And I acknowledge this for sure. I'm just saying that there's not much that Ali Brownlee is known for from the casual post pandemic triathlon fan on the race course, and his little to no social media makes him a little harder to actually push than people who are out there. Frodeno has remained relevant, and moreso post retirement, in the public eye. I would argue that Alistair could make the biggest splash in T100 as lead commentator and as a front office person/figurehead with the PTO. He's brilliant, articulate, and we don't have to sit there and wonder if he can actually finish races/race with the performance we all know he is capable of but has not been able to deliver for years now.

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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!

I get what you are saying, Brooks. But that's on the PTO to tell the narrative, because they should be able to tell the viewer that this is Lionel Sanders, and this is his race plan, and such. One of the things that constantly gets bantered about with the race coverage is just covering the front, especially on the bike. Having the narrative of, is will LS or Ditlev or Sam Long coming thru the field after a bad swim is part of the drama of the race. I hope that there's a world where the winner of all the T100 races is not necessarily from the front swim pack. And honestly - that's where I don't like having athletes like AB there unless fit enough to challenge for the win because they only benefit the strong swimmers with free pace setting and energy.

I think it's important that the story is told that ANYONE in the race has a chance despite their immediate position because that actually creates more drama. Just showcasing the front is easy - sure - but that's not the whole story a lot of the time. At Milwaukee, the most impressive race drama was from Jason West - coming from like 11th off the bike to almost winning, and then the 7-11 group that was hammering each other that got very little coverage. Showing Jan the whole time would have taken away from the race coverage, obviously. Same in the women's race - the top 3 were pretty much set but damn that 4th thru 7th, especially with the Holly v Ellie narrative, made for good drama too.

Formula 1 does a good job of showing races inside the race - here is Daniela Ryf overtaking Anne Haug on the bike - we think she will need 3 minutes by T2 to have a chance to hold her off - that kind of thing which will be really important.

The other thing is the Taylor Swift effect - haha...if someone tunes into T100 races for any reason - they follow LS for example, who knows what they see that keeps them motivated to stay. Watching races is how we find out about athletes like Mathis Margirier, or Lucy Byram, or a plethora of others. To be very clear - I think Lionel made the correct decision and went in the correct route. But I do think that with how the PTO wants to market T100, there's a place for someone like LS. Tennis has Nick Kyrigos, who gets press no matter how he plays. It's part of the narrative. I hate the word narrative at this point.

Anyways...if I had my way, both Gomez and Ali would get a victory this year on T100. I just don't see it. And I don't see a way either one races more than 3 all year. Which...makes me wonder why they would get the Hot Shot slot rather than just unlimited wild cards.

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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!

So here's my question.

Do you actually think LS can be podium contender?

I don't, so then it's why is LS going to race the T100 series when he's got a limited number of races left, and he's not accomplished the main goals he wants to (yes I know AB + Gomez have not accomplished LC success but they are GOATS no matter what happens the rest of their career, success or not). If you go with the theory you don't think he can, then you have to deep dive it. Beyond the "contract" if your finishing 7th, you are pretty much going to make what $30k in prize purses (+ whatever end of season bonus). And then you realize to achieve the full contract pay, you must show up to each PTO race you want to get paid for. So then it becomes you basically have to go "all in" on it; even if you secretly don't want to, to get the full financial advantage.

So then you say what's it going to take LS to just do it for the money....you think the PTO is going to offer that to the likely MOP athlete at best at this race distance? It would take likely 3-5 x the "normal" contract offer to even have LS realistic think it's actual "worth" it (again he would basically be giving up any real hopes of anything outside PTO due to the specifics of the appearance fees and not an actual 1 time payment)

Like the T100 series is basically the worst case scenario for LS imo. He's not going to be fast enough to get podiums in all likelyhood and thus the contract offer the PTO offered likely won't be worth it for LS to "follow the money".

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

Replying to the thread in general, I personally think it is splitting hairs to think either LS or AB will grow the sport by participating in PTO.

Like most amateur sports, other than during the Olympics, or due to NIL college deals, or a generational talent like a Phelps, the audience is almost never going to grow behind a relatively small group of enthusiasts.

LS is not Taylor Swift, AB doesn't have five million TikTok followers. Maybe someone like LCB brings a few more viewers to the sport, but I honestly don't think any athlete is moving the needle on the popularity of triathlon.

LS fans know he will never podium in PTO races. Swim is just damn long and we all know he's the last person out of the water. Yet, it's so exciting to see him race and people go nuts when he passes the crowded. It's quiet the sight actually. PTO knows that too. No, it's not right to see LS representing PTO or participating in their promotion events but we love to see him grinding hard on the bike and going all out on the run. It's sad we are not going to see him racing PTO much, but we will see him in plenty of 70.3 and 140.6 events so I'm okay with that.

That’s why I think the racing product itself is going to end up being the best driver/marketability of your product. There isn’t enough SM influence by anyone in the sport to actually move the needle. Maybe that means the racing product won’t matter either. Which is why I think for many atleast it’s a strong contingent of athletes with or without AB/LS.

On the Men’s side Jason West is basically a better version of LS. He’s going to be the one the telecast keeps an eye on from the “chase group” etc.

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

This is the Sanders fanboy thread, so I'm gonna fanboy and talk Collins Cup.

