcase a rather interesting race schedule, Pto tells Wtcs athletes to focus on Paris and then they are racing other LC events before Paris. That’s some interesting drama imo.

So to point that t100 can’t bump up to 30 starters, they’ll just tighten the requirements to race next year. Wtcs and slt don’t fight for athletes, they for the most part work together and slt is more or less the “postseason all star” tour. But here IM and T100 are going to butt heads a ton and so I’ll be curious to see they pivot next year from t100. At some point the kids gloves will have to come off and force athleres to choose imo.

But at the same time if athletes racing all races end up with poor t100 scores, they’ll basically be filtered out next year anyways for likely athletes who are happy to go all in on t100 series (Wtcs athletes “graduating” out and/or 2 year non qualification Olympic period gives you some major flexibility).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I believe that Nice qualifying will be over by the olympics - but with her T100 needing to do all 3 races plus the GF and Ibiza being a week after Nice. With her durability, seems insane. But at least she will have her Taupo slot verified if she chooses to defend 2 weeks post GF.

I could be wrong, but seems crazy to attempt Nice with her T100 contract.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Nice qualification ends 18th Aug and my understanding she needs to do a IM or 2 70.3.
In a normal year, doing Ibiza after Nice would be crazy but Haug and LP have both skipped the first two T100 races and if they are doing Nice they will have to do just that

As widely discussed, a lot more racing this year for many and I think you will see a lot of injuries unfortunately and many will go all in T100 next year or Pro Series which ever distance they are better in

Well Taylor has now won 70.3 worlds twice. I'm assuming she'd like a 3rd win. Doesn't the 70.3 winner still need to validate? Much better to win three 70.3 world championships than maybe if conditions and the race plays out right you might get a medal in the Olympics.

I know what all the athletes say, how special the Gold is. But Knibb is going to be approaching GOAT status for her wins in Ironman, assuming she keeps it up. Daniela never medaled. Spirig did among other accolades. And when GOAT status is brought up, she only gets an also-mentioned among inside baseball types.

That has to be worth something to Knibb to maintain that. Although I fully agree the PTO must have some annoyance at how this is playing out. I would assume Knibb was up front with them through her agent about what her focus would be and the PTO wanted her in on the T100 however they could get her which is why they have these Oly concessions. I'd guess they tried the same pitch with KB, but since his non Paris focus is Kona not Taupo, it's more of as stretch to throw some bones to the PTO and show up for Knibb. But I am a little surprised that KB is sticking to his plan so far.

Anyone putting all their eggs in the WTCS basket so far is probably having some big fomo until Paris actually happens.

Doing Nice when she has to do all 3 is crazy. And Phillipp and Haug have more experience with the full IM but I would question that Knibb and her coach would attempt this - the short term benefit is far outweighed by the risk. And her new coach isn't really a risk taker I don't think!

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

But I am a little surprised that KB is sticking to his plan so far.

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You aren't going to win a medal in ITU in 2024 if you aren't 100% focused on Paris. That's for both male or females. It's too specialized to think you can cross train other race distances 3-4 months out from the Olympics.

With Knibb essentially "hedging her bets" if she's truly racing 70.3's in this final build up, to me she's going to be along with Duffy (who I dont think can run well w/ her knee issue) will be really great animators in the race and then others will win medals. At best Knibb's chances are best as a wildcard, she's still likely not among the best of the best runners in the sport (she's very close, but close doesn't matter in the Olympics; either you are or you aren't; no awards for 4th place), so she's going to have to try and ride away from the group but on that course with that front group, that's likely a losing proposition. Boring flat courses are the worst course for a Knibb style athlete when all the world's best are present. If this was Rio, I'd 100% put her as the favorite. Not on an non-tech flat boring bike, her bike strenght is basically cancelled out for the most part.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

For now, there is 0 purpose for the Olympic Champion to be focusing on something other than the Olympics.

Maybe when Moritz 100 has existed for 10 years and not gone through it's 15th rebrand they'll take a risk. But the money ain't that great and another Gold Medal would make Blummenfelt a demigod in Norway.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I just really don’t understand the play by Anne and laura. Thinking more about how hard it will be to do Ibiza after nice. Why do that to yourself? Laura couldn’t even go to the press conference after getting third last year in Kona. She’s supposed to do a t100 7 days later?

I agree. I don’t see knibb doing nice this year either. I would hope she is focusing on the Olympics and doing Oceanside is just a validation for possibly taupo. IM championships are every year. You only have so long you are competitive at the Olympics and have to time it just right. She was very messed up after the race in Kona and could hardly walk. Still hasn’t figured out that nutrition thing either. Maybe her new coach will help with that.

Agreed. KB is all in on the Olympics. He said that he's either going to win gold to validate or have to race pretty shortly after the Olympics. I'm not a big fan of validating tbh. They should give the podium a pass into the next years World Champs. Maybe they do it just to keep the big names coming to their races but the way you have athletes trying to balance all of these different tours/series/formats/etc you're just adding to their racing schedule. Would rather top athletes come in with whatever schedule they've put together rather than having to race because they have to. Do we really need to see that Knibb & KB are both still incredible athletes? It's not even validating when they would be earning slots anyways. It's good that those slots can then roll down. It's an Olympic year. Why force Knibb to race now & KB to race in August?

I think validation is fair compromise. It allows those who won to not have to “qualify” while still sorta allowing it to be on equal footing in terms of racing volume. I would think it’s less fair to just allow the winner a free entry into next year from a competitive standpoint.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I've been saying this for yeats - IM should make liberal use of wildcards. they're a private event, not a federation, so why not add pros who will make the race interesting?

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

LCB is not going for a prolonged peak. She is building the intensity very slowly, thus her run was nowhere near race ready in Miami. And it will not be ready in Singapore. She is racing as workouts and gradually building towards the end of the year. The bet for her is that she can manage this while still being competitive enough to podium and pick up bigger checks. She’ll fulfill her contract and be ready at the end of the year. The hard part is the travel but her team is smart and will adjust for that.

