Skimming that quickly his positioning seems pretty good, except skipper’s maybe, especially his bike. Chartier the big unknown.

Really looking forward to this!

Let's make this one the "official" thread. Sticking this one up top.

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Im curious for the enforcement of drafting violations.

With the predictions, it will be a close race, where drafting and/or penalties can be decisive

I wonder how many male pros will run faster than Chelsea Sodero and how many go slower than her 8:33

Only about 8 MPROs ran better than her (sub 2:51+) in 2019. [Maybe worth taking care to spell the World Champion's name, Pal.]

Everyone from top 20 down could run slower than Sodaro.

Would think this year the competition and form of the top 20 at least should run around 2:50 or better.

Blu, Iden, Ditlev, Lange, Sanders, Skipper, Chartier, Hoffman, Currie, Nilsson, McNamee, Chevrot amongst others should all go under.

Think we will actually see fireworks on the run this year, more than any other

Pulling for the USA sweep… LFG

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I’ll guess Ditlev will make a new bike course record, Blu will smash the run record… but who will be fastest overall, and will Frodenos record fall?

Let's wager here. I don't think 5 men break 2:50 today. The pace is just going to be too hot on the swim and bike. In other IM's there are 30 guys who just dial in their watts and come to T2 well paced and run 2:45. Between Kona pace and Kona heat and also a bunch of them going full throttle back in St. George already, Kona there is historically barely 2-5 sub 2:50's.

In 2015 there were ZERO sub 2:50's and that's a year where Jan won. 2013 only Freddie Van Lierde and Tim O'Donnel ran the same pace as Chelsea (2:51).

2019 with lots of supershoes there were 5 sub 2:50.

Most of the guys will first over swim and overbike because they are not confident enough in their run relative to other guys who can also bike and run to let too much of a gap happen and just sit on their watts. It happens every year.

I’m very skeptical of 20 going sub 2:50 (or 2:55). Only 7 men went under 2:50 in 2019 which was a faster year. The women’s field had significantly fewer sub-3 and sub-3:10 times this year despite similar strength to 2019. Not that the women’s race is relevant but could speak to the general conditions.

Hard to tell if the stormy forecast will help or hurt on the run, depending on how the humidity shakes out.

I do think its going to require sub-2:40 to win.

I don't think there will be 20 going that far, but the weather here looks pretty okay for a pro run relatively speaking.

Hot, but the potential for some clouds. That said, I've seen that forecast all week then walked outside onto the surface of the sun so I guess we'll have to wait and see if it actually happens.

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I want to hear them being called 'Maurten Penalties".

In one of the Lionel vlogs Blu and Iden made it very clear they’re fans of drafting and will be using the 12m zone as much as possible. Not saying this out of disrespect but I do think it will play a big part in today’s strategy. Would love to see some of the Uber bikers get away and force them to chase, otherwise they’ll probably pull them to the win on the run.

 

Keeping in mind that she shuffled and walked through some of the run aid stations. Had she run through them she may have been a minute or two faster.

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

Pretty ambitious to think a bunch of people who have never done it in Kona "should" break 2:50 on the run IMO. Very few people actually do that. Probably will be mid-single digits like normal.

EDIT: Just for fun, here's the complete list of men who have done it the last 5 Konas

1. David McNamee
2. Jan Frodeno
3. Sebastian Kienle
4. Patrick Lange
5. Bart Aernouts
6. Tim O'Donnell
7. Ben Hoffman
8. Braden Currie
9. Jan Van Berkel
10. Dan Baekkegard

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I think it'd be fairer to say that they (and many others) are in favour of racing in accordance with the rules of the day. It must be hard for ITU/WT athletes stepping up to the PTO races to cope with the 'at least' 10m gap protocol and we've seen them struggle (Luis, Brownlee J, Spirig, Lopes, come to mind ottomh). But the Norges have scarcely ridden short course this year.
Good luck to anyone trying to legally draft Ditlev. He will be ahead of Iden at T1 and KB will not be prepared to go with him, bridging up to the front 9.
Ditlev has to get a decent gap on those capable of a sub-2:40 (Lange, KB and Iden (Skipper can too but will be further back, scalping the faders).
I expect Sanders and Skipper to work together and catch first Iden then KB but still have a substantial deficit at T2.
We saw on Thursday how having to work hard(er) on the bike detracted from speed on the run. Sodaro rode well and faced no wind till 75 miles. Moench worked (with Norden till Hawi PT) on the front of the chasing group for that 75 miles and seemed to pay for it with a poor (for her) run. Haug was forced to work from there (after Ryf hopped it) and bled time and her run was (for her) poor. Philipp, after her penalty had to ride 34-112 miles 'alone': again run emasculated. Ryf worked in that last hour on the bike and never seemed comfortable on two feet (in fact her whole swim/bike/run was 'off': I guess we'll discover why idc). LCB deserves credit for working on the bike (after taking the swim easy?) yet still holding it together for a solid run (especially given all the training weeks she's lost this year).
If KB and Iden are forced to work on the bike, their run will still be a weapon, but blunted. I expect Lange to never put his nose into the wind (justifying all the haters on here, but the engine ahead of him will not be blue, except Angert). And if that works out for him (allowing Ditlev to blow by), he will be in the box seat getting going on the out and back on Ali'i Drive.

Slight chance of rain. Could be the game changer for those contenders that push on the bike. If there is rain and if it does clear up it will be very sticky out there (above average for this time of year) as the humidity becomes all consuming. Tailwind out to Hawi is deceptive. Wishing the best to all today.

Curry says he's sick. Real unfortunate.

#Shoes
More than half of these 25 listed below will run under 2:50. Those in bold will go sub-2:45:
Patrick Lange Kristian Blummenfelt Gustav Iden Magnus Elbaek Ditlev Kenneth Vandendriessche Nick Kastelein Denis Chevrot Lionel Sanders Max Neumann Braden Currie David McNamee Matt Hanson Ivan Tutukin Chris Leiferman Robert Wilkowiecki Ben Hoffman Bradley Weiss Joe Skipper Andre Lopes Reinaldo Colucci Collin Chartier Clement Mignon Florian Angert Leon Chevalier Tim Van Berkel

Thunderstorms are forecast from 12pm onwards. They may miss the rain on the bike, but a good chance it will pour down on the run!

Let's wager here. I don't think 5 men break 2:50 today.//

I'll take that bet Dev, I say over 5 for sure. 20 bucks?? Shake...

Honestly I think 5 guys break 2;46 today(3 sub 2;40), and 8 to 10 break 2;50. I just got home from Kona this morning, but yesterday morning was the weekly cloud cover and I didnt find it uncomfortably hot. Could be that I have been in 100+ all summer long, but not as bad as I remember. The humidity is really bad, and with some rain like they predict, it could be super bad. But the other scenario is that it rains during the run, and that would be a game changer for some guys like Lionel.

The weather conditions look pretty much ideal. Looking at the wind map, the forecast couldn't be much better.

Or 5-10 minutes slower because she didn't get her nutrition and cooling in properly. You think she was walking the aid stations for fun?

dammit! is he racing?

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