I think Challenge Daytona today vs previous years can answer that question…

Does anybody really think LS tapered for this bike ride? If so, why would he? Positive he was carrying fatigue in the legs.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

I would wager 0.01%. We're triathletes... we only care about ourselves.

(Somewhat pink)

On a serious note it was a fun race with impressive times across the board.

Of course there's a market. The racers are "buying" the chance to race in Ironman with their time, travel, etc. There are so many pros wanting to race Ironman races that they'll travel thousands of miles of their own free will to race Ironman Indian Wells. The ITU racers don't need to do this. The already qualified for Taupo racers don't need to do this. They are racing because: they desire to, they see value in it better than the alternative. So by default, Ironman is offering an option that's better than the alternative.

Here's a thought, what would happen to the number of pro racers overall and the number at each event if the pros paid age grouper fees and then the prizes went up? Would the top athletes be upset that they are essentially taking money from the bottom pros at each race? Aren't you saying it would be better if instead the pro athletes took money from the age groupers (I gather, you're really just saying the investors and managment should just make less money and give more of it to the near endless supply of people who want to travel and get paid to exercise)? It's a lot of nerve if a pro athlete suggested that their loss shouldn't pay for another's win, while at the same time insisting that their own participation should be paid for by another's participation (or investment).

Let's take another exercise/sport like crossfit. Their pros have some qualifiers with smaller payouts and one big event with a massive payout, fully funded by a title sponsor (as far as I understand it).

It seems to me like Ironman has dozens of smaller payout events and a couple big prize payout events, now have this added series prize as well. I'm not sure if the marketplace of pro athletes is better off with fewer events that pay more. If I'm Ironman, my desire isn't to ensure the top pros get paid a bunch to race handful of times but to have as many races as reasonably possible for pros to race. That means a lower payout. It also explains why there are so many pros in the marketplace, and there are more wanting to come in. There are lots of chances to race. If Ironman had 5 pro races only, we'd likely see a lot less pros and less people hoping to go pro.

I do agree with the other comment the pros do add helpful legitimacy for these races when they come to town. A pro race is a focal selling point. But you can't take the economics from all AG Ironman races across the world and suggest that a race like Indian Wells needs to have massive payouts to compensate for that legitimacy. Why should a random city in Europe or elsewhere subsidize the desire to make Indian Wells look more legitimate?

I keep wondering how much time on the bike Lionel leaves on the table due to the swim and being gassed from that. Literally that guy must be using 2x the energy of the fish triathletes with his hips dragging, head high and quads kicking like crazy. Or maybe his engine is huge that its just a warmup, does not affect his bike, but catches up with him on the run. It is 2023 not 2014 when he broke on the seen and was a lot younger and could get away with it. Older = Older and he likely can't get away with bad swim form as he used to.

On a similar note, I have several friends that were racing today and one of them told me it was awesome to have Lionel passing her. She could hear the noise from his disc wheel coming and was wondering who or what it was.

I wish I was there today.

Pretty good job by Mikal Iden! I believe he's coaching most of the Norwegians on the podium and he also won his age group.

Big whoop who cares. He doesn’t have a YouTube that talks about minor details for 20 minutes that should have been implemented a decade ago.

He’ s really good at triathlon , and Norwegians dominated today.

The female winner was next level vs Tamara.

Side note this thread is talking about someone in a relay !!! An f ing relay in triathlon , what a joke. There is no relay in triathlon, it means three damn it.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

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Great work all around for Mikal and his team.

“Side note this thread is talking about someone in a relay !!! An f ing relay in triathlon , what a joke. There is no relay in triathlon, it means three damn it.”

LOL- relays have been part of triathlon from the beginning! Did you miss that the Olympic Games has a triathlon relay event?
You know what the Olympic Games do not have? A 70.3 or Ironman Triathlon!

Everyone in the relay at Olympics competes a full,shorter triathlon, swims bikes and runs, so times are more comparable to each other. Someone who does 1 or 2 legs in a team relay is not the same and cant be compared to someone competing an entire tri on their own. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a twat.

If people were paid for derailing threads, ST pundits would form the top 10% of society in terms of income...

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

They all are. We all are. We are triathletes

Err.. do you realize that both male and female winners were two ITU athletes in their off season building towards the Olympics?

It might not be about prize money (other than PTO it is very dire for these guys) but about exposure.

Back in 2018 ST was drooling over Sanders as per usual. Blu and Iden went and smashed a 70.3 and everyone accused them of drafting. Then they stuck around a little longer, smashed everyone over and over again in 70.3, 100k and full distance and now everyone in the sport know who they are. I would argue that Blu is a more popular Olympic champion by destroying the 70.3 and LC fields too.

The likes of Van Riel, Brownlee, Gomez, Stornes, Bergere, Luis, Solveith, Varga, Geens, Wylde (I can go on forever) realized it is a good career move. Go and smash most of a bunch of slower guys across longer distances and give yourself and/or sponsors a bit more exposure across obtuse IM obsessed crowds.

Lovseth doesn't even need to boost her popularity with sponsors, etc., I think. This screenshot is from GreenlightPT on Twitter.

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

Mikal's time would have put him ahead of about 20 Pros, and 30 minutes ahead of Ari Klau. And that was without him being challenged or pushed. .

