This is your regular free weekly newsletter. If you’re one of our many post-Kona new subscribers, the weekly newsletter on all things triathlon-ish typically goes out Wednesday mornings (California time) — but I picked up the requisite post-Kona cold/flu have been moving slow the last two days.

That’s also why I didn’t do a great job promoting the Massive Big Post-Kona Show we recorded the day after the race — because I got sick right after it went up. Clips from the finish line, interviews with the Salomon staff on the Ironman deal, from-the-ground behind-the-scenes on everything around the race and the week.

Next week’s newsletter: No more talking about Kona.

- Kelly

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It’s giving Make Triathlon Great Again

There are two things I miss about racing in the pro field (even at a deeply mediocre level).

One is being really really fit. I don’t miss the constant low-level fatigue, the nursing injuries, or crying in your car, but I do miss feeling like you could run through a fucking wall if you had to. Being generically healthy and fit-in-the-scheme-of-humans just doesn’t have quite the same feel to it now.

The second thing I miss is the before and after with the other pro women. The hanging out and sharing war stories, the knowing there was someone else who been through it. There are a limited number of people in the world who understand that specific experience, and so there was a reason we so often ended up solving life problems while on a bus back to the race hotel, packing bikes in a garage, laying on the ground in the med tent — even if we’d just met in some country we’d never been to before, we knew each other.

It was like a secret handshake into a special club that could only be earned through sweat and tears.

When people talk about “Kona” as shorthand for the race, the week, the idea, what they’re often talking about is that club. A chance to be a part of that club for even just one day. They’re talking about the ephemeral belief that anyone who has ever started “Kona” gets to be in this club, that entry for anyone can be earned.

The exclusivity, the extreme-ness, is part of the appeal. I get it. Just like frats in the SEC or the supper clubs and secret societies of the Ivy League. But there’s a reason those things have inherent problems, too.

The official theme of Kona this year was: Let’s never again mention Nice.

No, I’m kidding. The official theme was unity and togetherness. Next year’s official theme is now that we’ve come back together, “moving forward with an open heart.” But, really, the theme is “we will pretend the split race rotation of the last three years never happened.” Or whatever that phrase is in Hawaiian.

That theme was an undercurrent — both officially and unofficially — throughout the whole week. Both in what Ironman said and in what so many other people now felt free to say out loud.

Thank God we didn’t let those women ruin Kona, right.

The problem with this overwhelming undercurrent is that we didn’t end up with the split gender race rotation in Nice + Kona just because former Ironman CEO Andrew Messick one day woke up and decided to do it. We ended up with the women’s race and the men’s race in Nice/Kona because Messick was trying to address issues that are still very much issues:

• Kona is still deeply size limited, especially if Ironman hopes to grow globally.

• Kona is still inherently very expensive, geographically isolated, and difficult to access for much of the triathlon world.

• Ironman’s entire business model (now) still rests fundamentally on a volatile local relationship with a small island town.

• And it is still true — no matter how many women’s initiatives we launch — that you can not have equally fair and equally premiere men’s and women’s races (pro AND age-group) at the same time within the same race. Coverage and course space is intrinsically limited. We all said the debate was settled on the women having their own race, we all said it couldn’t go back. We all answered Ironman’s survey with the #1 pick actually being that we wanted two days (men’s + women’s) in Kona. And then we just went back anyway.

Messick chose to answer these questions one way. CEO Scott is choosing another way. But those questions still exist. Those facts are still facts no matter how many drinks you have at Huggo’s.

Traditions have a lot of value. Exclusive secret clubs have a lot of appeal. But the problem is they also calcify and harden over time, and you won’t even know the pipes have rusted out until your clubhouse collapses.

A few last things from Kona

• The shoes of the top ten pros.

• The swim gear.

• And the bikes. With the new Pinarello making an appearance.

• Also feel like a lot of you will appreciate the pro gear that’s actually available to buy.

• And I really appreciated this look at the trends in the bike count (and why those shifts have happened) over 20 years.

• Like we mentioned on the podcast, DNF rates appeared high. It’s now (semi-)official: 2,258 athletes finished out of 2,544 (though it’s always hard to tell exactly how many started v. checked in). Which is an 88.7% finish rate. While we had a similar rate in Nice because people more often missed the bike cut-off on that course, it’s a high DNF rate for Kona since age-groupers generally will do anything to get to the finish line. Higher DNF rate among the pros than AGers, of course. Even higher among the pro women this year. Mostly, I think, because of the conditions

• Pretty good breakdown of what actually happens to your body.

• One AG friend told me he tried to talk to the medical team to tell them he was fine and discovered he sounded like he was having a stroke and his muscles had seized up. Another told me his wife’s legs wouldn’t stop running — she was laying in the med tent with her legs still making a running motion, which apparently happens to about one person/year.