Yep. Just like major marathons taking flyers on people with good half marathon PBs or maybe an athlete who hasn't PRd in a couple years. My issue with validation is that it's just requalification. You can't tell if KB is in shape if he's 2nd at the Olympics but not 1st? & then you're gonna make him do a full, which comes with training/racing injury risks.

I think as a big company with a ton of money on the line for the top athletes they want to make it super cut and dry what needs to be done to make it. Winning a world title is literally life changing for athletes so there needs to be rules that are set in stone with no wiggle room. Athletes have to make choices all the time how they want their seasons to play our and at the end of the day the athletes need to trust that IM is playing fair or some will just stay with other entities. I know it takes away some of the drama for viewers but why should knibb get a pass for the Olympics and not need to validate while the winner from last year would still need to? What if having to do a full is what’s keeping lcb from going to nice but they just hand a spot to Taylor? Give lcb one too? Might as well give them all spots at that point.

Is Haug even healthy? She missed Miami due to injury, not because she didn’t want to go.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Did she fly to Miami and pull out? Or not even make the trip? Could have been a planned “injury”. Would be curious if they count that as one if her races because she pulled out so late.

Can anybody find any info re: race schedule in Singapore? There is literally no info on the pro race in the "official website", except on where to watch it. A bit frustrating. I thought Ironman's site was crap, but I've come to appreciate it now. Triathlon.org only has the start list and the link to the above website.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

I am anticipating same/similar start time to last year so 2-3pm local time.

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David T-D
http://www.tilburydavis.com

Looking forward to maybe seeing a Brownlee v Gomez matchup. Gomez has been quiet as of late but is my favorite triathlete to watch race over the years. Looking forward to watching this one play out.

https://t100triathlon.com/
Schedule: https://t100triathlon.com/...ipant-info/#schedule
Saturday 13 April - PRO WOMEN
Race start – 14:15
SUNDAY 14 April - PRO MEN
Race start – 15:15
Edit: Timings are SGT (UTC+8) UK is UTC+1.

Much detail here:
https://t100triathlon.com/...#important-documents

I was all excited to watch this, but totally forgot about time change details. Whoops. I'll settle for the race highlights when I get up.

So 20:15 Central European time for the women. But can I last until past 23?

Thanks. And thanks to David for the earlier useful speculation.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Thorsten's seedings are here:
https://www.trirating.com/...-13th-14th-seedings/
For info, 60 minutes for 18km is about 1:10 half marathon pace.

A 1415 Singapore start time for women on Saturday 4/13 is a 0815 start time for Central EU spectators.

What data is used for these race seedings? How does he get figure out times for specific disciplines? Some athletes have already races multiple times this year while others haven’t yet raced.

The only way that is gonna happen is if Moritz goes all PIF on the series. Big Dollars. Like 500k/year salaries.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

For once I'm actually more interested in the women race, as we're going to see some faces unseen from last year. A decently strong field, despite the cumbersome travel requirements. Gentle probably for the win, but I expect Simmonds to perform well.

https://www.trirating.com/what-is-thorstens-ttr/ - have a read.
He uses all non-drafting race (>99km) data and reduces the weight of results more than one season ago.
"The weighting is done as by assigning each result a weight based on how long ago the race was . . . for each year that goes by the weight is reduced by a factor of 0.85."
Think you could, with a bit of effort and interest, work out an algorithm for amalgamating 18km > 21.1km > 42.2km run time and biking 80/90/180km data.
Clearly the environmental, water and road conditions on the day will have an effect, but that will be a relatively uniform factor on every athlete's performance. He also rates races, when there is years of history it's more reliable/useful, to recognise that some races are 'fast' (Dubai, Bahrain, Busselton, Florida, Roth ottomh), and applies that factor to his 'seedings'.
So it's not so much the actual times but the differential between athletes that is worth looking at. He does not factor in emotion or overweight how an athlete's immediate previous race went and discards 'fails' from an athlete's data.

"T100 is paying athletes better money than federation stipends and you are seeing a portion of the pros basically showcase a rather interesting race schedule,"WPRO:
After these first two T100 races (which had ?23 total 'misses', Miami 'cos early and Singapore 'cos unhealthy and distant) the average number of wildcards offered for the next 5 will average <4. Three of those 4 for SF and London will be the Olympians (crossing fingers for Spivey being picked and Duffy being fit enough btw). We should see all but one of the 17 other (contracted) there.
"PTO tells Wtcs athletes to focus on Paris and then they are racing other LC events before Paris. That’s some interesting drama imo." PTO "tell" 4 (of 40) athletes no such thing. They recognise the importance of the Olympics (on a number of levels) and construct a contract which enables top short course athletes to take part in the series. Blummenfelt refused ('cos Kona). Assume Iden too. Surprised they couldn't attract one of the French to take it. PTO have gone out of their way to avoid the 'our road or the high road'. Because it's not in their interests (they can have their cake and make sure the athletes can choose bread AND cake). So PTO can see the need for eg Knibb to validate: zero drama.

". . . t100 can’t bump up to 30 starters, they’ll just tighten the requirements to race next year." Not sure what you mean. Next year contracts will be offered to the athletes finishing top T100 ten; the next 6 ranked in the PTO rankings and 4 'hotshots' picked by PTO, at their sole discretion (no TRI direct involvement).

". . . IM and T100 are going to butt heads a ton . . . At some point the kids gloves will have to come off and force athletes to choose imo." Don't think they'll take that antagonistic approach.

Current contracted athletes will "be filtered out next year anyways for . . . WTCS athletes “graduating” out and/or 2 year non qualification Olympic period gives you some major flexibility)." The only way WTCS athletes are getting into T100 (contract) in 2025 is by racing draft illegal races in later 2024 to score excellent PTO Ranking points (so T100 wildcards or Taupo) to get into top 20 OR by being chosen by PTO as a 2025 'hotshot'.
Which current athletes who are top 30 WTCS might be in that frame? Spivey, Knibb and van Riel are contracted and I can see them being T100 top 10 to earn a contract. I can see both Norwegians being given 'hotshot' slots for 2025.


