dcpinsonn wrote:
pk wrote:
i have no real opinion on this but i would delete the word shady in your headline
the reality is both are over 45 min behind the male winner.
so the question is more what should be the min level a pro needs to achieve to go to the worlds
Glad shady was taken out of the headline but disagree with the rest of this. Dk what male to female gap has to do with anything. There are way more male triathletes in this sport. Just look at the Oceanside start list. The slots are & should be equal. Hopefully more women start triathlon younger & races continue to build depth. But it's not that out of the realm of possibility to see a gap like this. T100 winners were 18min apart, & those are top athletes. Chelsea Sodaro won 70.3 Tasmania & was 25min off of the men's winner. Again, another big name there.
This wasn't an IM Pro Series race. It had a $20k prize purse and they only have one tier under that. The men's winner is also an emerging athlete, after putting together a really solid season last year. The top-2 men were a lot better on paper than everyone else in both fields. The winner's gap to the 3rd place men's finisher comes pretty close to the Sodaro gap. Bottom line is if someone wanted a slot there was nothing keeping them from entering this race. Gross conditions slowed things down across the board.
From looking at some of the videos of this race, there's a lot more to be concerned with than the roll down. Looked like pros crashed on the bike because of athletes riding at them.
if you are saying that a race that race that awards pro slots for worlds should have a certain strength of field or price money level i would not disagree with your point . i hope its ok that i reverse engineer your argument, and it does not have to be a top level race but lets say at least 1 tier up.
and i also agree the male winner is an emerging talent but not yet to no 1 in the world but i think we can agree that his perofrmacne was a good bit better than 2rth or 5 place female. with winner female you could argue she just did enough to win.
but again if you say there should be a certain price money level attached to a world champ slot i agree with you.
at the same time its great that ironman has development pro races they are very important to get to the next level. like continental cups are very important in short course.