That's a great womens field, I think the strongest thus far in the series, and by a bit..

And to all the folks wondering why Knibb is racing and worried for her short course prep, this is nothing. No doubt she hasn't changed her training for the games one iota, and she will race this on that training. Look what she did at the 70.3 in oceanside with maybe one or two sessions only for that longer distance, crushed the field by 11 minutes. It is all the same sport folks, and when you are as good as she is, just doing your normal training for whatever race you are pointing for, gets you pretty much able to any distance up to double what you are training for.

No doubt she will crush this race too, and it was probably a long hard training day in the schedule anyway, without a hard travel..Really is nice to already have your spot on the team, allows this kind of schedule, wish Spivey had that luxury and she could be pitching up at these early T100 races too.

knibb raced oceanside, but not STG 70.3 which are NA champs, going to do T100 san fran. sooo, was STG 70.3 NA champs? guess not

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I don't think that any of the continental "Championships" really mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

Extra slots

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

No doubt she is one of the best (if not the best across all distance) all round triathletes in the world right now. But you are looking at things from the perspective of an ITU athlete stepping up and doing well at middle distance, i.e. adding some long runs and bikes. If she was the fastest ITU athlete I'd tend to agree with you, but she isn't. Her run isn't at the level of Potter or Beaugrand and IMHO I'd be having her work on all out flat run speed. She is unlikely to bike away from the field in Paris because she will come out the swim with a pack of other athletes some of whom will be capable of sitting on her wheel. To win the Olympic triathlon, as has been proved in every event so far held, you need to be the best runner.

Crazy good list, WC level for sure, I'm already excited to see them compete.

If everyone listed starts (plus 4 wildcards) this field is the strongest SOF we've seen and better than any self-styled world championships in history. But at this stage of the season, as part of a series, and recognising about half the athletes have other fish to fry, very few if any will be on 'championship' form.
I expect Spivey to get an Olympic slot (she'll know by 28 May). If not I'd be amazed if the PTO didn't print #21 for (and expect at least one athlete to drop out in the final 10 days). Otherwise (on list):
Gentle: Benchmark, but cold water
Haug: I sincerely hope she is well.
Ryf: Ditto (see video)
Philipp: Struggled in Valencia against average opposition; we'll see more in Mallorca this w/e
Knibb: Focus on Olympics (18>10k) and likely very little TT riding (same as Oceanside), and others' comments above
EPB: Lots of racing, as normal
Sodaro: Hope we see the best Sodaro. Is this and London her only two races before Nice?
Matthews: IM Hamburg 6 days earlier
Lee: Well again, I hope, and can prove it at Samorin.

Nicola Spirig did a 70.3 2 weeks before winning Olympic gold in London - when she could have done a sprint in Hamburg - because Sutton thought the aerobic run would be better training than running fast in competition that close to the games. Where Knibb's training is at and with her injury history - it's probably best she isn't running too much fast stuff honestly. I don't know that pushing the razors edge is the best way for Taylor to get ready for the Olympics personally. This could be a brilliant sustained hard effort which might be what's needed for her in Paris whether we think she can get away or not.

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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!

Men's start list added today (but only 16: no wildcards):
https://stats.protriathletes.org/...00/2024/participants
Baekkegaard, Chevalier and Laidlow missing, and still no sign of Neumann.
Van Riel there, as previously heralded. I do hope he's not adversely affecting his build up to his Olympic dream (to achieve an even better place than in Tokyo).
Brownlee (fit again?) and Gomez on it too.
Assume Keulen will be added as one of four wildcards.
Will a rib stress fracture stop he who must not be named (PTO Rank #20) from accepting the wildcard he has surely been offered? Can he rehab in less than 50 days from injury?
Laundry a possible wildcard? And maybe Appo (after IMOz success) and Stepniak (after #7 in Singapore)
Will the PTO delay on the last wildcard slot till after Mallorca and Iden's comeback?

https://stats.protriathletes.org/rankings/men

I see Alistair and Gomez, and I'm already fired-up. Bogen & Royle will probably join them on the swim. Let's hope as many of the guys will stay health (or some like Magnus will get healthy by then).

Where the hell is Max Neumann? Jack said for Singapore he just had some family stuff to sort out, but now he's not on this start list.

On a separate note, you can now sign up for the T100 race, but only via a $1,174 hotel package.