Any women?
Zaferes is strong enough on the bike but will she want to? GTB? Potter even? Go and look at the WPro WTCS rankings.
https://triathlon.org/rankings/world_triathlon_championship_series/female
Candidates need to be bona fide cyclists (not wheel suckers) and have a decent run. Few make successful transition to middle/long distance top 15 (one a year, maybe). And they probably need to be aged 30 plus because otherwise they'll stay focused on short course and LA28.
Remarkably few who've had WTCS success in short course make the transition to success in middle/long distance top 15 (one a year, maybe; stats available (NB women))
https://stats.protriathletes.org/rankings/women

Do we know anything about Neumann? Still injured? Recovering? With just a major race in the entire 2023 it looked a bit too much signing a contract for 5+1 races in 2024. Now he has missed 2/2 and would need to race all what's left to be able to fight for the overall series, which looks very unlikely. Very strange...

Just make sure you add that none of this is certain. PTO can change whatever they want, basically however they want too because.......they are the bag man. They control the narrative by holding the money. So they could change it to 30 athletes, they could change the distance if they wanted to. They can be as fluid as they want too, to make this the most entertaining product as possible. Again this is where this is as important as a broadcast product as it is an actual "race". This isn't IM or WTCS, PTO can pretty much do anything it wants, whenever it wants. That's what being the money man provides.

So I actually think at some point especially post Olympics where there is a litle bit more of a freedom for all WTCS athletes, I think PTO might put a little more restrictions (whether it becomes public or not, who knows) on T100 athletes. They are basically going to have to at some point if they truly want it to be a setup where they actually race 6+ times a year all together and can create a "season long" narrative.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Well then, time to go place our bets:

https://www.dailytri.com/.../t100-singapore-2024

Signed, Slowtwitch's Contrarian Predictor

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

New YouTube on Singapore. Ditlev hit the deck on a training ride.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Just watching this now, looks bad enough to effect his race.

Javi Gomez out..........Josh Amberger in.

What the hell is wrong with Gomez this time???

.
.
This is the coverage I love from the Singapore race. They are living the life and it is awesome.

The startlist on PTO still has Javi. There are 21 men and women listed now, the T100 site may just not show past 20 names as Javi is lowest ranked.

So is Gomez out or not?

Yes he is out.

Do we know why?

It would have been great if the series was raced across various distances, but the whole rebranding to T100 probably means that we would be stuck with that distance for quite some time. Having a season-long narrative has been the PTO's main talking point and they want to establish the T100 as the premiere middle to long(ish)-distance triathlon. It would have been great if there was a non-drafting Olympic distance, 70.3, and a full or even just a T200 in addition to the T100. That's probably something they'll consider if the series becomes sustainable in the future.

I have wondered the same thing for a while now. He moved to Europe, and that was the last anyone heard. Even if he was injured, you would think some form of statement or social media update would be put out there... however in saying this, he admittedly isn't big on social media haha

i've thought the same. i think half the fun of the middle distance is seeing the short- vs. long-course specialists squaring off in the middle. imagine if the PTO series had a duathlon? a triple sprint? a flat-fast T100? a hilly ironman? would be really cool to see that play out.

maybe it's old fashioned, but i find the homogenization less interesting than the different challenges thrown up by varied courses/formats/distances.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I think that all sounds really fun to watch and see unfold I just don’t think it’s feasible for pros though. The competition for these races is insane now. No more can a top pro just show up to any race and have an easy day. There is always someone ready to have it be their world champs. The amount of prep that goes into these races for specific courses and conditions is insane. And that’s knowing races will be swim/bike/run 100km. Throwing all those different variables you mentioned into the mix would make a season really hard to plan for and execute.

Ditlev has a fractured wrist....

https://www.tri247.com/...53j87Ixs_6DoFPeVNf7o

More than the prep it will entail for the athlete, it's really just about the PTO wanting to sell a standardized broadcast product. They can market the T100 series as 3.5 hour event with 8 races all over the world. Having 2 Olympic distance, 2 T100s, 2 70.3s, 2 T200/full distance events over a season would be a harder product to sell. I blame the popularity of F1 and the Netflix show. Suddenly every sport now wants their own version of DTS and more TV-friendly events.

Women's odds courtesy of Skybet (mens isn't there probably cos Ditlevs wrist)

. Gentle 4/6
. LCB 5/2
. Sodaro 6/1
. Lee 6/1
. Simmonds 12/1
. Watkinson 14/1
. Byram 14/1
. Chura 16/1
. Salthouse 20/1
. Wilms 20/1

Any others you want to know ask.


Buckingham 33/1

I've gone in on Buckingham at 33/1 on EW, seems a decent value for money bet, I'm also tempted to throw a fiver on Lee at that price, see if any value, when they put the mens back on.

Thats mad, I saw Ditlev had a crash and went on skybet straight away lastnight and all the odds were on there for the men. I grabbed Ali at 8/1 on a boost.

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@the.lazy.triathlete

https://www.strava.com/athletes/18691068

Was Ditlev on there? I expect they're re doing the odds, 8/1 on Brownlee is definitely worth a punt.

yes he was favourite on there, I want to say he was something like 2/1.

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@the.lazy.triathlete

https://www.strava.com/athletes/18691068

You did well getting in there before they figured Ditlev was probably going to pull out.

ProTriNews (recorded Tuesday) predicted Ditlev would DNS
https://podcasts.apple.com/...ri-news/id1559781865 (@ 1:00:04)

My point was more they can dictate “terms” to athletes because they have the money. They talk publicly like they are all good with all other series and “their” athletes getting to race other events…..I call bullshit. So it wouldn’t shock me at all if next year they tighten the restrictions on race schedules, again especially if what half the field is being paid close to 6 figure appearance fees. Eventually pros will realize they are going to have to be “all in” on pto or essentially they aren’t going to be apart of it. That’s easily the way pto will go to protect their investment.

