Overall my pov loved the coverage.

Jan is great, Jack has really improved, kudos to him

The only thing I cannot fathom is why the standings are not live all of the time. I can't think of another broadcast sport (mainstream) where you don't see the live score.

They had so many timing mats, is there a reason why they don't show it.

Otherwise it's great.

And the narrative thing, have to admit I thought it's a Gimmick, but it's not. It's already there

Athlete of the year so far has to be Sam Long. I'm not from the US but what a character and what a super athlete.


Love this series!

The part about live timing is pretty simple, no one is choosing to pay for enough timing mats that give you a legit, real time leaderboard. I think the only time this was done was Challenge Daytona.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Jack apologized constantly for the missing on-screen timing information. I agree it should be there (and better, show gaps not totals) but it was obvious it was not deliberately missing.

At one point if you went to their site, they had data that you could watch in a second window if you chose to.
I can see all the arguments, pro and con why this is good/bad.

Not sure they still do it

Just finished watching.

Great Broadcast again. Great camera shots. They covered the back of the bike a lot better too.

I haven't followed the rest of the commentary, but I hope everyone is fuming about the lack of integrity in the officiating. I'd like to say they lack balls, but it's worse than that. The officials are clearly the worst of the euro style officiating that call penalties on imaginary lines that affect nothing and ignore race changing draft packs. They don't view officiating as a way to protect the integrity of the race but flex their muscles on nonsense.

Suit next to your bike? Penalty! Big toe touched the line as you jump off the bike? Penalty!

Massive draft packs constantly yo-yoing? Maybe give them a stern talking to? You kidding me? You see the red light flashing, you make a pass. You don't pass, you get nailed. We can't blame turns and hills for all of this. There was plenty of opportunity to make the pass and the athletes just chose to sit in and back out.

The racing is great, but like last year the PTO has shown it's poor officiating is actually getting in the way of the race.

Yuri raced amazing, but he was part of that draft pack in the first lap (or two?) as well. If penalties were handed out properly and drafting less of a factor, those pack riders are stopping part way through the bike and Sam is now getting off the bike in the same group.

I ask again, what's the point of the 20m draft zone with the race ranger if we just allow racers to yoyo in and out of 12 meters anyway and use the light to more carefully calibrate their drafting?

Just woke up and watching the replay and that front pack on the bike looks like a Christmas tree with all the red lights.

Also, is it so hard to show stats on screen? I have absolutely no idea where people are placed.

The bit where they are interviewing Chelsea and it coincides with the men going through the aid station and we can see Peter Heemeryck get it on the first go was hilarious. Someone even said to Rachel on the ear piece "that's how it's done, Chelsea" XD I bet that was Jan.

That's true!

But I was watching on TV. It's the only sport I watch in TV where I need another device to see the score. I which they would fix that.

Timing mat data is also fine, there are loads of them.

Golf, for instance, you get the score each hole.

But something..

Men's race was kind of a mess. The reffing is a joke and needs to be addressed ASAP. What is the point of race ranger if you're not going to penalize anyone? It also looked like someone jumped the gun at the swim start.

The broadcast was mediocre I thought. Jack has improved tremendously, but still said some dumb/inaccurate things throughout. The lack of graphics was an issue and the then the few they got up were filled with errors. In the lead up they were talking about having a ton of timing mats, but of course they were not used and we had no leaderboard for most of the race. This was disappointing. There's just so much that needs to improve as the season goes on.

Congrats to Youri. T100 better be letting him line up at every race this year, but I wonder what happens if all 20 contracted athletes show up while Youri is ranked #1 in the series.

Ya. They have the data so they are making a conscious decision not to clutter the screen which I find interesting. Would love to be a fly on the wall at the meetings they decide this.

So, people saying Sam Long wasn't fully focused on T100 or whatever, or that he set himself up poorly for T100. Currently atop the leaderboard for PTO's 100k Series.

Now, I think that clearly shows that this is multisport, not fast swimmers dominating. It's clear that "Bike for Show, Run for Dough!" Remains incredibly important. The only way to change this is maybe make the the swim significantly longer than it currently is and shorten the bike and run. But then that doesn't fit the broadcast at all.