Up until recently I had an airbnb reserved at the T100 Vegas location and I just canceled it a few days ago when looking over my schedule.

I felt it's not worth the effort to travel to a race if they still don't have all their ducks in a row. The time, travel and lodging is the most significant cost in itself and the risk of it being a one-off learning experience for the PTO seems high. If I lived in the Vegas area, no risk.

They just haven't shown they are worth it the risk and the risk of "missing out" and having the most amazing experience is low.

Is there even a course map for San Francisco yet?

I just pulled the trigger on that package for Las Vegas. You concerns are all valid and I'm definitely skeptical about how it will all come together, but I wanted a race around that timeline and it's a short flight from PDX.

The package really wasn't bad (for me), to stay close most hotels were more expensive than the package and I've had too many bad experience with Airbnb (and no group to warrant a full house for a few days). Fingers crossed it isn't a total cluster.

Have they even said what day the ag race is? When do the pro's race?

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I saw somewhere on the site that pros are Saturday the 19th, AG is Sunday the 20th.

edit: Found it, buried in the verbiage "Join us for what is set to be a high stakes weekend of multisport racing by registering for the ultimate 100km triathlon distance on Sunday 20th October"

The package application says: October 20.
https://in.registrations.protriathletes.org/...-las-vegas-t100-2024?
My understanding is that the men and women Pros are racing on successive days (19th and 20th). Miami and San Francisco are the only venues where the two races are on the same day.

I just figured Taylor wanted to get one more draft legal racing prep in.

I doubt it will be a total cluster, although always possible. I'm just thinking thinking it will be closer to a local Olympic distance level of organization compared to Ironman. Volunteers will be stretched thin as they havent spent anytime lining them up yet.

Then I'm worried they are likely to rely on a ton of laps in that neighborhood to make up the course as I have seen no indication of work on longer distance road closures.

So ya, I'm thinking best case it's like local Olmypic. The fanfare with the pros will be fun, I hope.

Thank you. I'm considering signing up but still unsure with so little details.

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Are you @Kyle.Glass' shill?
Race Ranger set at 20m will ensure there's minimal 'close encounters'. And I'd also point out that Knibb will just be blasting past after taking time to put socks on in T1. She'll have no company for any of the 80km.

Hah, just having fun.

But there's ZERO evidence that race ranger will ensure there's minimal close encounters (I guess we can argue over close definition), and a lot of evidence race ranger will be used to yoyo in and out of the draft zone with deniability;
here come the excuses already:
1. There's a lot of hills in San Francisco, you can't expect people to pass on a hill just because they've entered and exited the draft zone 5 times in the last 10 minutes?!
2. There's a lot of turns in the course, you can't expect people to compensate for that and pass if they get into the draft zone on every single turn??!?

There are some athletes who when they enter the draft zone, they pass, even when it sucks and they worry they'll simply have to get passed back again. And there are some athletes who yo-yo in, getting a resting break and point to course ambiguity/difficulty. Race ranger enables the latter and the PTO doesn't seem to mind so far.

Was an 'on point' comment, in glacial style.
Just this w/e we saw Findlay having to burn matches with several athletes with MPro licenses (who had RR on of course) during the St George ride. With her for almost the whole 90km were Webster and Scheel. And we saw her 'live' having to burn matches when they slowed, and then yo-yo-ing past later; and again.
They're clearly capable runners, btw, as they ran 1:16 and 1:17.
Back to T100, I hope that there's an earnest and unhurried effort to educate the ref cabal (USAT certified) they deploy on the loop through the Presidio on how RR works and how moto referees can use its indicators sensibly. It needs to be used for repeated errors, not the first red flasher they see, using any flashes as an 'alert'. And take into account the concertinaring you're bound to get in dips and into corners so tight that braking may be applied by the leading indoor Zwifty. The following athlete(s) get minimal or no benefit from temporary closing up of that kind as any cyclist noe.

I’d love to see Lagerstrom get a wildcard considering his past success at Escape from Alcatraz.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Not really quite the same. He who shall not be named wanted Nicola to race a 70.3 as a means to slow her down in training only two weeks before the Olympics. The work had all been done, it was a way of making sure she would not kill herself training high intensity and risk injury this close to the big day. And with him, there's also always some mental game going on (in preparation of his athletes).

Not to say that I think Taylor doing SF is a big negative deal for her Olympic prospects. Just saying it's not exactly the same as what Nicola did back then before both London and Rio.