Again publicly they want to support pros and their choices but I don’t think for a second they want athletes to do what Sam long is doing- racing back to back weekends or what knibb did. Race a rival series over their series. It’s called business and especially when their long term success is built on the pros. So if it’s not the distance that will change it will with almost certainity be tighter restrictions on participation. They aren’t going to make it with just letting athletes race any race any time they want, that’s not how you run a successful race series that is only successful if you get millions of people to tune in and support it. It’s destined that it will come down to t100 vs IM. They will have to do that to have the best chance at actually making it. They aren’t going to have events long term where maybe your best is there and maybe they aren’t. That’s not how you run a successful entertaining product and that is what this is more than just a “race”.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I agree with you, pros will have to show some commitment.

As previously stated, Mignon plans to race 3 full IM in less than 4 months , July (Roth), July (Frankfurt chasing Kona) and October -Kona-! So it looks hard for him to get a great result in London (July) or Ibiza.
It does not make sense if you are contracted then why race Roth especially when you first T100 race is a DNF. He does not need the money. Unless he has great results, which is capable of, he risks not being kept on a contract given the limited commitment he shows.

On the french broadcast of Oceanside, it was strange to hear Chevalier say '''oh and Sam Long had a good result in 'a' race in Miami, obviously they had been briefed not to mention PTO, but given how only fans watch triathlon it sound lame.

The broadcast in french was so much better no 'Maurteen move' or endless advertising. And having a current pro on deck is better than having people reminescing of their glory days or knowing less about the athletes than the viewers....

Anyone know why Gomez is out then? Can't see anything on a search.

While they might be a little annoyed about Knibb, I think they realize they aren't going to get an Olympian to travel to Singapore for their race. If their race was in San Francisco this weekend, and Knibb skipped it for Oceanside last week, yes they'd have a right to be pissed. But they have to understand Singapore is going to be a big stretch for their Olympic athletes.

Sam Long is at least going and not giving some lame too-far travel excuse to turn around and race St George in his backyard. I think he probably raced Oceanside too hard and it will affect his Singapore result. If Sam takes 3-5th in Singapore, he's going to be wondering if it was worth it and if he should have just dedicated one weekend to the T100 instead of putting that load on his legs in Oceanside. But he's not blowing off the T100 like so many other contract athletes are.

These other guys need to show up and race unless they are seriously ill or badly injured. If you can't race all out, fine. Get the pants beat off you. But for PTO to pay these guys to get to the start line and then have them drop out because they don't feel like they are fit enough to fully showcase their talent is BS. PTO needs these athletes to start the race for their narrative, not be absent from the narrative altogether. Gomez DNF'ing part way through the bike gives them some story during the broadcast and gives them some broll they can recall of him later in the season as he's racing for redemption. Gomez just not starting leaves them nothing.

The pro talk a big game when it comes to deserves. And guys like Sam are showing they will put in the work and make themselves worth it. The others are a joke when it comes to compensation for sports entertainment. As athletes, they may be absolute beasts. As a training decision it might be the right call. But they are paid to race. Not DNS.

I think the sorta scary part is that if (more like when) the pto goes away, it's almost certainly agreed by many, so will the IM Pro Series. So I just think all these pro's that are half in / half out are really only doing the whole thing no favors. Like the PTO needs 100% buy in from everyone from the start. They basically conceded to the Olympic athletes, but everyone else should be busting their ass to race a full schedule. But again for the most part, we've never had pro's collectively care about anything but themselves, and you can't really blame them with how poor money is in our sport. But if the pro's can't even really buy in fully to this, how in the hell do you think the general public is. And you need an entire field committed, not this 6 of the 20 all in and the rest fillers. You need 20-30 athletes going all in and build that up. They gave way too much leeway and again I think it's all smoke and mirrors that they want to give the athletes chances to race other races. You'd be idiotic to truly feel that way, beyond basically the olympic athletes.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

33/1 are great odds to bet on Bucky. And 4/6 on Gentle is a terrible payday! Yes I do have her in #1 in Fantasy, but don’t people know how unpredictable triathlon is?

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

I do agree PTO should have simply asked for either exclusivity or at a maximum only allowed two races outside of their own series.

No doubt it sucks to fly to Singapore for some. But plenty of athletes. Manage long distance events and if that's what T100 needs to do to put on their races so be it.

Whatever happens next year, I'm looking forward to racing this format in Vegas. Just a little bit shorter than 70.3 I really think is ideal from a participant standpoint.

I think we can all be certain that the restrictions next year will be a whole lot tighter than this year for any contracted athletes. I imagine they will not be exclusive deals as I don't see them denying LCB a shot at defending her Kona crown, but I wouldn't be surprised if athletes are only allowed to miss 1 race maximum. If athletes want to race on top of that then they can, but then they should not expect to be welcomed back the following year (if the PTO makes it that far).

I do wish more of the athletes were all the way in on this series because it really is head and shoulders above anything else out there. They're going to be really bummed when it vanishes and they didn't give it their best effort.

There are 10 PTO races next year, at least that is what they are promising. Missing one means you have to do 9 and that’s your entire season. It’s a tough one for many, especially if the contract is 70-100k. The prize money is on par with IM series or slightly less but contract is guaranteed cash in the bank!

Why don’t we wait to make judgement on Gomez until we hear why he dropped out? Don’t forget these are human beings too and there could be other factors going on that we don’t know about. There has been no report of injury or illness so let’s wait to see.

I think the biggest problem with why athletes are not racing these early season races is the pto itself. They promised to get the schedule out back in October but it didn’t officially come out until almost February. It is very hard to plan a season with travel and prep on such short notice for these pros and we are now seeing the early season results. Many pros thought the pto might not even have a full season which is why some made sure they were qualified to Ironman worlds. If pto gets their act together early this year I think you will see a lot more buy in to early races next year. And no Olympics so no excuse there next year either.