• Slowtwitch has all of the age-group winners and a breakdown by country.

• The one that stood out to me at the awards ceremony was the woman who won the oldest age-group that had female finishers this year (70-74yo): The 71-year-old Laura Rossetti went 14:03!

• The oldest finisher was 80-year-old Simon Butterworth from Ireland.

• Former world champ Normann Stadler DNF’d in the age-group field on the bike. Brigitte McMahon, who won gold at the 2000 Olympics and then served a doping ban, took second in the 55-59 age-group.

• Some interesting stats on pros who previously raced in Kona as age-groupers.

• And, in case you were wondering, the Ironman World Championship page has already been changed over to the "Salomon” Ironman World Championship.

• We had one finish line proposal.

• Plus, the Ironman Foundation auction is open through the weekend. You could big on Dr. Matt’s Lego bike.

Mark your calendar

A whole bunch of races again on the calendar this upcoming weekend:

• Women at Cascais 70.3 (Lizzie Rayner going for the three-peat) and at Florianopolis 70.3 (a nearly all Brazilian field) + men at Malaga 70.3, both men and women at Port Macquarie 70.3 (a nearly all Australian field)

• A Challenge race in Spain

• And Gwen Jorgensen in the #1 bib at the World Cup in Beijing

The -ish

And just a couple of non-Kona-related things from the past week or two.

• Sullivan Middaugh won his first XTERRA World Champ title in New Mexico over the weekend; his dad was also 6th, which is probably more impressive. The race is in New Mexico for at least two more years, so worth checking out. (Slowtwitch)

• Ashleigh Gentle and Josh Amberger had their baby. (Instagram)

• Ali Brownlee received an OBE from Prince William, which is evidently a step down from knighthood. (World Triathlon)

• TTL is accepting new pros and top age-groupers to their racing team this year. (Instagram)

• Ironman added a new 70.3 in India. (Ironman)

• Extreme flooding meant about 70 runners had to rescued in the middle of Moab 240. (Instagram/The Guardian)

• Kipruto and Feysa won the Chicago Marathon, but obviously we all mostly care about the American who got 10th after doing almost all of his training (and he does a LOT of training) on a Planet Fitness treadmill. (Wall Street Journal)

• Running v cycling: Which makes you fitter? I’d argue this doesn’t take into account the primary issues, which are logistical: You can go harder for more hours biking, impact isn’t a limiter; but in terms of efficiency you can get more bang for your buck in the same amount of time running, but you have to do less of it. So. (Runner’s World)

• Mostly I don’t mountain bike anymore because I kept crashing, but bears chasing you is also a good reason. (Instagram)

• No, but actually explain the joke to me about women wearing short shorts in the gym. I don’t get it. (Instagram)

One last thing

Best recap of last weekend’s races.

• The wild women’s race: Should Ironman have a procedure or policy for when athletes collapse? Did we learn nothing from last year?

• Vince Luis’ epic retirement — first and final Kona. Drop the mic and leave.

• All of your on-the-ground questions:

  • How the broadcast works from the motos

  • If Ironman’s operational changes were net positive

  • Drafting, drafting, drafting

• And, then, the other part of Kona Week: the industry news, activations, and gossip

• Plus, we talk to Salomon about why they’re getting into triathlon and if we think it will work

Did you know this year’s theme was unity, togetherness? Now you know.

Listen and follow Triathlonish on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the show on Youtube.

This is your from-the-ground special post-race edition, so we don’t wait four more days to talk about those wild races. We’ll be back to regular Wednesday newsletters later this week.

- Kelly

The storm here broke Friday night before the race started. The rain dumped and the wind blew. We walked to the pier in a drizzle.

And I walked back to the hotel, along the last mile of the run course, after the pro press conference and the interviews were done, watching emotional age-groupers finish down that final stretch of road in the dark. Go ahead, try not to cry.

Vince Luis cried at the finish. Taylor Knibb cried. Gustav Iden definitely cried, second place here after the last few years and wearing a kit to honor his mom passing away; he was emotional enough that he needed to take a break from answering questions. Dr. Matt (really Med Student Matt) choked up. Imogen Simmonds choked up. Kristian Blummenfelt choked up too, he looked so sad, but probably for different reasons.

In general, I don’t really believe in island magic. I think a lot of what we chalk up to some ineffable Hawaiian mystique is mostly the outcome of scientifically explainable weather conditions combined with extreme situations that leave us emotionally strung out. Of course we cried. Ironman is very good at what they do.

