I agree your 'just in; back off' coolness.
Listening to Findlay (and hearing it through other channels) for the T100 races these athletes are living together for 6 days, every T100. I am more sanguine than you: I think all the athletes will buy into this. The contracted ones will spend a tenth of then year in the same hotel. The wildcards will want a second invite.

As has been said before, RR offers targeting info. And those red flashing lights can be seen from a long way back, before the wheel sucker will be aware of the moto. I can see the moto ref holding back and using the RR lights to be assured there's infringement which merits penalising. They just have to be sure that a pass is not being made (and can time the passed rider's 'drop back' when overtaken). Specific moto ref training is required: taken seriously and not just lip service.
Making remote judgement based on data is a course of action fraught with difficulty: to my mind ill-advised.

Oh what I'm saying is, you don't need buy in from the T100 athletes; it will be there by default. When your doing 3-6mi laps, you will always have enough officials around that the athletes by default will "fall in line". I was more referencing IM events when it's 80 male and female pro's all over a 50 mile road with 4 refs. You will certaintly then see just how much "buy in" you get from those pro's in that instance.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

My issues with the PTO is they are spending so much money to buy talent but not enough money and effort to effectively showcase that talent.

The broadcast and race itself had too many beginner-we'll-do-better-next-time issues.

It's not that anyone there needs to be fired (maybe so, but I'm in no position to judge), but that it seems like there aren't enough skilled people behind the scenes to cover all the bases of putting on a show. Like... you know maybe do a trial race the week before with some Age groupers to test the broadcast, lighting, graphics, see what's needed etc sense you're allegedly trying to do something new and improved?

That's costly. It's time consuming. But when you only get a few races a year to broadcast and you're literally inventing the methodology and content on the fly maybe spend money and time on preparation instead of bigger prize packages? Or do both?

We keep cutting them some slack or we keep hearing "we're learning and will do better" and it keeps having new issues or the same ones. Who is making the call not to feature Sam Long leapfrogging the competition? Why is that content not being planned for from the outset? If it can't be done in a track, how can it ever be done?

How can they talk about the importance and absence of crowds from previous races and act like they learned their lesson in Milwaukee and Singapore and then start from square one with no crowds?

Some of these issues make me think the PTO will not make it passed this year if some massive amount of new money doesn't come in. I hope they arent stretching themselves too thin paying pros. There's no reason they couldn't have called some schools and bussed in cross country teams, etc in exchange for donations if they wanted crowds.

I know I'm being harsh, but only because this is supposed to be a professional organization with tens of millions of dollars specifically to put on an epic broadcast. And it doesn't appear to be using that money to a result the investment was intended for.

Again I think they are trying to figure this all out on the fly. They are playing checkers when they need to be looking at it like it’s chess. No one is going to come to your events. Full stop. So build in the timeline where they basically can’t not be there after the AG events

Why was the telecast at 1pm a full 2-2.5 hours after the AG sprint wrapped up which began at 8am. Have the race at 11am and 70% of the AG participants would have watched on sheer curiosity alone. I bet the AG athletes that morning didn’t even see the pros, so they’re like “screw waiting”.
The whole idea to team up with AG events is to help build an on site audience and vibe. If they are dead set on some race start time (has to be exactly prime time Euro time), they are going to fail.

Again they need anti yes man badly. Macca apparently wasn’t picked for that role, but they need someone to tell them “mate that’s a fucking terrible idea”. But again it almost feels like they are simply doing all this on the fly.

This was going to be the best professional broadcast of the year. NASCAR produced, etc. No way the nascar guy is there in Singapore or other events doing play by play. So they lost a big opportunity here.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

So an organization that pays millions to athletes to fund their training lifestyle profession would find it unacceptable to pay twenty or thirty thousand in total to a few local tri clubs and other sports high school teams and clubs to come watch their event and have a back drop of fans? They can get crowds without needing to subsidize an expensive AG race.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but what I'm saying is if the AG race is already in place, utulize that better as a start maybe? There were 400+ AG athletes who raced Saturday AM. You start that race 2 hours early (again this is a 7+ hour telecast if your trying to go prime time in Euro that means your ending well past midnight there (which is going to end up being another whole issue they must solve- 7+ hour telecast just is not going to work).

The main issue for a track specific "spectator" is that the spectator will never be in the actual stands where they normallly would be, they would be all forced in basically pit road area. So sorta an Kentucky Derby style "infield" viewing. Any other venues they can sorta fill out along the transition area + move around however they want. So the on site viewing at a track is the worst position to be in for any triathlon races, your limited by where you can and more importantly can't go. So in that sense, your both limited in how many you can basically bring in and manage as well. So while I think it's a good idea to bus in 5k people, I think there is an internal dialogue at these specific tracks that don't want to manage that. Again the actual stands are off limits for these races, you'd end up losing money by paying staffers to manage that for 888 people. So I think for track specific venues there are some internal on site "that aint happening" that PTO is also up against from track management.

Go to Daytona- you will basically be shot by on site by security staff if you even come within 1ft of the grass....the Daytona "grass" is more protected than the athletes. (yes I know this was Miami).