I think in Gomez case, I suspect there is something else going on (fitness, illness). It was reported that it was an "injury" but he seems unusually secretive and vague about it. This guy raced at the highest level for decades with a bicuspid aortic valve so I often wonder if this could ever affect his performance one day.

Despite list of no-shows, still plenty of horsepower so hopefully a pretty competitive race.

Has he been training? I presume yes. Can he show up and lose the race but still take part? I presume yes. Are he (and others) protecting their ego at the cost of the season long narrative which the PTO is paying for? It seems like, Yes.

From a production stand point, I guess I'm just looking at it saying just because you can't redline the race doesn't mean you shouldn't show up and get bottom five and help provide PTO with the content they are paying you to show up for and provide.

It should be obvious that not everyone can win in this group of champions. So show up, race, get last or DNF. You've got Lucy Charles having calf issues going into Kona saying, F-it, I'm still going to race because she values the importance of it being a World Championship.

That's the point -- if this was the Olympics, would Gomez pull out? No, short of a serious issue (which if you're saying there's a heart issue, that's obviously serious), he'd get out there and race. I'm not even saying they need to redline it like it's their one shot at the Olympics but PTO is trying to build, and indeed paying for these guys to treat every PTO race like a Championship race. And they are basically treating it like another stop on the 70.3 circuit they can just skip.

They’ve pumped out significantly less content this week compared to the Miami lead up. Kind of a bummer, but I imagine they just didn’t have the personnel in Singapore. I have to believe it would have been pretty easy to find some young kids in Singapore who would have been happy to make video content on the cheap. Oh well.

Episode 2 of the rough cut series looked fun with the athletes doing some non-training activities like karting and zip lining.

The head-to-head interviews they came out with in Miami was good they can only do that a number of times. It's been mentioned somewhere that it'll be the PTO's team doing the broadcast for Singapore unlike in Miami where NASCAR handled it which likely explains less videos leading up to the race.

What I've heard from close sources, although not officially confirmed, is that there was a major health problem with one of his parents, either very critical or already... So in this case it's better to pay respect for him and don't judge his opt-out or silence. He was ready and has been training very well as seen latest on his Strava from the past weekend, so only a major setback could prevent him from racing.

That's not good read. He have had some bad luck over the last few years, hope to see him fully fit soon. And if he retires from pro racing, many of us hope he doesn't go to AG ;-)

He’s definitely fit. Sometimes life has to come before triathlon and this is one of those times. When it rains it pours and he’s definitely had some rainy luck recently. I just hope people use this situation as an example of not jumping straight to attacking an athlete without knowing the full story.

At the end of the day, Gomez could retire tomorrow and look back at two 70.3 world wins, IM wins, and Olympic silver, among many other achievements. I also think he is the one that set the new bar in 70.3 racing when he beat Frodo at 2014 worlds. Not certain Ari Klau has a single win as a pro yet?

Feel like they just put too many races on the calendar. They had it right with 4ish bigger races that everyone was going to. IM/Challenge are not going away so athletes are still going to go to those races.

Too bad to hear about Ditlev & Gomez. Opens the door for the Americans, unless Brownlee wants to just not run 3:00/k pace in 80 degrees w./ full humidity.

Ditlev has a broken wrist apparently

Officially Gomez has withdrew for personal reasons.

Mens odds (Skybet)

. West 3/1
. Long 4/1
. Brownlee 9/2
. Keulen 7/1
. Heemeryck 8/1
. Laidlow 8/1
. Baekkegaerd 10/1
. Funk 10/1
. Royle 14/1
. Smith 16/1
. Noodt 16/1
. Kanute 25/1
. RVB 25/1
. Chevalier 28/1

Others ask.

I've backed Brownlee, there are some other good value bests there I think on a EW Heemeryck could be worth a look at I think but the Grand National is on tomorrow so I have to be careful how much I'm gambling.

Magnus is out.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

Hey folks, what time in Singapore do men's and women's races go off. I assume Friday night and Saturday night EDT as there is a 13 hrs time shift to Sing.

I have not participated in the thread yet, but question I have is now many of these athletes coming off winter WON'T melt in Sing humidity racing right on the equator coming off northern hemisphere winter?

I just looked at accuweather, and I see 27C BUT 86% humidity RIGHT now at 10 pm in Singapore, and the weekend weather is rain and anywhere from 72 to 76 percent humidity (which of course drops as the day heats up).

Just redid my pics.

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Let food be thy medicine...

1. Brownlee
2. West
3. Heemeryck

1. Gentle
2. LCB
3. Lee

this is an important point. loyalty cuts both ways, and if you want athletes to commit to a complete calendar of racing . . . you have to give them that calendar well in advance, and make the path clear.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

If Magnus doesn't start will this still count as one of his required T100 races for the series, since he travelled there and was injured at the race city? Hopefully they can get another last second wildcard to show up also.

I redid mine. Pulled Baekkegaard into 2nd for Ditlev. Earlier I had Baekkergaard outside the top 5. It's a hunch and I'm the worst result predictor ever.

1. West
2. Baekkegaard
3. Stepniak
4. Brownlee
5. Heemeryck

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

That is the weather forecast 365 days of the year...

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Andrew Inkpen

Here you go Dev:

Great question, and one I guess the PTO wouldn't ever have considered.

Well his contract is with the PTO and between them they'll agree/decide. But it's in both the PTO's and the athlete's best interest that they race healthy and don't compete risking injury aggravation or post-illness complications.
Ditlev is contracted to "compete in" 5 of the 7 plus GF so he can still meet that commitment (missing Las Vegas as well, a few days before Kona). Racing Roth will not affect his ability to race London 3 weeks later, will it?
If an athlete misses more than 2 races due to injury then I guess the PTO can reduce or withhold any/some further moneys.
Given how much work Ditlev has done this week: we have seen it evidenced in all the media stuff - I suspect the PTO will give him a 'tick' for Singers.
Remember it's his best 3 scores (of the regular season 7) that count, and he already has a '35' bagged.