Lucy Charles-Barclay DNF’d in the same spot she DNF’d last year. Julie Derron walked before she rallied for third. Taylor Knibb vomited for a bit, but slowed down, managed her body, and kept it together. Which ended up mattering (a lot) when Solveig Lovseth suddenly wobbled and went down so close to the win she could practically see the finish line. Sam Laidlow and Patrick Lange pulled out. Kristian Blummenfelt went backwards in the heat. And then, in the lead for so long, Magnus Ditlev started walking too — with less than 10km to go.

Someone in the finish area asked me why does this keep happening more now? The wild collapses and leaders imploding so suddenly so last-minute. It’s always happened in Kona, but not this extreme, not every year. Why now?

I said: Because they’re going harder.

None of you picked Vince

Not one single one of you had him in your podium picks. Which maybe was a mistake. (One could argue obviously it was a mistake, since we were all wrong.) But I’m not sure even Vince had picked Vince.

He was 4th at IM Texas this year, 5th at IM Frankfurt. Kona was supposed to be a bucket-list last race before retirement. Another 4th or 5th or 8th or 15th seemed likely. A fond farewell to the sport. I think he probably thought his best days, his peak days, those years when he couldn’t lose an Olympic race, were behind him, so who were we to argue.

Do you remember peak Vincent Luis? When he won the World Triathlon world championship title in 2018 and 2019. When he was the heavy favorite going into the 2020 Olympics — who was going to bet against Vince back then. He was a huge deal in France, a Nike athlete with real sponsorship money. It was the Baller Vince Era and he made that clear. And then the Olympics were postponed and he just couldn’t hold onto it for an extra year. It’s hard to maintain that dominance for that long. And slowly it became one of those little setbacks that leads to another and another until it’s a big setback. There’s probably an Ironman metaphor in there, or a life metaphor: Sometimes you have to walk and cool down and then you rally and come back stronger, and sometimes you have to walk and then you never start running again.

Vince said this win meant more than those other two Olympic-distance world titles, because of the years it came out of. He said he still plans to retire now, winning didn’t change his mind, this was his last race. Win Kona, drop the mic, and go out on top. He said he’d rather leave standing on his feet than on his knees. He said no one’s ever done it before and he’d be an original.

Was it the most baller move we’ve ever seen in triathlon?

And then, again?

At the finish line, Taylor Knibb was briefly at a loss for words. (She got over it.) All she could say was: “Solveig and I have to stop doing that — the collapsing part. Holy smokes, I’m stunned.”

We do probably need to stop doing this collapsing thing. Or at least we need to decide what amount of darkness we’re OK with. As a sport.

Last year, Lucy went down in the Energy Lab, and then Taylor went down with a little over a mile to go, and Solveig then Kat then Laura ran by her. This year, Lucy again and then Solveig went down with 3/4s of a mile to go, and Taylor then Laura then Julie then Kat ran by her.

Evidently, Solveig was still able to answer questions, knew what was going on and where she was, wanted the cameras to stop filming and the ref to stop annoying her as she lay on the ground, got up, lay on the ground, got up. She remembers it — unlike last year’s collapses from Lucy or Taylor, who don’t remember anything — and she ultimately walked the last 800m in for 8th. One could argue that she wasn’t in real danger of doing permanent damage. Probably. (Though aren’t we all in danger of doing permanent damage with this stuff.)

Still. It freaked out so many people with flashbacks of last year. So many people, in the finish area, who lived through it with Taylor and Lucy, said: Ironman should have a plan, Ironman should step in, after last year Ironman should be prepared to handle these things.

I don’t know what that would look like exactly. Who would get to decide how much is too much? Everyone outside of triathlon already thinks this all insane anyway, all crazy. Where’s the crazy line that we shouldn’t cross? Taylor Knibb said Pat wrote on the whiteboard out on the Queen K, after she was throwing up, that “vomiting is normal.” And he’s not wrong. It is normal here.

And, yet, there’s a line somewhere. One has to assume. A line even we wouldn’t cross.

Right?

An assortment of other Kona things

• Kat Matthews, in 4th, looked the most out of it in the post-race press conference, and didn’t have the usual joy you see from her at the finish line. She was the only one who actually prompted the announcer on the finish line mic to say, “Are you OK?” I think the run was hard for her, she had to work her way up through the field.

• Julie Derron and Imogen Simmonds looked the happiest. Imogen so thoroughly didn’t expect to be in the post-race press conference that she didn’t even bring post-race clothes and had to borrow some. And she was back at the finish line at midnight.

• Imogen also told this wild story about deciding to swim back to her hotel from bike check-in on Friday, roughly a mile away. The waves were still crazy Friday, and she didn’t realize how bad it was until she started getting pulled under and held down when she tried to get out. She said she thought ‘oh this is how people drown.’ But, ultimately, she decided it was a sign from the island that she had made it and the island was OK with her.

