The drafting king! It would be so funny for him to be the first person penalized in a PTO event.

Hold.......

Contracted and racing, in PTO ranking order:
Haug LCB (is fit?) Matthews Findlay Ryf Simmonds EPB Moench Jewett Lee Lawrence Byram. And then wildcards

8 wildcards? There will be a few surprises!!!

In ProTriNews they suggest that Gentle might actually race (@35:00)
https://podcasts.apple.com/...ri-news/id1559781865
"20 is the right size of field"
"Attraction for a non-contracted athlete is not prize money, it's the chance to get great points towards 2025 qualification."
"Philipp planning to miss both Miami and Singapore. So she'll HAVE to race every other T100." (Comment: heading for Nice and needs to validate first.)
"National Governing Bodies are saying 'we are the gatekeepers' for agreeing wildcard choices (with a veto)." (1:04:00)

Qualification
2.1. The specific Qualification Criteria for the T100 Triathlon World Tour are outlined on the World
Triathlon website under the following link:
https://www.triathlon.org/...alification_criteria
3. Ranking
3.1. The specific Ranking Criteria for the T100 Triathlon World Tour are outlined on the World
Triathlon website under the following link:
https://www.triathlon.org/...ory/ranking_criteria

Nice. But isn't that only 12 of 20.

From the PTO website: "With 12 of the 20 athletes contracted to the T100 Triathlon World Tour deciding to race in Florida, it means there is an opportunity for 8 wildcards, which the PTO will announce in the coming days."

With 8 wildcard invitations (including several of the athletes I suggested I hope) there will be 20 on the start line. Am surprised they have chosen to list only the Contracted 12. Maybe the media strategy (part driven by struggle/time to get 'yesses') is to dribble those out.
LCB alone out front would be a poor spectacle, however I expect some wildcard fish to be there, eg: Buckingham (#40), Perez Sala (#27), maybe Chura (#35) to fill a chasing pack not far behind her.

About T100 Triathlon World Tour Wildcards
https://protriathletes.org/...st-t100-womens-race/

There are four main categories of athletes who will be considered for a wildcard selection:

1. Current well performing athletes, who have had great performances outside of the T100 Tour and have moved up the PTO World Rankings.
2. Athletes whose rankings, because of injury, maternity or other reasons, do not accurately reflect the quality of their historical performances and who have demonstrated that they are capable of being in-form for the event.
3. Up and coming athletes who have shown the ability to be competitive with the qualifying field, but have not yet had the opportunity to establish a sufficiently high ranking to be an automatic qualifier.
4. Short course athletes who have a sufficiently high World Triathlon ranking so as to expect that they would be competitive in the event.

This suggests that T100 athletes are going to have their names on their trisuits. Excellent! Hope they have national identity too: so many women sporting the Union Flag (that's the 1707 Union btw).

Men's start list (no wild cards revealed; 3 needed, as Funk, van Riel (at WTCS Abu Dhabi) and Neumann missing):
https://www.instagram.com/p/C38HACdM9v-/

Ali gomez woop woop lets go!

.
Jackie Hering is one of the Wildcards

 


Sam Laidlow and RVB together. Will there be a Tanya Harding moment?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Replying in general
I think it's entirely appropriate that WT gets to work some machinations behind the scenes to fill out the rest of the wild cards. No matter what you do, there will be accusations of favortism and politics, whether it's the PTO doing it or WT. At least WT will have some degree of a transparent procedure and accountability. And if they give those slots out to their deserved WT insiders, I see no problem with that. It's a fair trade off for the recognition the PTO is asking for and it also provides a fair way for unrecognized (to long course fans at least) talent to come into the T100 and turn some heads.

Disagree. National federations can fuck right off. Leave long course athletes alone and let them interact directly with the PTO.

My disposition is definitely inclined more towards the private sector than any governmental type bodies. But...

The PTO has asked for and received some kind of World Triathlon title for their series.
The PTO has already spent several years paying and developing the top long course talent as well as paying quite a bit of not-top long course talent.

It's not unreasonable to provide an additional avenue to race the PTO through the federations and the fast short course athletes. It gives them a chance at a paycheck (if you check their bank accounts, are they not also empty?) and notoriety. It's not like this ITU athletes are chumps who can't race. Let's take Gwen Jorgensen. No idea if she's interested (assuming Olympics doesn't pan out). But she has raced her tail off under the US banner, and if a slot trickles down to USAT to give to one of their athletes, I'd much rather have it go to her, or another athlete who has been grinding away at the chance to race the Olympics only to have the by-nature limited field of the Olympics leave that athlete out in the cold. Gwen is high profile enough that the PTO would likely offer her a chance at some point anyway, so pick one of the other male or female USA athletes who have been spending several years on a much more exhausting tour than any long course racer goes on.

I would be all in agreement with telling the federations to take a hike if they wanted to control the majority of the slots. But the long course racers already had an avenue to get into the PTO. The ones that succeeded and accepted are there. We shouldn't forget that these less well known athletes are no less hard working or deserving than the next group of 10-20 long course athletes in the rankings.

Wildcard selection
This will be less important after Miami and Singapore as the number of wildcards in San Francisco and London will be small, a tick up in Ibiza and Las Vegas with some of the IMWC Nice athletes not racing and none of the men racing days before Kona, and then almost no wildcards after that.

