Had no idea about Montreal until I seen athletes posting about the heats on social media, just caught up on the women's..

Absolutely fascinating with arguably the 3 best women runners coming off the bike together, GTB has pretty much cemented her place as the number 1 women now and I can take personal satisfaction that I predicted this when she came onto the scene (its in this forum somewhere) another prediction of mine Beth Potter would break onto the scene at some point (I did a thread about her) think she's got another couple of levels to go up.

Great race overall, I'd actually prefer them doing these than normal sprint distances which are always too short a race for me.

That Pederson looks like she'll be doing some damage in a couple of years time (another prediction)

the person who is bragging about "predicting" GTB and Potter would be great is also the same person who is so out of touch with the sport he had no idea that there was not only a WTS race this weekend but a World Championship WTS race and age group World Championships? this reminds me of a stock analyst who makes horrific call after horrific call but finally gets one of his guesses right and then markets that he called a stock like Netflix.

i liked the change of pace with the super sprint eliminator format. i wouldn't want every race to be like this but 1 a year is good for the sport. bring back kitzbuhel too.

Alberte Kjaer is a formidable triathlete. She and Emma Lombardi are the best new girls coming...Cassandre seems also that has got matured.. I also like Laura Lindemann. So, these girls along with GTB and Flora seem to be aiming fine for Paris.
As for the boys, give Wilde a better swim and can be unbeatable, even facing Yee...and see what happens with Blum after Kona.
If i were Iden i would not go back to ITU, he has never excelled...

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

Guys... guys... you prefer watching a peloton roll around for 60 minutes?

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

Reply generally to the thread re: Montreal:

- the eliminator format was super exciting. I was out of breath just watching it at the end. Like others have said, I wouldn't want WTS races to be all in this format, but mix this in with Sprint/Oly distances, I think it's a great addition.
- it's kind of weird they had the Junior individual races but not for U23, and then mixed juniors and U23 for the mixed relay teams. So you have countries, e.g. the US, racing all juniors in the mixed relay because they didn't have any U23 athletes racing there; while other, e.g. Canada, raced with U23 athletes because they are the host and the athletes were available. So it's definitely not a level competition. Given the importance of mixed relay in the Olympics, I think it's great that World Triathlon is having these events, but they should do it seriously.

Yep :)

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"one eye doubles my eyesight, so things don't look half bad" John Hiatt

I'm definitely biased towards Canadian events, and there were great crowds for the Eliminator finals on Saturday, but the crowds were a bit smaller for the relay world champs on Sunday. It was an exciting race, but the crowd was nowhere near the madness you get in Hamburg (who will be hosting the Sprint/Relay worlds next year).

I personally like the format, I don't think it should replace other events, but having one or two/year as something different on the circuit would be ok. Most of the athletes seem to like it, although they find it tough. Especially when it was scorching like this weekend in Montreal. It was a shame that the qualifiers were following a Du format, since that likely influenced a bit of who went through (some of the strong swimmer's advantage was wiped, and the stronger runners had more real estate to use their advantage). And to be fair, the decision was precautionary in terms of the water. The gates that were opened into the river were rain water overflow to prevent flooding, because there wasn't enough time for the test after it happened to be processed, they canceled the swim. Once they got results that the water was fine, they were able to switch back to the swim for the weekend. I talked to several of the age groupers racing who were concerned with the water quality after friday's cancellations, but they said the water was fine when they raced.

Btw, I don’t see Joanna brown anywhere at the world triathlon races, what’s up with her, did she retire?

The problem is the type of circuit. I dont find loops in the flat downtowns very appealing. You put Kitzbühel or Arzachena with steep climbs and it is another story...We have gotten used to this s***y circuits, 180º turns and nobody cares... is it necessary to give 8 loops? I think 3 is more than enough and you can make a 13-14k course with climbs and descents.... Then, you can see the girls and guys running around the town...so, what is the problem?
I remember Athens 2004, that climb after T1 was inhuman...and in fact broke the peloton...