• The swells and chop were bad enough yesterday, during the race, that it broke up packs and made for slow times. Laura Philipp got seasick.

• And the wind on the bike was brutal. Both directions. The motos said they were getting blown around.

• Taylor Knibb said the vision in her right eye went blurry, which has happened before apparently.

• Taylor also started her post-race interview, in the mixed zone, behind the finish line, with specific suggestions she had for how Ironman could improve the event — which included moving the pre-race press conference inside so it’s not sweltering. And sometimes Taylor has a point.

• The post-finish-line mixed zone didn’t work as well as I think they were hoping it would, probably because triathlon hasn’t quite figured out how to do media yet. We were supposed to wait there to grab athletes for interviews after they finally left the finish line, but so many of the athletes are messed up and need medical that you don’t want to take too long and Ironman told us all to do interviews together (ie. all stick mics in one person’s face at the same time), which is how these things work at bigger events. But it, then, led to 10 mics in one athlete’s face, who really just wanted get some water and dry clothes. And, of course, because it’s still triathlon, which is still relatively small, some outlets still ignore all of that and just grab the athletes sitting around the hotel so they can feel like they got quotes that were different and exclusive.

• Ironman also moved the pro athlete area out of the pool and into the restaurant, which is bigger and has AC, but no more pool-side or beach interviews.

• A lot of the Ironman operational back-end was tightened up. It was much much easier to get across the finish line to the media or VIP zone.

• Plus, there was a security guard at the hotel entrance stopping regular AG athletes, who weren’t staying in the hotel, from using the lobby to sit down or hang out.

• However, I made the mistake of trying to get from the hotel, behind the transition, out and across the start area right after the pros started and when all the age-groupers were lining up — and I have never thought I might have a full-on crowd panic attack before.

• Dr. Matt, in third, said he’s flying from here to L.A. on Wednesday to present a paper at a medical conference.

• He went back and forth with Gregory Barnaby, in 4th, a few times on the run. Sometimes passes stick and sometimes, here in Kona, they don’t.

• Vince said it broke his heart to pass Magnus Ditlev walking — because everyone universally agrees that Magnus is the nicest guy in triathlon — but “business is business and cash is king.”

• Pierre Le Corre, in 5th, said he almost quit triathlon in 2024.

• Gustav Iden, who so nearly caught Vince with 2km to go, then started to fade and had to barely hold on that last mile. But he just seemed so happy to be back after the last few years, and to come back from nine minutes down at the start of the run.

• Gustav, Matt, and Julie all got three-minute penalties.

• It made me laugh a little how many pros kept saying the AG drafting was so bad. Do they just not remember how bad it’s always been here during the combined one-day race?

• Sam Long held his own hot tub press conference for 6th. And kudos to him.

• Patrick Lange went back out to volunteer at the aid station.

• Gustav Iden and Laura Philipp won the IM Pro Series and were handed giant novelty checks.

• Here’s the bike count — with Canyon on top.

• And one of the few bike launches, the new Pinarello — which Casper would have ridden if he hadn’t crashed pre-race.

• But even Triathlete’s gear roundup of new things this week mostly includes things that aren’t actually new this week.

• As best I can tell there were 1,595 age-group men who finished and 41 pro men. And 573 age-group and 36 pro women. I think (but will confirm) that’s a pretty high DNF rate for here.

• And, since all of you were nearly equally wrong, the winner of our podium predictions contest is: Taryn Spates! Stay tuned for prizes!

One last thing

Kat getting Paula moving again out on the Queen K.

LFG.

Someone, who was going through their first Full Kona Experience, said to me yesterday morning: OK, but I’m ready for the race to just be tomorrow.

Ditto.

I’ve been focused so much on the events and the activations and the gossip and everything that goes on around the race — the stuff that makes up Kona Week — that I had started to forget: Oh yeah, there’s also a race happening. Isn’t that why we’re here afterall.

But what do I need to know really. Everyone looks good, everyone looks fit, everyone’s lying to you or to themselves about how this is going to go.

Women: Lucy CB will lead the swim. At some point Taylor Knibb will catch her. How long can they hold on, will anyone bridge up, what kind of gap do they have into T2 over Kat or Laura or Julie or whoever. Tell me what I didn’t get right there.

Men: The group out of T1 will be at least 15 people. Sam Laidlow will have to go off the front on the bike if he wants to win. That’s his card and he will play it. Someone will try to go with him. How long can they hold on, will anyone bridge up, what kind of gap do they have into T2 over Kristian and Gustav or whoever. Tell me what I didn’t get right there.

Don’t forget to enter our podium prediction contest to win a random assortment of Things in Kelly’s Office + two brand new pairs of Roka’s top-of-the-line R2 goggles.