I'd like to know more about the (?French and one other) NGB machinations influencing wildcard invitations.
Lemieux on PTN raises this succinctly @58:59 on https://podcasts.apple.com/...ri-news/id1559781865
Is this why Pierre is not on the start list (even though a contracted athlete)? Will there be any French wildcards? (answer = No)
What's going on?
https://www.triathlon.org/...ia_2024_20240219.pdf
2. T100 Pro Competitions:
2.1. Start Lists will contain a maximum of 20 athletes.
2.2&3. 20 Athletes [contracted] are offered a permanent qualification slot at every T100 event in 2024.
2.4. Any non-utilized slots at events will be allocated based on procedures under point 3,
and include [in order] Invitation Athletes (Wildcards) and Waiting List Athletes.
3.7. There is no maximum quota per National Federations.
3.8. No more athletes are approved in the start list until the invitation (Wildcard) process is
completed.
3.10. . . invitations (Wildcards) are awarded by a panel composed [sic] by PTO and World Triathlon.

This appendix is really poorly drafted (as I've said upthread) and smacks of careless staffing both by the PTO and WorldTri. Kyle Smith says that the PTO and WorldTri docs are in conflict and confusing.
Given that in 2.4 and 3.8 "Invitation Athletes (Wildcards)" will be allocated a start before any "Waiting List" athletes are considered, that list is effectively meaningless (if it exists at all! - link?).
https://www.triathlon.org/...s/Waiting_lists9.pdf (Stapley still on the AD one updated 90 mins ago btw).
So "invitations (Wildcards) are awarded by a panel composed by PTO and World Triathlon."
Is Lemieux saying that WorldTri are vetoing some invitation picks (assembled in pri order per the PTO criteria I shared upthread)? He suggested this might be because an athlete had rubbed their NGB up the wrong way and was "not in good standing" (cf Skipper with BriTri?). Are there medical hurdles (which will cost the long course athlete not NatFed money to jump through) which are barriers?

T100 Miami WPRO Wildcards: Perez Sala, Chura, Buckingham, Hering, Kivioja, Diedriks, Sanchez, Stimpson (so a start list from 9 different nations). I wonder why Philipp and Pierre have chosen to pass. Mignon is on the men's start list.
T100 Miami MPRO Wildcards: Keulen RR, Koolhaas and Barnaby - straight off the PTO rankings list #18 19 20

So I Skipper officially racing under ITU flag to then transition to US next year when he races any WT sanctioned start procedure events (PTO + WT LC worlds). IM racing doesn’t care but if he wants to race T100 is he under itu flag this year?

I really wish they didn’t go in with National federations controlling, even if it means pto does some “funny business” with who they do (or don’t) invite. I hope eventually it’s just straight from a ranking system (seems most logical).

For all intent purposes pairing w WT to be an “official world championship” is way more for press release to validate its standing in the sport than an actual format that they now must follow.

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

Skipper won't get T100 invites anyway so the issue is moot. And unless he pays his Ibiza WTLD Champs entry debt (assumed), BriTri will be neutral at best.

I can't see how NGBs are going to exert influence except via WorldTri, the latter in partnership with the PTO when the wildcard invite list is assembled. That's why I'd like to understand what intel Lemieux is relying on when on PTN he expresses his concern. Is this a 'good standing' thing and if so what is/are the issue(s)?
PTO text (which seems super reasonable) below:

About T100 Triathlon World Tour Wildcards
https://protriathletes.org/...st-t100-womens-race/

There are four main categories of athletes who will be considered for a wildcard selection:

1. Current well performing athletes, who have had great performances outside of the T100 Tour and have moved up the PTO World Rankings.
2. Athletes whose rankings, because of injury, maternity or other reasons, do not accurately reflect the quality of their historical performances and who have demonstrated that they are capable of being in-form for the event.
3. Up and coming athletes who have shown the ability to be competitive with the qualifying field, but have not yet had the opportunity to establish a sufficiently high ranking to be an automatic qualifier.
4. Short course athletes who have a sufficiently high World Triathlon ranking so as to expect that they would be competitive in the event.

Not sure exactly why Pierre isn't racing, but she said she's got a video coming out Sunday about it.

Could just be too early in the year a la Ash Gentle. Lucy indicated she was not going to race Miami earlier when the series was announce but here she is. I suspect the T100 people asked her to "pretty please" race Miami for the media exposure. I'll be interested to see where she is at in this 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!

But BT now has zero authority over Skippers career now right by the letter of the WT rules (if Skipper were to race WT sanctioned events).

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

Do we know if there are any athletes travelling as standby/alternates just in case anyone drops out last minute (it wouldn't be a great look if the PTO didn't get 20 athletes on each start line at their first race)?

So I get that in some ways the federations are bloated, self-dealing enterprises that feed off the masses under the virtue of promoting the sport and elite development.

But it's not like the federations are going to be handing out these alleged slots to the highest bidding age grouper or the nephew of their nation's prime minister. They are still going to give it to one of their very good racers. It just might bypass the next in line PTO ranked athlete.

If PTO gives out a handful of slots to be allocated to pro short course athletes via the federations, who loses? The 22nd ranked male PTO athlete? I'm not saying we don't need to care about that guy/girl, but really?

I think it's of far more value to the PTO to say they have received official recognition from the global triathlon governing body as a World Championship to theoretical broadcast sponsors than to say, "look we've got Anne Reischman and Holly Lawrence! Great athletes no doubt, but they've got a lot of greats already and it's not like the federations are going to be subbing in a jar or peanut butter in place of Holly, etc.

I just don't think the federations need to get in the way of any of this. This for all intent purposes is much more a private organization that gets credited with it being an authorized world championship. We don't need ITU specific uniforms or federation limitations or anything of that nature that the WT pathway/federation controlled narrative creates. All that does is add a bunch of potential nomenclature that really doesn't need to be added to it.

Let the federations stick to the Olympics and non-draft be free of the political bullshit that pretty much always happens when you add in federation decision makers, more like IM and less like Olympic pathway imo .

But then again when you go in with WT, that by default will be the muddier, political pathway.

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