More generally (and echoing @DevPaul), every athlete racing, even if acclimatised, risks heat injury this weekend. Do any other endurance sports allow/select venues/times of day which can be predicted/forecast to have such an extreme heat injury risk?

I’ve heard this discussed on a couple of podcasts, but not heard a definitive answer. I have to imagine athletes aren’t being penalized for legitimate injuries, especially when, in this case, Magnus had every intention of racing.

Laidlow has very clearly said Kona is the goal this year, but credit to him for actually showing up and competing.

I saw that as well and I wondered if someone at PTO reached out to him and asked for him to play a little team ball better. It certainly seems out of the blue to just drop since nice words for the PTO -- even as I fully accept that it's an accurate framing of the issue.

I also agree that Laidlow deserves credit for actually committing to the PTO.

But if I was the PTO I would be a little annoyed that the unfortunate takeaway from Laidlow's prior statements is that the PTO doesn't matter and he's focused on Kona. I think it clearly shows that he values the PTO. And if he does just end up racing in such a way that puts him consistently in the top 10 it shows he's playing ball. Maye not giving them his full effort, but willing to give him his time on the startline.

I was surprised at how slow he ran in Miami. If he was 3-4min faster on the run he's in a fight for the podium. Although it is interesting that all the fast male swimmers in Miami were among the slowest runners. Coincidence or is it possible they just got their core temp up too quickly?

Laidlow has never run an IM70.3. He has completed several Challenge races roughly that length. He's a pretty average runner, comparatively, with his Kona and Nice runs complete standouts: somehow he generated run speed and endurance we only see in the big race (2022 and 2023).
So both Laidlow and the PTO know he will not be up the T100 sharp end come November. But he's getting to race with the other big boys and enjoy himself, and be paid for it.
I really don't think the PTO take all this umbrage stuff about one or other series/race exclusivity which you seem to want.
They are fine with athletes competing in other races, provided they also fulfill their contractual obligations: not just the racing but SM activity, the Tuesday-Sunday timings, media, community engagement and outreach.
Why should PTO be concerned about the Roth start list with shed loads of T100 athletes: Ditlev, Chevalier, RvB, Mignon, Bækkegård, Heemeryck (and WPro Philipp)? There's no T100 between SF (8 Jun) and London (28 Jul).

If the PTO had proposed contracts which seemed to prevent athletes achieving other objectives (eg Nice) several would not have taken up the contracts. In the event last December, only Lange chose not to take the 30 pieces of silver. Though others have suggested a tightening of this, I doubt this principle will change for 2025. The intent is to have 9 regular season events (nearly had 8 this year but one (in May) fell through last minute (late Jan)). For sure the race calendar will be shared much earlier, at least with those offered contracts. So I expect Miami next March to have an even stronger (WPro) field. Singapore 2025 will still be swerved by many: environmentally too risky.

Will athletes be contracted to race 6+GF next year? Probably. Can they fit other stuff in? Certainly, including validation for Nice/Kona and, as we've seen, Roth.

Where would be the best outlet to watch on replay over breakfast on Sat and Sun morning? Sorry if covered on the thread...maybe we need a T100 race day thread set up today, with links to livestream and archive stream at top so it is easy to find.

YT or Max in the US. Eurosport in Europe I believe.

We keep hearing, from some of the PTO leadership even, that they want the tour to be like this Drive to Survive F1 style thing.

Totally ignorant of those races, but I assume the drivers don't just skip their races and go race a different circuit instead?

If the leadership of PTO wants a season long narrative with championship style racing at every stop there are a handful of athletes they've contracted actually giving it to them.

You can say they are fine with it...if that's the case why did they give their guys contracts? Presumably because they werent fine with being second fiddle last year and they wanted to ensure commitment this year.

Even if there is a clawback in the contract, an athlete like Neuman or Gomez taking the deal and then not racing the races necessarily excluded other athletes which as Laidlow points out, that financial security actually enabled him to make the next jump in his career and training.

So ya, I'd be annoyed if I was paying to develop and showcase talent and the return was sub optimal.

In the men's race most (>75%) of the contracted athletes have/will start both these first two races. And I expect that % to be maintained.
In WPro far more have chosen to select one (or in the case of Haug and Philipp both) of the first two races to miss (they can miss two). In addition the women have 3 Olympians contracted (who can miss the first 4) which automatically drops the max for the first 4 races to 85%.
From SF onwards both men and women will have a consistent core (>75%) of the world's top athletes racing: enough to maintain that 'season-long' narrative we've heard being a key PTO objective.
We've never had this 'unification' effect before: diamond times.
Analysis: https://www.sportcal.com/...h-a-rebrand/?cf-view

I don't know why Haug and Philipp have chosen not to race these first two. In the case of the former, ongoing health issues has been rumoured: it's up to her whether she shares her reasons. As for Philipp, maybe she is taking the 'long season' view: race from June to December. But she has two 70.3s or a full IM (to validate for Nice) as well as Roth to fit in - all a bit odd.
As for Gomez and Neumann, I guess when Neumann was offered the contract (early December, but based on his ranking on 21 August) he hoped he'd be up to racing at least by April, but he isn't. I hope Gomez is OK but he does seem to have racing bad luck with two DNFs this (Oceania) summer. Again in January when offered a hotshot contract (with Brownlee, Bogen and van Riel) presumably he expected to be ready to race Singapore, but real life intervened. I think we have to let this play out before judging this a 'conspiracy' as opposed to a 'cock-up'. PTO took a risk: with hindsight looks like they misjudged.

Of all the wildcards Keulen (who was the highest ranked athlete to miss out) has shown his worth and is (I estimate) sure to be at the Grand Final (on points), even if he gets no other starts. It will be interesting to see how well Salthouse does: she was an obvious omission from the list of contracted athletes. She performed poorly in 3 of 4 key (diamond/platinum) races in 2023 (Ibiza, Singapore and Lahti) so ranked just too low in December when the contract 'cut' was made.