For the record: My men’s picks are probably Kristian, Gustav, Rudy VB. My women’s picks are trickier because I do think Taylor and Lucy are both ready to fucking murder anyone for the win, but Solveig seems so relaxed and I wouldn’t underestimate a pissed-off Chelsea right now. Probably it’s something like: Lucy CB, Solveig, Kat, Taylor, Chelsea. Or not.

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🥵 The Ironman pro press conference was literally so hot — because they had built a wall on one side of the tent, which blocked any kind of breeze from coming through — that Gustav sweated through his shirt and all the poor athletes went bolting for cold water and AC as soon as the mic wasn’t even set down. (Ironman had the men sit in the audience through the women and then the women sit through the men, and everyone hated all of it.)

🎤 If you ddn’t watch the pro press conference, here’s what they said.

🌊 It also wasn’t our imagination: The locals confirmed for me that yesterday was deeply hotter + humid-er. The waves were also epic-ly huge and knocked over all of the banners on the road. I was told it has something to do with the high tide + wind + weather all hitting at the same time. And should be better today. Saturday also should be rain at some point on the bike — so the humidity will either break or just steam up into an awful stew on the run. #sofun

Whatever we think, it’s time to do this thing now

Men start at 6:20 a.m. in Hawaii tomorrow on Saturday/9:20 a.m. PT/ 12:20 p.m. ET — and the women are ten minutes later at 6:30 a.m. (Bonus bet: How many pro men will Lucy catch?)

WATCH: On Ironman’s Youtube or on DAZN — and coverage actually starts at 4:30 a.m. in Hawaii in case you want to watch them be body-marked for some reason. (The new split quad screen feeds are available on Smart TVs.)

Thanks to our sponsors

Salomon - A big thank-you for flying me out this week as they work to build an understanding of the Kona experience and the triathlon community. Deeply appreciate the effort they’re putting in. And have enjoyed their Aero Blaze 4 as my go-to shoe all week.

Roka - And the Roka R2 goggles have been excellent for open water sighting and comfort. Probably a reason so many top athletes use them.

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Almost the last chance to enter our podium predictions contest 🥇

Do you come for the race or do you come for the gossip and then a race breaks out?

The general consensus this year seems to be that because there are so many brand activations, so many schedules, so many shakeouts and popups and podcasts, no one theme or thing is emerging as the thing everyone is talking about.

I was sitting having a beer last night before heading to the Hall of Fame dinner (and watching my Valkyries stress us all out) and Gustav Iden jogged by on some brand’s shakeout run with just seven other people. It’s not that Gustav can’t attract a crowd — he absolutely does and can — it’s more likely that probably no one even knew the run was happening.

Yes, the ProTriNews boys are getting big crowds and big guests. Yes, the TTL donut run had 100 people (more?). Yes, the retro merch from Precision & Zoot & Ironman is cute —apparently everyone was inspired to go retro this year (get it, get it?) — and booths are selling good numbers. But I’m not the only one who’s been like: Where’s all the gossip, all the industry drama, all the big announcements and new gear reveals.

The biggest gossip outside of who is sleeping with who (and I can’t tell you that) is still that Chelsea Sodaro is being snubbed in the Ironman press conference and I already told you that on Tuesday.

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🚲 Not that there’s not fast gear here — demo some new Salomon shoes at their community run at 7am today from Kona Heaven, or a Roka swimskin from the pier until ~9am — but there hasn’t been a ton of new gear. (There is a brand new Pinarello bike that I’m going to check out tomorrow and a new Ekoi helmet, but.) Even Triathlete decided not to shoot pro bike photo galleries because there just wasn’t the appetite. So if you need a gear fix, Slowtwitch has a few bike pics: Jamie Riddle’s, Hannah Berry’s, Jonas Schomburg’s.

🍺 No one can decide if there’s an appetite for the traditional beer mile on Friday at the old airport either. One person said yeah yeah it’s happening ask this other guy, and then that guy said I don’t know I’m not organizing it ask this other guy, and then that guy said I haven’t heard anything. It’s almost as if ever since the year the boys tried to get an official permit from the city it killed the event.

👑 Karen Smyers and Craig Alexander were inducted into the Hall of Fame last night and both gave lovely speeches thanking their families, who had come out for the event. (Also Karen, apparently, set off the “fall detection/call 9-1-1” on her Apple Watch during the Feisty podcast show because she was waving her arms around too much.)

📺 And you can watch the Ironman pro press conference at 11 a.m. Hawaii time/5 p.m. ET on Youtube. All four of the former men’s world champs will be there — so I guess we’ll get to see Kristian and Sam Laidlow poke at each other in person.

A fun fact

I’m not sure if this is a useful stat or not from TrainerRoad, it seems mostly not, but they tried to compare the average W/kg to the Kona-qualifying W/kg. The men who qualified were in the 79th percentile, and the women were in the 88th.