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Excellent ST interview of India Lee: https://www.slowtwitch.com/...lected_Win_8913.html
Well done KJ.
ProTriNews review: https://podcasts.apple.com/...ri-news/id1559781865

We talk our talk... https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-7c5fq-15b2cf7

---

---

E-DUB
Chief Janitor @Slowtwitch
Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

@Eric, @Ryan- I guess I don't want to go too much "inside baseball", but.....Can you still provide good content from your couch with how good of quality the race broadcasts are? The race broadcast + the racing splits from their app can pretty much give you what you want from an content standpoint right? I get it, on site is always preferred better, but being a world tour, they have locations that will prevent you guys from being on site, I would assume (regardless of how the Miami race was for you)? And I understand on site you get better experience, the "on site vibes", likely better post race interviews, etc. But I think you can put out a damn good content / recap from home?

I'd hate to see ST go radio silent on this big of a race series and all in on some gravel or trail ultra (yes ST now has an dedicated pro tri writer, so I don't think it'll completely go away?). If your telling me the ST is more engaged in trail runs, I guess I'm too stuck in the sub segment that is pro racing to believe you. Considering ST is "the" triathlon hub I would think it's a no brainer you cover that type of racing series with more than just a 2 line write up summary like last year.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

To be clear -- the vast majority of our pro race coverage is done from home.

Here's where the rubber meets the road: when it comes to World Triathlon, or IRONMAN, or CLASH, or Challenge -- we're allowed to make news. We can post our race reports as soon as we're done writing them. We have easily accessible photo licensing.

When it comes to the PTO, it is a strange position where they are simultaneously a race producer, a pseudo governing body (with their rankings), and a media entity. And there's some palpable tension between some media outlets and the PTO on their media stuff.

Ultimately it's a question of -- what lane is the PTO going to occupy? Because if they want to bull through and own all the media coming out of the events...well, good luck to them. We won't stop them. They've got a lot more cash to burn than we do. But that doesn't mean we're going to help give them endemic coverage for it.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Let me correct myself. It's an PTO vs "media" as a whole problem that ST personal are voicing.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

To be very clear, it's not "just" a ST thing, as Eric alluded to on the podcast.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Understood, all I'll say is that this reminds me of why Triathlon can't have nice things.

(And I'm not pointing fingers at any one entity but more everyone because *everyone* loses with this type of actions/counteraction "in fighting").

So I guess we'll be seeing more gravel articles and trail ultra races based on the pod.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Or, you know, we can do both.

But event diversification is happening -- we need to be where our audience is. That means gravel and trail, too.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Check your DM Ryan.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Hey Brooks,


You sure will :) We are excited to report about what our community is doing.

---

E-DUB
Chief Janitor @Slowtwitch
Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

Is what the community is doing or what your own passion projects are (like Herbert's swim/run series of articles)? Obviously gravel and trail runs are def becoming a bigger thing in the endurance world, especially with traffic issues. But if you guys change your style of reporting on PTO because of the media policies they are implementing, that would be a shame, because I think ST is a gold standard in the tri industry. It's almost seemingly a "must report on" type of story, but it's yall's sandbox at the end of the day.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Then I would suggest you take up you beef with them not us. We simply work with where we are welcome.

---

E-DUB
Chief Janitor @Slowtwitch
Life is short. Dont be mad all the time.

Pssst it's not a beef. It's trying to get you to realize it would be a mistake to not cover PTO based on your own website's traffic. You talk about what your community is engaged in....Look at the 1st page of this forum, how many T100 threads there are. I think I counted 1 ultra event in the 1st page.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

General reminder that what generates interest on the forum is not the same as readership on the editorial side. Hint: the T100 articles have not been the most read front page stories this month.

And a general reminder that we haven't made any final decision on what it means for our editorial beyond "we won't travel to a T100 event if that's our on the ground experience." And we'd need to come to some type of understanding on what image rights, etc. look like if we're not going to be relying on PTO providing them to us for stories -- and that has to be an irrevocable transfer of rights for editorial purposes.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

i just did the same and i saw an ultra run thread.
0 gravel .
at the same times many adds are indeed gravel based.

I guess my comments are more in generalities disappointment. That among the best triathlon sites in the world is having editoral debates on how it's going to cover the biggest pro series in the sport......that is a very sad reality. So not faulting anyone. Just that we seemingly can't have nice things if this much "in fighting" is going on within our sport behind the scenes.

I would wager there is 100x more activity in the forum than anything on the front page.

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I accept payment via Venmo or via delivery of bourbon to the house.

I owe Renouf a bottle of bourbon, you could send it to him directly in London.

---

----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Show me the numbers in DM. I mean by default there is 30 forum threads and how many front page articles a week at ST? 10? It's not saying much that I think the forum gets more traffic.

Based on the "Most Popular" the following are listed on the front page:
1) India Lee upsetting LCB to win T100
2) Ditlev winning T100
3) Hookless tire crisis
4) T100 field analysis
5) airpod/tag article


(this was as of right now when I just viewed the front page)

---

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Just a general comment on the PTO and ST.
I find it headshakingly crazy that so many people are like a dog with a bone about all things PTO. I get that the whole development of "Organization " has been far from perfect but here we are with a cool pro race series to watch and yet there is so much criticism,most of which comes from people who will never race any PTO events.
It seems that people will bitch about the PTO until it goes under at which point everyone will turn around and say "That is a shame,it was such a great series"
Maybe I am in the minority here, but as long as they have these events I will be thankful and I am sure the Pro's racing them feel the same way.