Finally I note that the PTO have not published revised rankings this week. If they had it would show Knibb as #1 and however well Gentle races later today, Knibb will stay #1. Win a Gold race by such a margin and you get >100 points.

And we're off (with Belinda Jan and Jack)
https://www.youtube.com/live/p1Wv0Vm__CM?si=ORedEzRmB-7ySlYe
https://www.youtube.com/...?si=RGiw4AEj3mDT3myY
https://www.eurosport.com/...0ch20008/video.shtml
Eurosport ftw in Europe (and according to PTO, Indian sub-continent too)


@8:00 LCB with t'other Lucy on her feet with Wilms, Clarke and Lee taking better (direct) lines. Gap after those.
@11:00 Lead pack of three with Wilms and Lee have eased off.
Still no time splits on screen.
From DevPaul's thread:

Do others have commentary? I only get background sound. Watching With Discovery+ in Norway. Really disappointing.

Commentary on Eurosport excellent. Still missing any times (have tracker up on phone)
Aussie exit:
13:08 LCB Buck Clarke
+27 Wilms Lee
+37 Chura
+48 Simmonds McCauley Gentle Byram (having good swim) Oliveira Salthouse Kahlefeldt
Lots: Sodaro
Front 3 heading for exit and T1 @26:03
LCB looks as if she's eased off as the other two seemed comfortable
Jack erring on hyperbole already (because of the gap)
Jan great

Unfortunately most race data and actual leaderboard not included in the regular coverage.

You have to use a second screen with live data (https://t100triathlon.com/...ro/live-womens-race/) to get exact times, HR-effort etc.

Re: Eurosport. Sometimes an issue if you stream with the app, you need to pick language and choose (in the view, a small globe).

Thanks
Sodaro 4 minutes down, with Watkinson (who's a good cyclist). Kelly talking about needing a 'strong bike' (she needs a wheel).
LCB taking lead of Buckingham at 32:00

Thank you so much! The default settings was ambient sound.

But does LCB have something in her kit on her shoulders? Looks slippery.

Them be muscles!
Race Ranger in use. Buckingham neatly 22m behind LCB.
LCB looks to be pushing right away.
Gentle 1:28 down on LCB and that's the same after 6km: Gentle on a mission.
Sharp quick adverts on Eurosport.
Overcast so temperature lower than feared.
Yesterday the competitors were unsure whether the race would go ahead as scheduled.

Think they all have GPS trackers in their suits.

Commentators doing well I think. And actually watchable being ads free (looking at you Ironman).

Yes.
"Event Level Obligations
- Race clothing to meet World Triathlon naming requirements
- Wear Biometrics device (GPS/HR etc) during event

Temperature = 31C/86F
Humidity = 70%

Lucy also stuffed a bag of ice into her suit in T1.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

If you want even less ads, there is a fully ads free stream in the app.

Is that a specific Biometrics device provided by the organisation?

Is the "Supernova slo-mo" the new Maurten Move???

This? https://www.eurosport.com/...0ch20008/video.shtml - goes quiet while other stream away for adverts.
Visser went straight past Sodaro (latter has lost over a minute already.
Trash zone 'end' sign really tight after feed/water zone.
Gentle taking Clarke @ 51:41 into 3 but she's actually lost a few seconds to LCB/Buckingham up the road (1:31).

Are they supposed to ride on the right side of the street?
Bit of unfair seeing some riding up the bridge on the right side and some completely on the left side.

Were told at briefing to ride left and pass on right.
Buckingham getting some RR 'feedback' and glass slippering.
Gentle gradually losing time on the lead 2. But those #4 and back

Sodaro has stopped @1:06
DNF After a way below par swim she looked fairly average on the bike (and leaked time to the chase pack 2 minutes in front). Seemed to be slip-sliding away (on her seat) which commentators thought didn't bode well. Having to ride by herself: not her preferred race dynamic.
Got off her bike at an aid station.

Gentle continuing to lose time to the two in front.
Simmonds Salthouse and Lee keeping station.

Not sure, but possibly. I watch through the app (casting to my big screen). Haven't noticed silent pauses (yet).

Watching the YT stream here in the US. No ads yet.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

The ads on one of the Eurosport streams are light touch - every 15 mins and six of 15 secs. . . and back to the race
Buckingham making the pass on LCB @1:20.
Think LCB has called her through, actually. But Buckingham a weaker runner, by at least 5 minutes, so she has to try for a gap. Her surge has meant both of them have gained ?15 secs on Gentle.

How many red light blinking-Situation by race ranger devices the PTO is willing to accept without giving penalties?
Lucy Buckingham had already a lot of situations with entering the draft zone of LCB without overtaking.

Well Buckinham is pushing on now.
RR is an indicator, the refs will not just see a flashing red and card the athlete.
Care to recall that Byram and Buckingham are in identical BMC Pro Tri kit.
We're also seeing Simmonds, Byram and Lee pulling up to Gentle.

Great commentary, but when will they stop referring to the heart rate data garbage? You can’t seriously believe someone does a 3-hour race at max heart rate. Even non sports people would scoff at that.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Agree. But you and I (we) are not the target for that cobblers.
Lee passing Simmonds and right up to Gentle who is either riding restrained or is not on her normal top form.
gentle quite often has a slow start to her season. We'll see! (copyright Knibb).
Pierre has DNF'd.

Great interview with Team Buckingham! British low key honesty at its best. 🙂

Mark was excellent: very transparent. He just hopes Lucy (redhead) can hold it together for 18km in these adverse conditions.
Suggest LCB will reckon she can win a run against Gentle with a 4 minute lead.
Lee is starting to erode the lead of the front two and has dropped Simmonds and Byram.
This is shades of Miami in terms of Lee's strength in the second half of the bike.
Lightening threatening to stop the race.

That risk of shut down for lightning sounded bad. They need to shut down if within 13 km? And it is at 15 km now?

Fingers crossed the weather doesn't effect the race.