Thanks to our sponsors

Salomon - Come to Kona Heaven today to test their new supershoe, which I know you’re curious about.

Roka - And don’t forget to demo a new Viper X.3 Ghost swimskin down at the pier.

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Don’t forget to enter our podium predictions contest to win a pair of Roka’s R2 goggles + triathlon bragging rights for the rest of your life. You have until race start to get your picks in.

Vibe check: 2016 v. 2026

The one and only time I raced Kona was a decade ago. Do you remember that far back? Does anyone in triathlon remember that far back?

One of the questions going around has been if we really remember what a combined men’s & women’s one-day race here looks like. It hasn’t happened in seven years. Do we remember how the race dynamics work? How the crowds flow? Do you even remember how many pros are invited to the press conference, did they do the men & women at the same time? It’s so hard to think back that far.

In some ways, this year actually feels very similar (for better and worse) to a decade ago. About the same number of dudes. About the same types of debates. Different people talking, but about the same things.

It’s bigger, but not that much bigger. Despite promises of up to 3,000 athletes, it’s really just under 2,600 — only about 100-150 more than the last one of these. It doesn’t seem like more people on the ground. Not really, not yet. What happened? Why isn’t it as different as we were told it would be?

My guess: Turns out many of those supposedly new ideas to innovate the race were actually just old ideas that were rejected a decade ago because they didn’t work. And now here we are.

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LISTEN: In our pre-race podcast episode, we covered all the questions everyone’s been asking that aren’t about who is going to win: jellyfish, female participation, why Ironman is trying to ban athletes from biking on certain roads, and unfounded rumors of race cancellations.

Listen and follow Triathlonish on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the show with clips from Kona on Youtube (if it finished uploading overnight).

💵 Do you think someone really spent $4,200 at the Ironman merch tent? I actually sorta do believe it. Went to check the tent out today and Ironman merch has legitimately upgraded over the last few years — ever since that first all-women’s race; they even sell clothes from Marine Layer now. So trendy, so high-touch.

🚲 Do you also think the 20m draft rule will dramatically alter the outcome of the pro race? Triathlete said yes; I say probably not really. Not with Race Ranger already working at 12m.

📸 Do you know who the pros take selfies with? Courtney Dauwalter. Especially the female pros.

❤️ And what if the Norwegian secret is just having fun and training hard. Oh, and 40km runs the weekend before race day.

A fun fact

Sam Laidlow will donate €23,000 to 23 upcoming young athletes.

Thanks to our sponsors

Salomon - Come to Kona Heaven from 2-4pm to meet Courtney Dauwalter and Jessie Diggins. I asked them if being here made them want to do the race and they said yes 😉

Roka - And don’t forget to come to the pier to demo a new Viper X.3 Ghost swimskin today or tomorrow morning; it’s made from Roka’s fastest material, which repels water on contact and has a seamless, laser-bonded constructon

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And after a quick update on the non-Kona news of the week — including Alistair Brownlee’s analysis of the accuracy of VO2 estimates on smart watches, for some reason — we dive into all the industry news from Kona.

• Who is being overlooked in pre-race media

• What are the actual race numbers — and why aren’t they as big as was originally promised

• Why are there so few women and will Ironman’s new initiative solve that

• Are there really jellyfish

• Are athletes really banned from biking on certain roads

Although we’re not doing a preview (because you can get that so many other places), we know you have predictions. So enter our podium predictions contest.

Listen and follow Triathlonish on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the show on Youtube.

A big thanks to Salomon for flying me out to Kona this year and to Roka for supporting our Kona coverage.

Bonus: You can now win a pair of Roka’s R2 goggles as part of our podium predictions contest. Get your picks in before the race starts.

How many women is the right number of women?

jk, there is no right answer

There will either be 2,548 athletes or 2,612 athletes on the start line on Saturday, probably depending on if you count people who have already pulled out. (Yes, I’ve asked Ironman about the discrepancy in their own reported numbers.) And 27% of those athletes will be women.

I’ve seen a lot of AI-generated “facts” about women’s participation. Most of which are not accurate, purely statistically speaking. But it’s pretty easy to look around on the ground in Kona and be like: Whoa, OK, there are not very many women here.

And that is one of the fundamental problems with Ironman announcing its “women’s initiative” at the same time as our return-to-one-day Kona. There’s a fundamental perception gap between saying you really really want to achieve 50% women’s participation and you really really mean it now, and looking around and seeing just 27% women.

What is ‘Woven?’

