This. Absolutely this. The money is actually irrelevant: the contract requires them to race 6 times. They "can't" or won't race 140.6. If they have a T100 contract: race. If not already qualified, slot in a 70.3 to get a Taupo start before or after 'northern California' (8 June) - NB must be by 30 June.
Gentle raced 8 times last year. Findlay (next MD only athlete in rankings) raced 7 times.
T100 x 6 (incl GF) a 70.3 and Taupo is entirely doable. Can't help thinking Knibb will be fresher than Gentle come late November (GF) and December (NZ).

Don’t see a Magnus thread, but thought this video would be of interest to folks:

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Magnus is a cool dude.He takes "laid-back" to a whole new level

T100 Tour - Behind The Scenes Untold Stories with Sam Renouf:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pto-tour-behind-the-scenes-untold-stories-with-sam-renouf/id1595443343?
More from Renouf with Kelly asking short questions, for those with curiosity AND patience.

Principles:

• Season long narrative
• Series ties together
• Locations - importance
• Athlete group consistency (fan base and media support)
• Prestige (money important, authenticity with TRI)
• Technology (HR, power for near-real time broadcast/second screen)
  
• Brand clarity/identity
  
• Events building to festival multisport participation, grow sport

This got me thinking. Let's say 50% of the t100 racers go out and qualify for Taupo. December comes around and they think they want to race, but things don't come together and one by one they bail. Does IM offer roll downs if there is time?

Was thinking about this whole "season long narrative" and I think this idea that you can create one becomes incredibly tough. it's one thing to have a 6 month season and you play a match every weekend or 4 games/week. But this "regular season" is 7 races over 6 months and then a final.

-"prestige" - potential
-"Technology" - this had been a struggle, they need to work on graphicl representative before the second screen. But they need more timing mats to make the second screen worth it...and it needs to be accurate. Milwaukee showed that comms can't even read the tracker and make accurate predictions.
-Brand Clarity? Changing your name every few years doesn't create such. Have to be consistent.
- Event building will be interesting. We'll see.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I think the season long narrative is more that there finally is an series where the top names and the same athletes race against each other over and over or what 5 out of 8 times a year. Again it's basically WTCS 2.0, which is exactly what you want when you are marketing a brand....Consistency. That's what the season long narrative is basically going to allow, you know for the most part that XYZ athlete is going to be there with every telecast.

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

I struggle with the idea that this didn't happen in Ironman. Sure, Ironman could have supported less pro racing and have bigger purses in certain races instead. But that means a smaller professional sport. Do you want this to be a small and incredibly niche sport or do you want it to be expansive? For example, look at professional marathoning. There isn't a narrative whatsoever. The "Majors" are a series over two years, not one.

I think what people are trying to achieve with the narrative bit are overthinking this. One of the reasons you get a narrative in say Golf and Tennis is that these folks play A LOT. Similar to team sports.

That's not what we're getting going to get here due to the volume required to train and then compete.

I'm interested to see how this plays out, but wonder how conflated it will be and if it looks more like "the bachelor".

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

It's not happened in IM because there's never been an directive to make it happen (you have guys that race 3 times a year and win the world's biggest races; there is zero "season" narrative in LC racing prior to this). That's why I said this is WTCS 2.0. This is the same 30 athletes racing each other 5 times a year. That's huge for a product that is trying to make it "big time" imo.

So I disagree with your assessment- it's simply, now they have actually have the ability to do a "season narrative", cus you guessed it...there's an actual "season" of races. (again why I say it's WTCS 2.0). With the season end bonuses, the pay structure as it is (appearance fees more than "salary), your going to easily have the same athletes racing the majority of the events (and still miss a few of the races). You've never had that setup in this sport, so I think your assessment is incorrect.

But to be fair, IM has never needed to do this. And the IM distance obviously is not advantagous to making pros race an IM every month. So I think it was PTN last week on their podcast, to compare the 2 series is almost comical- the T100 truly is a "middle" distance racing series; it's basically only compared to IM because of the non-draft nature.

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

Thx for posting that interview. JK’s podcasts are not in my rotation so I would have never listened if not for your post.

I thought it was a good interview. To hear they are going to do an specific anti doping program, I’m very skeptical, but that may be way easier to say they are going to do something than actually doing something (they mention specific in and out of comp testing)….I’m super skeptical on that especially when they are going to do in house and getting other agencies to test….which means testing data sorta gets lost imo.

The Malibu race “issue” against SLT (SuperTri now) is imo the only “black eye” against the PTO (in addition to the long delay in releasing the schedule, 3 months “late”). It certainly created a pto vs SLT dynamic whether they wanted to or not by “financially supporting” the old owner.

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

https://triathlon.org/...ld_tour_miami/638333

lets see when the start list will be available ....

So Kat Matthews will be doing both the IM Pro Series and the T100 series. There's no doubt though that Nice and Taupo are her A races. It's gonna be. Pretty tough schedule including two more IMs, 70.3 Estonia, and the 6 other T100 races. I guess she'll never say it, but it looks like the T100 races will just be mere tune up races or catered training days.

On the talk about having a season-long narrative, the Miami race just puts a stinker to that. How can you launch a new race series with half the field not lining up for the first race?

How can you launch a new race series with half the field not lining up for the first race? //

So you have seen the start list? Please enlighten us in the dark here..