Alistair Brownlee, as I've said, he's had so many injuries I didn't understand how he could be a "hot shot" and where he's at in his career. Same with Javier Gomez Noya. So you got one race where he overcooked and now you got one where he injured himself?

You know what I love about PTO and Ironman right now? Is that more money is on the table. And Ironman isn't doing contracts and limiting fields. Something people on this board have complained and advocated for. So now we'll actually see really sizeable fields at races, an actual professional product can be made.

Singapore as a course was significantly better than Miami, probably the best PTO course set up I've seen. Milwaukee was probably more to my liking. Now, did that truly show on the broadcast? No. But that's a directing issue. Does it also make me want to go to Singapore? Not really.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

So, people saying Sam Long wasn't fully focused on T100 or whatever, or that he set himself up poorly for T100. Currently atop the leaderboard for PTO's 100k Series. //

What people, you just made that up didnt you?? And he is in 2nd at the moment just for accuracy..

Sam is riding his hot streak at the moment, and great to get in two of the four PTO races in great scoring position, never know what will happen late season. Some guys are having their tough time up front, always the way it is, some out the gate like gang busters, others finish off the season on their highs...

No I didn't. Go find Brooks' comments. He wrote it multiple times.

Appears that they have to manually update their website.

After Miami, Ditlev was first with 35 points and Long was second with 28 points. Ditlev didn't race Singapore.

But, you're right I just did the math. But you can blame Jack for that as he said it on the broadcast so I just regurgitated it.

Long
Miami - 28
Singapore - 28
Total - 56

Keulen
Miami - 22
Singapore - 35
Total - 57

Crazy how people complained about Knibb's amount of points over second in the Ironman series. But the PTO series rewards first significantly as well. To the point where two seconds doesn't put Long at the top.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Crazy how people complained about Knibb's amount of points over second in the Ironman series.//

So now you are making up another thing that did not happen, people commented on Knibb's performance, no one complained about it..And yes, 1st place usually in any sport gets a bonus for the rest of the field, Triathlon is no different in that regard. And there should be a bonus for winning, it is after all the hardest place to get in a race....

What are you talking about? There's plenty of chatter around this.

https://twitter.com/Timheming/status/1776735088769745219

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Couldn't agree more. Exactly the same thoughts as I had during following the race.

First of all Youri needs an ADAMS-Account and regular OOC-Tests. Until now the dutch federation has not included Keulen in their Where-About-System.

His coach Kosta Poltavets is a former Coach of the russian Speedskating-Team, responsible for that team during the olympic games in Sootchi when the biggest doping fraud ever with the russian team happened.

I don't believe in miracles.

I just read Kara Goucher’s book and am in a “don’t trust any athlete/coach” kind of point just now!

Wish I could have watched both races in their entirety but its been a busy weekend, I thought they got everything spot on, and let me give Belinda a shout out, cos no one else has, think she's brilliant on commentary.

Not going to pretend I know anything about the dude who won the race, fair play to him. Fair play to Sam Long also he's absolutely killing it, agree with the Kona comment someone said, seems to race very well in hot conditions.

Hope Ali's injury isn't another 'needs an operation' injury.

OOC testing isn’t happening from T100 at the moment. A testing pool was mooted last year but doesn’t currently exist. If he’s not on his national federation testing pool, we can essentially assume he’s not on one at all. We didn’t even have blood spot testing at athlete sign on prior to this race like PTO events in the past. It would be interesting to know if he was tested after his post-race hospital visit, as the other men on the podium were.

It would be great if we we’re all subject to the same testing standards, but that doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment.

---

http://www.josh-amberger.com/

It was good to see you out front of that swim Josh. Did Aaron pick up the pace on that 2nd lap or slow you down?

+1

And it was funny hearing Jan comment on his musical taste

What’s Jan’s taste in music? I don’t know at all, but I bet it’s shithouse ;)

Aaron made it pretty uncomfortable. He had a VERY heavy kick and I swallowed a lot of water. I would rather have stayed in the lead tbh. As for an increase pace, it’s hard to know, the pack was huge. It’s very difficult to create separation at the moment.

---

http://www.josh-amberger.com/

Well Ash gets to go home with a big W and you get to go home with Singapore belly. Good balance between you two.

Looks like you may not be far off on Jan's music taste: https://open.spotify.com/...?si=9e142d5bdee142a3