Yes. We all need to cross our fingers it stays far enough away.
Rabbiting on about HR % of max!! What do you expect downhill?
Lee tryed to pull away from Gentle but seems to have then dropped back to between Simmonds and Byram - so that's pack of 4, all losing time to Buckingham/LCB.

100%...........loved that interview!

I don’t remember who but someone suggested that since the ceiling for water temp was 31 Celsius, the race organizer would find a way to measure at 30.9 degrees 😂

Guess what the official water temperature is

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Kelly said "30.9C" 😂
@2:02: Buckingham cramping (temporarily). LCB rolled through.
GBR
GBR
AUS
SUI (Cheltenham Ladies College)
GBR
GBR
Els Visser has pulled up to that chase pack and has gone straight past Lee and Byram.
"Supernova Slo-Mo" but has a cowbell with an IRONMAN stencil on 😂

Visser - coach not named but 'in China' ;) - goes through to #3, overtaking Simmonds and Gentle.
We are getting too much coverage of Buckingham and LCB and not enough of Visser Gentle Simmonds Byram.
Lee has dropped off that chase pack.

Visser is crushing it!

Visser is gaining (merely) a second a km on LCB, with Gentle in tow.
2:23 with 6 miles to T2. Byram up past Simmonds as the latter weakens.
https://www.trirating.com/...-13th-14th-seedings/
Thorsten has Visser as #20, with a run 11 minutes slower than LCB.

Into T2 @2:29:00
Buckingham seconds back - heading out to survive the run.
Kelly said humidity was 58% at the start and is 78% now.
Gentle ran 6 minutes into LCB last year and is 'only' 5:28 down at T2.
And headed out strong.
What are "running sticks"?

I had not heard of running sticks either. Small sticks you hold to (allegedly) improve running technique. Link to a review: https://www.nok-kon.com/...ting-running-sticks/

Lee has dropped out, I'm afraid, not mentioned in commentary. Edit: I'm told she "didn't have the lungs".
Gentle assured of the win. Not clear who is most likely for #3.
Looks like either Reischmann or Visser: both running same speed at present but Visser 100 secs ahead, one lap in.
Watkinson not out of it and running faster than those two, but 2+ minutes down.

As the Frodeno just said, what does LCB need after T2 to win a T100, if Gentle is in the race? 8 minutes?

In these conditions, maybe. In reasonable racing conditions, LCB will win with a 5 minute lead. We'll see in London.
Visser looks like likely for #3. If Buckingham can maintain speed she'll beat Reischmann, which would be a great result for her: probably won't. Watkinson looking as if she may run into #4.

Tri is always biased to the runners. Crazy how you can continually dominate two legs of a race only to be outdone by someone who is top notch in the third.

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@the.lazy.triathlete

https://www.strava.com/athletes/18691068

Emma Snowsill used them when she won gold!

Gentle will earn over 100 PTO Ranking points for that.
And after Knibb has vaulted to #1 over Haug, Gentle then edges above her by ?0.3 of a point into top ranked athlete.
Let's get back to see the Visser, Buckingham and Watkinson head-to-head please.
And we missed it: Watkinson taking Buckingham in the last few hundred metres, closing right up on Visser.

Still lots of gaps in the coverage especially on the run. Tool a while for Frodo, Belinda, and Jack to notice that India Lee DNFed. We didn't have an idea why Simmonds went back or how Amelia Watkinson ran up the field. They probably just had two bikes covering the athletes, but seeing what's happening in the midpack is important especially with Ash winning and LCB getting 2nd seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

Agree: there seems to be this fetish for spending loadsa time with the very front end and miss the moves.
I heard them mention that Pierre had DNF'd. As soon as Lee dropped off the tracker it was clear Lee had DNF'd. Why doesn't the back room tell the commentators this?
Watkinson not showing on the tracker @ Finish (assume a chip issue): we saw her finish in front of Buckingham.
Three Brits in the top 7 (again; was 4 in 6 in Miami).
Lucy has another puppy; for the other two to pull to bits.

They really should help the podium with a few steps on the backside so they don't need to make that climb with tired legs. 🙂

Gentle 3:44:23
LCB 3:45:58
Visser 3:51:38
Watkinson 3:52:03
Buckingham 3:52:10
Reischmann 3:53:39
Byram 3: 54:08
Chura 3:56:12 Another solid result for both the last two - Byram contract; Chura wildcard. Latter has good chance of making the Grand Final on this and her Miami score.

Gentle PTO Ranking score: 100.99
LCB - about 99 which gets her up into #3 (behind Gentle and Knibb) in the PTO Rankings. Obviously she leads the T100 series.

This!
Backroom or commentators needs to inform audience! And if top 2 is sealed get 1 camera down to the action!

With that said, jan belinda and jack is a really solid casting tri!

Totally agree. I think the worse the conditions are the better the stronger runners can do proportionally to their best. Lucy's 2021 70.3 Worlds title shows what she is capable of in decent conditions. I don't think Gentle beats her there. If the gap was around 5min she would have to run 1:13ish on a hilly course. No chance. The weather should be a lot better for the next two races. Then Vegas in October will be dry at least. We should get to see some competitive races.

Think I might elevate where I had Jason West after watching the women's race. Heemeryck didn't look good in Miami. Dk if he'll rebound. Sam Long is race sharp & will be up there. Have a good feeling about Baekkegard. Ali could win if he runs to win. Men's race seems pretty wide open without Ditlev.

 
I found the broadcast quite good. I suspect the first two races were like the pre-seaon and will just get better every race.

Have you intentionally stayed away from rating the broadcast in your race articles ?

[/quote]

This!
Backroom or commentators needs to inform audience! And if top 2 is sealed get 1 camera down to the action!

With that said, jan belinda and jack is a really solid casting tri![/quote]
Jan is great - Jack is pretty good but projects thoughts/motivations on athletes they don't necessarily have -- Belinda needs to stop talking over the others and stop finishing their sentences.

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