My guess is that once you back out the ITU folks, there should be pretty good attendance for this first one. I mean people will want to get as many in the bank as possible early here, so that they can do a skip late in the season, for an ironman race, perhaps Roth, or just being injured, burned out, or too big a travel. I highly doubt that "half" the contracted field is not going to be there backing out the ITU folks that have to do less races anyway...


Just from a pure numbers standpoint, I would expect about 5 or so each race unable to start, either through injury or illness. Then you layer onto that the ones that have a particular race as a skip anyway for whatever reason. I'm curious as to how the fill list is established, are folks waiting on the sidelines for a start? Who are the on deck circle athletes??

That will be an interesting angle. For WTCS pretty much everyone knows the process to fill a race (hell for pretty much every WT race, there is a "process" that organizers must follow and not just an "favorites" to pick from), so it'll be interesting to see how/who is in the bullpen for PTO to pick from. At the WTCS level, you pretty much know who can and can't get on a start list through the specific start list regulations, whereas it seems like with PTO it'll be who they contract/who they want to contract vs some actual "wait list order" imo.

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

I wouldn’t call them tune up races so much as races where you get paid well even if you walk round ;-)

MM

Obviously with the pay structure that is going to happen, but I'll also say the downside to that- you wont be around long in the T100 series after 1 year if your a BOP athlete (whether you are "trying" or just showing up for the pay check). You will be "relegated"; which for her that may not be that big of a deal if she's winning IM WC's.

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

The 70.3 specialists aren't going to target the IM series but several will still target the world championship indeed. It was interesting to hear Paula Findlay explain in the TTL podcast that several of her contracts are still tied to IM podiums and Eric add that several brands that are not Tri specific haven't really caught up with the PTO hype yet. She will definitely focus on T-100 but said she would probably do a couple 70.3s and maybe worlds.

Athletes will probably have to run through a lot of scenarios and maths this year depending on their bonus structures and we will most likely see several of the T-100 athletes adjust their calendars halfway through depending on where they stand. In that vein, Fred Funk was also explaining on the Triathlon Hour that - not being a true podium contender at T-100 - he would probably make more trying to be on podiums in other series as it sounds like his contracts are more tied to podiums but he just want to race the best.

I'm sure a lot of athletes are in it for the competition and the allure but at some point if you just constantly get your ass kicked you're probably going to need some reassurance/validation and try another series. Oddly enough, I also wonder if those that will fell towards the back of the T-100 have a better shot at improving their rankings and/or getting a wildcard for next year by doing a few outside podiums even if the point system is clearly favoring the T-100 circuit.

Will be a super interesting year. I'm mostly interested by those that are going to target both the T-100 and 140.6 World championship. Particularly curious to see Sam Laidlow's season, I really hope for him he gets his Kona dream but it looks like with 2 IM (Vitoria and Kona) + T-100 he's really "super charging" his season for someone that has an history of being rather "fragile".

I'm getting really impatient for this season!

T100 California is going to San Francisco and teaming up with Escape!

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3icVIuroKX/

This is super exciting and in absolute opposition to the (IMO often valid) comments about boring PTO courses. I'm thrilled and hope for athletes like Josh Amberger and Eric Lagerstrom to get wild cards there!

To confirm, is the pro race at Escape now gone in favor of the T100 series race? I'm assuming the bike course will be altered as well? The famous steps on the run course.....in or out?

This is their biggest pull as an "iconic" venue. As Jose Skipper mentioned in the. comments, "will they butcher the course" to make it "T100" friendly?

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

It will be interesting how they do the course though. I don't think they are planning on doing the Escape course - would they do the swim? There's a lot of possibilities but also unsure as to what they will actually be thinking out there as well for the spectating part of the race.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3iHDGhI8ZS/
Is she the only athlete who's said they'll try this?
I see Philipp (on her video) has said her A* race is Nice. She has yet to validate her IMWC podium AQ, so that's an IM before 20 August to add to her load. Same would go for Haug, Ryf (am assuming Knibb will not race Nice but post Olympics concentrate on the T100 and then Taupo; but NB she needs to validate her AQ slot for that before end June). Sodaro will validate for Nice provided she finishes IMNZ.

The IM Series requires 5 scores, with IMs scoring double the 70.3s, the two WCs getting a 20% bonus and only allowed to score 3 x IM in the '5 to score'. Matthews could treat Taupo as a "catered training day" or miss it (and the travel) at the end of a long season but that'd leave her with only 4 scores. After Nice she'd know where the other competition sits.

A T100 contract requires the athlete to race 5 times in 'regular season' and once in the 'play off'. But with only 4 to score, for those who can't (or don't want to) go all in on every race, an athlete can target key races and afford to drop 2.
Looks like she will just roll with the events ((1) Miami (miss Singapore which gives 7 weeks to) IM Texas, (6 weeks to) (2) SF, and then an 'easy' IM between that and (3) London (end July). Tallinn late August, 4 weeks before Nice. Recover (miss either Ibiza depending how rekt, or LV) and then both events in November (Dubai and ME GF) which achieves the 5+1 as contracted.
With an improved swim, Matthews is good enough to place T100 Series top 10 scoring her four best (the requirement for 2025 auto-contract) but controlling (not making) 100% effort every race will be a disciplinary challenge. It also risks undermining her psychological competitive edge when the going gets tough, which it surely will.

Could do a lollipop with loops in in the park, but hopefully they just leave the course alone and forget about the nebulous 100K distance (I doubt that will be the case)