Some of these guys are Pros in name only

Especially in America where Pro licenc(s)es are given out like Haribo.
There needs to be a requal system after a year with a licence, even if the initial qualification is 'easy'. These guys are just doing this for a cheap way to enter more than 2 IM branded races a year.
In the women's race, the top amateur (Brittani Shappell with 4:20) would have come #5 in WPRO behind Smith (ack bike environment/slip-streaming different). 20 WPRO finished.
Separately I was v surprised to see Lovseth swim so slow. How can she possibly be competitive in short course? She and Miller are uber-bikers but unfortunately are off the pace running 10km, let alone 5km.
Upthread it's said that Lovseth has a 1:14 half PB. Which is very decent in the middle/long course WPRO community - a SBR to get into top 10 in PTO races. But she's locked into Paris, in particular to the Norge MTR team with Blummenfelt and a tbd (Iden/Stornes/Thorn). And NTF will be desperate to keep her short course.

I was wondering this too! Some of the slower men arr 1h+ behind winner, total age group territory!

I guess it looks good on instagram to call yourself pro.

That's EXACTLY the point. Ironman is such good value for these guys, they want to show up, even if there's a risk of it costing them. I would not be the least bit surprised (would you?) to see them at 70.3 Worlds next year. So the value Ironman is offering is more than good enough. Another way to look at it, even with high prize purse of Nice this year, it was not enough to tempt KB to race in it, rather than continue his Olympic prep. Even though, you have to assume he could have trained to win or podium there. Same goes for Iden (personal issues aside). So prize money is not the main motivator at the high end or the low end, but it's a heavily contributing factor. They will still choose their own path (ITU guys focused on Olympics but willing to race low paying Indian Wells) that fits their goals.

So we are really just saying the money is some kind of bragging rights if it's not about attracting the best talent all the time? I think PTO shows the response there -- the athletes are willing to show up, but they also recognize outside the top 5 athletes the chances of a win are very slim, so they still prioritize by picking races according to their goals. I'm just pushing back against this idea that the prize purse is suboptimal. If anything, the fact that random ITU guys show up, not caring about the prize purse, and other ITU guys skip larger prize purse nice, it shows the prizes aren't so decisive.

I will say that Jackson Laundry impresses me the most this year. If he skipped travelling outside of the USA to Lahti, and just went all in on the PTO US Open it looks like he could have been top 5 pretty well. If I'm the likes of Sanders, Long, and Laundry, I wouldn't leave North America next year.

I was wondering this too! Some of the slower men arr 1h+ behind winner, total age group territory! //

Here is what chaps my hide when talking about pros that have a mechanical, are injured but race anyway, or just having a plain bad day and pull the plug early but still finish. If they quit the race, most bag on them for quitting(even thought that is the smart thing to do, live to fight another day), but when the limp home, you all use that time and place to compare to AG'ers that had a great day. Can't have it both ways folks, either they are smart and quit bad races for whatever reason, or they finish and you then cannot use that time and place as a comparison against AG'ers....


And correct me if I"m wrong here, but the increased pro field size and quality here was so that they could get a next year worlds spot? You know, the one that is going to give bonus points for the new Ironman series? A race you have to qualify for??

Are you one of those stubborn and headstrong ST users???? What’s wrong with people??? Athletes do relays due to many reasons. Injury, wants to see what Ironman is about, for fun, family activity, team building…etc. Why you have such a strict rule? Jeez… give people some slack.

Pseudo Pros can't use the "had a mechanical, am injured but racing anyway, or having a bad day and pull the plug early but still finish" excuse again and again. I sha'n't trawl through but most of the slow third of both fields (M&W USA) have history of this level of performance. Give athletes a chance but they should have to consummate that in their first year.
Wrt "the increased pro field size and quality here was so that they could get a next year worlds spot" I suggest you're wrong. The Pro fields' sizes had zero to do with Taupo: it's just a good race before Christmas. As to quality, there was a (successful) Viking raiding party and (I think) they all got Taupo slots. They could come to race in California in their easy not-off-season without prejudice to Paris prep and look forward to Taupo in 12 months (maybe get to PTO Tour Ibiza as well).
The Taupo qualification period finishes on 30 June (don't quite understand why so early for a December race).
https://files.constantcontact.com/...a14-689124e00d3a.pdf
#2 #3 #4 in WPRO all already had their Taupo slot: the SOF was low. Most of the US athletes in the first 10 had Taupo slots already (so they weren't motivated for the reason you describe).
Any athlete who seriously think they can finish top 10 in the IM Series aren't going to have trouble qualifying for either Taupo or Nice/Kona. The IM Series reward for #11-#50 is $5,000: which can subsidise their travel expenses to their chosen 5 races. This 'initiative' is focused on a very similar set (top 20 men and women) as those who would've expected to to sign PTO contracts.

Amen. There’s plenty of threads on here filled with folks complaining about former pros or pros from other sports winning AGs.

I was pointing out why anyone would bother talking about that performance in a comparative sense to other competitors or even as a test event.

That's the only part I was strict on. You can't compare to others as you are not doing the same event.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

Do you have the numbers on that?

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Let food be thy medicine...