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

I believe she's currently back in school, I did see her name popping up on the Canadian University cross-country circuit. Not sure what her plans are in relation to returning to the circuit...

Men's race, Yee is turning himself into a winner, he had a terrible couple of races then just managed to pull it out of the bag at the end despite having a really bad day.

GTB on the mixed relay again pulled back an incredible amount of time to get us Brits back into 2nd, Luis was the other superstar performer for France, that swim was on another level.

Can we get Coach Barry back on commentary please?? Also someone who can speak English doing the interviews at the end would be handy!

Can we talk about Hayden Wilde's maneuver to fix his chain and chase back on for a second, that was hella impressive. The pack didn't attack him hard, but they didn't ease up to wait either (and he shredded his hand doing it, it looked gnarly when I talked to him during the relay). It was very reminiscent of Gustav Iden doing the same in Montreal in 2019, except that time, he wasn't able to chase back to a podium...

And yes, GTB was a beast. chasing back onto the US and the Kiwis, then gapping them to be able to serve the penalty that Dickinson got, and still holding onto the silver. Kevin McDowell is also returning to form, other than the hideous, un-aerodynamic moustache... It's also worth giving the Canadian team a shout out, with a different look team, and Mislawchuk racing subpar ailed by a stomach bug from Huatulco, they managed an impressive 5th with Legault, Paquet & Jamnicky rounding out the team, they look like an outside podium shot for the upcoming commonwealth games...

We've had some great British women (off the top of my head 3 World champions) but I think GTB is our best so far, my favourite at this point for Paris Gold.

Could be a good duel between GTB and Beaugrand if both can stay healthy between here and Paris

Possibly, but CB isn't nearly as good at Oly distance as sprint, she's going to need to sort her bike out before then if she's going to hang in that front pack.

Anyone any idea at all what this Paris course is going to be like?

Beaugrand is young and has come up through the French divisional racing. Predominantly at sprint distance, hence her strength over that distance.

Come Paris I think she will be on the rostrum and will be a strong contender for the top step. France have 6 athletes, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them is a domestique for Casandra.

I'm not sure a domestique will do her any good if Duffy and Knibb are hammering the front with a supporting cast of Learmoth, Coldwell and GTB.

She's got a lot of time to improve her bike till then though of course.

Re CB The problem is her handling and confidence isn’t it? She certainly had the watts in the arena games.

If that is the case why were Hayes and Hall put into domestique roles in London 2012?

There is 2 years to go and a lot can change especially as the younger athletes gain experience, particularly those who were significantly affected by COVID. Some of them weren’t able to ride draft legal races for a considerable time.

Has any domestique picked by GB for the Olympics actually had an impact on the race though? I'd say that they haven't

What relevance does the Brownlees having domestiques have to the CB situation?

I agree with @Jackets. @SheridanTris : Rather than a 2012 retro, please explain what role you had in mind for a domestique to help Beaugrand, in what race scenario? Bridging up to a breakaway front group? Giving her a wheel when she can't hold onto a breakaway because of poor bike handling (don't think her deficit is significant btw)?
The main challenge Beaugrand has to sort is (as said earlier) coping with a race which is 110 minutes long with a full 10 km to decide the win. Was surprised Potter didn't tuck in and hold her (but it was only 2km): she too will be a running force in Paris.

Jackets is British. He was saying a domestique wouldn’t do Beaugrand any good against the leaders (which I disagree with). I was merely pointing out that AB clearly thought a domestique could ride him back to the pack if needed.

Completely different scenarios, comparing two athletes with the strongest bikes to an athlete with one of the weakest.

I don't think France would go for a domestique anyway, they have strong women, I like the look at that Lombardi for the future, Periault is podiuming and having just as good as results as CB currently.

It was mentioned in commentary that Potter hadn't gone into her usual full run training as of yet, guessing peaking for the Commonwealths.

I wonder who makes that GB Olympic women's team, as usual someone who actually has a legit chance of a medal will get left out!