A lot of people don’t understand what Ironman’s Woven women’s initiative really is. So I asked Ironman to send me their actual documents after they tried to explain it to me, and after I’ve heard about it from people working on it, and here’s what I understand:

• It’s an internal effort coming out of a survey of 10,000 women across Ironman events and the triathlon-curious

• That, then, identified key (obvious) pain points for women: they don’t see themselves in Ironman marketing, there are necessary women’s-specific event accommodations and issues, and women need other women to talk to and train with/around (because, holy shit, there are so many dudes)

• Woven is a number of small things, then, that address many of those issues after working with some smart people (to varying degrees): female-specific marketing, tracking of women’s specific race data and responses, race policy standardization (like pregnancy deferral guidelines and lactation stations), women’s ambassadors and community events and content, and targeted efforts at a handful of 70.3 events to see what truly drives female participation

Could it work? Sure. Have we heard this before? Sure. Do we just need to wait and see what they actually do now? Absolutely.

More TK.

BONUS: Feisty is selling ‘Here For The Women’s Race’ shirts at Voyagers in the Kona Inn shopping center every morning this week. Because, we are 100% here for the women’s race.

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💭 Where are all of the men’s and women’s Kona champs now?! Obviously, Peter Reid has had the most interesting life post-win (as a bush pilot). And Robin Beck is my most respected: “No one knows where Robin Beck is or what she is up to. She is a mystery.” Mad props.

🚲 There was one bad age-grouper bike crash today — her bike is cracked in two — but no wide-spread reports yet of jellyfish swarms. We did hear from people who saw jellyfish but didn’t get stung.

📺 Ironman announced a split screen option on smart TVs where you’ll be able choose how many + what feeds you want to see this weekend. The additional video feeds will come with no commentary — audio is only available on the main feed — and the split screen is only a smart TV feature. (Getting a demo later today, will report back.)

❤️ The from-the-ground in Kona gossip: And if I was making a bet, I would notice that Ironman world champ Chelsea Sodaro is being excluded from the official media kits and from the press conference and from the brand pre-race events, and I would think that maybe she’s going to be ready to prove on race day that you all overlooked her, because it is goddamn wild to exclude an Ironman world champ from the Ironman pre-race press conference. IF I WAS A BETTING PERSON.

A (semi) fun fact

Enter Gustav Iden’s fundraiser to win his bike and raise money for cancer research in honor of his mom.

Thanks to our sponsors

Salomon - Come to Kona Heaven tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday) from 2-4pm to meet Courtney Dauwalter and Jessie Diggins

Roka - Come to the pier at 8am tomorrow (Wednesday) to test out the best swimskins on the market — they’ll have swimskins available to demo — and swim with Flora Duffy

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A big thanks to Salomon for flying me out to Kona this year and to Roka for supporting our Kona coverage.

Bonus: You can now win a pair of Roka’s R2 goggles as part of our podium predictions contest. The prize is no longer random things in Kelly’s office. It’s now random things in Kelly’s office + the fastest and most comfortable goggles on the market.

Plus, if you’re in Kona and want to test out their Viper X.3 swimskin — which Lucy Charles-Barclay & Jamie Riddle will be wearing on Saturday — you can demo one Tuesday-Thursday until 9am(ish) at the pier.

Have we hit peak Kona?

The big debate in running is if we’ve hit the point of too many brands, too many activations, too many shakeout runs, too many live podcast shows. Too many. UTMB mayor’s unhappy, New York Marathon’s banning confetti cannons.

Putting together my schedule for the week, it seems like Kona may be reaching this point, too.

• On: Their Tuesday morning run from Kai Eats appears to be sold out; they had a whole week’s worth of schedule but it’s disappeared now so who knows. WHO KNOWS.

• Salomon: At Kona Heaven Coffee mid-week — come by on Wednesday afternoon to meet Jessie Diggins & Courtney Dauwalter

• Ventum + Wyn Republic + the ProTriNews boy: At Laverne’s daily with … live shows & stuff

• Rouvy + Precision Fuel: At Kona Coffee & Tea on Palani — Tuesday-Thursday each morning + a treasure hunt

• Faster Through Science (Deboer, etc): At Magic Sands with swims every morning

• Canyon: At Lava Java with mechanics and … more stuff

• Breakfast with Bob, of course, always forever and ever amen: At Huggo’s

And more I’m sure. Plus, that doesn’t count every group doing a pop-up or a swim.

Everyone always says the locals have a complicated relationship with Ironman. But I don’t think it’s that complicated: There are some benefits and some costs; those are not distributed equally and at some point the costs start to outweigh the benefits for too many people. Live Aloha!

Kelly prediction: Give it 1-2 years and Ironman will be trying to regulate non-sponsor activations again. Wouldn’t it be funny if this is the year that finally breaks Kona?

Bonus pro trip: If an activation includes a recreational IV, you should know that is 100% definitely banned.