KB goes 3:09, Iden 3:11, Sanders goes 3:12, Kanute finishes 3:20. Wilde goes 3:17. Ditlet goes 3:13. Newman goes 3:24.

If Sanders is fit and trained for the distance he's a huge threat. I realize the race dynamics there played a huge part of how those numbers unfolded. Sanders is as much as a threat to the podium as nearly 15 other racers in the T100. We look at his tough performance in any of the other PTO events, and it seems like he was training through them and racing fatigued from the start. Of course, in fairness the same could likely be said of some of the other athletes with regards to the Collins Cup.

But I don't think it's impossible that in one or two of the T100 races Sanders poses a real podium threat. I think he's made the right decision in 2024 to focus on IM, but he'd still definitely have an impact on the race if for no other reason than to give Jason West a 'PTO legal' draft zone to grab hold of.

Today on Pro Tri News Talbot made it sound like Lionel isn't even doing the Ironman series. This year is Kona or bust for him, which means he needs to qualify and then peak for Kona. Not sure we're going to see him step up to the start line all that often.

That's fair. I guess in true "fanboyism" we can cherry pick any race stat to prove or disprove a point including "he's training through" the bad results and the "see he can podium" cus he had a T3 result in other races.

The T100 series is no where close to his sweet spot, he would basically need to show up and podium at the weaker fields to "prove Brooks wrong", and yes there is likely going to be some very interesting race rostsrs at some of these fields on the men's side. So unless he was offered such an huge sum of money, if I'm in his corner, I'd have him saying hell to the no to the T100 series. There's just not enough real estate to play to his strengths and obviously the PTO only has limited funds so it's not like they were going to give him a large lump sum of money.

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

Ok, then we really need to talk about the broadcast product and how every single broadcast since Challenge Daytona has been exceptionally bad. Bad commentators, bad directing, very limited splits. Moritz Events has already chased the SM Influencer trap by making Jack Kelly a color commentator. They have a bad track record. I suspect that Miami's broadcast will be a high water mark for the year. Here's hoping the NASCAR crew owns the comms and doesn't allow them to bring in any nonsense.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Yes Miami will be the top selection because it'll be the easiest to telecast. When everything is in 1 central on site location, things tend to work much more smoother for said broadcast product. I'll give credit to JK for 1 thing. I think he took criticism and adapted. I also think it's incredibly hard job to broadcast an sport that they are watching from TV feed vs watching the actual product in front of you and giving feedback from that angle.

So unless you have some hidden wisdom the broadcast product that is triathlon is basically always going to have a tough time imo. I don't think there is a high water mark race production that is great. But again your talking about broadcasting events that take place over miles of real estate. So whether WTCS / IM / PTO- the product will always be "bad" when compared to in stadium broadcast experience.

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

Better Directing - grab a NASCAR or Top Cycling guy that is off season.
Better Comms - Rowdy did that first Challenge Daytona and he's a swimming guy. But he knows how to call a race. Some of the ITU folks are pretty good. But all of the PTO broadcasts in 2023 were substandard from a comms perspective, everything we claim bad about IM they did.
Better Stats - Just pay SportStats for more timing mats. Not hard.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I actually don't think more timing mats makes it easier. I think it actually complicates things. Look at the timing splits on trackers. If you have a leader that is 1-2 timing mats in front of others the data can get very "busy". I think the WTCS took a big step back when they let go of BS years ago. To me they've never really gotten that true "insider" again; even when they involved former athletes. He would be a big assest to any broadcast team, and he did do the PTO Canada race in '22.

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

Timing and accurate splits is one of the biggest complaints in every race thread, and then if they have them the next complaint is that the graphical representation is bad and that the commentators ignore the splits (Jack did that plenty).

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Right and I don't necessarily think there is an easy solution. Adding too many timing splits then you have to start registering the time splits on screen. That's why if you look at WTCS telecasts, they basically have only a few timing splits and so you basically only get a few timing updates. They could addd splits every 1km etc but it would only start to get too busy because the moment the leaders pass 1 timing split, if they suddenly make it to the next split before the chasers even make the 1st timing split, your on screen data is reset.

This is all to say, it's "easy" to say it's a shit product...I just don't think the solutions are as easy as you are suggesting.

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

It's been going on 4 years now and no one has bestest Lionel's KOM. The cameo at the end by Phil Gaimon hasn't returned anything yet. Unless he tried and failed?


Another thing that caught my eye is his left leg flailing out. Holy smokes

Love the new 'doo

Lionel's got swimmers hair!!!

Funny that he really doesnt grasp it fully, but it does show he is spending more time in the pool than he ever has. Wear it like a badge buddy, you can't fake that stuff!

He keeps saying he is just training for now and races are far off into the future, but isn't the series starting soon? Is he doing Oceanside??

It really doesn't seem like he is doing the IM series. No idea about Oceanside, but just going off what he's said in the last few videos it seems like it is all eyes on Kona and nothing else.

Has he qualified for Kona yet?

wonder if Roth offers him decent coin to race

I don't believe he has qualified.

I honestly don't know how one chooses who we're going to be fan of, but I have chosen this man and I fucking love it. That was an awesome video, great job Talbot.

This is the list of MPRO that have qualified:

Looks like he's headed to a Sum41 concert.


Does The Feed sell anti-chlorine shampoo?

Feels like we go from training smart and not smash yourself to "Training from morning to night"/"All i can do is outtrain everyone". Hope he gets the balance right!