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🐟 Did the jellyfish get you? The practice swim went off yesterday at half the distance and with a slightly adjusted time due to box jellyfish swarms. (Plus, athletes who chose to pull out could get a refund.) We noticed many of the favorites didn’t risk it 👀 — but haven’t heard about a rash of stings yet… let us know

😂 A local’s take that made us laugh: How you know when it’s Ironman week.

📺 What to watch: Bob Babbitt is still at it (Taylor Knibb’s interviews will always be our pick) — but don’t miss Ironman’s Fighting Chance videos either, the Norwegians say so

❤️ Congrats: Word is one of our pros will be celebrating a new arrival pushing them to the finish line!

A (not so) fun fact

There will be 2,548 athletes lining up on Saturday — with 689 women as 27% of the total field.

Thanks to our sponsors

Salomon - Stay tuned for more about their Ironman intentions and what they have planned.

Roka - Don’t forget to enter our podium predictions contest for a new pair of R2 goggles, which I did wear this past weekend and are excellent.

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You all, I’m doing Jan’s SGRAIL triathlon on Saturday. And I’m 90% sure it is going to take me three hours. And then I fly to Kona on Monday morning.

Our final Kona plan:

• Daily fun fact Kona newsletters Monday-Friday next week > should hit your inbox in the morning, should be short and sweet — unfortunately, creating a new list for the 83% of you who said they wanted daily Kona updates was nearly impossible, so it’s going to come to all of you, but I promise they’ll be quick and you can always ignore them

• Your regular post-race from-the-ground Triathlonish newsletter will come out Sunday morning, Oct. 11 > and then we’ll be back to the regular Wednesday schedule the following week

• The race week podcast will come out late Tuesday/early Wednesday & then after race weekend we’ll have your Everything You Want to Know About the Ironman World Championships show

• Our annual ‘win something random from Kelly’ Kona predictions contest is up; leave your podium predictions in the comments there.

I’m also working on a few other stories and pieces for other outlets. And am currently on the hunt for great American age-grouper stories. Last year, I only ended up with the 80-year-old Natalie Grabow interview because one of you all texted me that there was a badass woman at your local Y. So hit me up with what you got. I’ll be out-and-about at all the things during Kona week too, if you see me.

And, with September wrapping up, I want to give a huge thank you to Lynette at Mint & Honey Co. for her support these last two months. I’ve been continually impressed with her knowledge and connections in the space. If you’re looking for someone who knows endurance and wellness, you can’t do better. I’ll leave you with this message from Lynette:

It's triathlon championship season, and the fall marathon majors have officially kicked off! Which means it's time to talk 2027. From media campaigns to brand partnerships to race sponsorships, the conversations and planning start now. Like any long distance race, planning, pitching, and execution take time. Reach out to Lynette today to start exploring your 2027 visions!

- Kelly

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The next of the world champs: Pontevedra!

It was the World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) Championship Finals in Pontevedra, Spain. And if you think I made that name up, I did not. It is no longer called the Grand Final — even though most media outlets still call it that — but don’t worry because next year it’ll be called the World Triathlon T50 Championship Final. Or something.

The Elite Women’s Race

Cassandre Beaugrand capped a perfect season. Three French national records on the track. Five WTCS victories. The question, I think, is simply whether she can maintain this level of dominance all the way through LA? Or, if she’ll have to let off the gas next year, to a degree?

The Elite Men’s Race

Riddle me this: Matt Hauser won four WTCS races (including the Championship Final), Vasco Vilaca won two WTCS races and was outsprinted in the Final — and yet Vasco is our 2026 world champion.

This, I would argue, is why there needs to be a World Series winner and also a one-day World Champion crowned at the championship race. But I have been out-voted.

Of course, the big question from the men’s race was: Why did the ramp collapse during the first lap swim exit? And how did no one drown during that melee? Tim tried to convince me that it didn’t affect the race outcome too much, but I don’t believe him.

The Para Races

Primarily want to note that the U.S. won the mixed relay, and the para mixed relay is a pretty cool event because it combines classifications (and will make its Paralympic debut in L.A.) — which makes it pretty wild out there with the different categories going up against each other. Plus, Olympian Kevin McDowell guided Paralympian Owen Cravens to the win, which I remember Kevin telling me once was a goal/dream of theirs because they grew up together, so I’m glad they were able to make that happen.

It’s also worth noting the dominance in the individual para races (as we discussed on the podcast): Alexis Hanquinquant won his 10th world title, Dave Ellis won his 9th, Susana Rodríguez won her 8th, Grace Norman (still undefeated) won her 7th, and Lauren Parker won her 6th (plus she has some cycling titles). Number of reasons for this, but it is kinda crazy.

One more takeaway: I left the weekend with the impression that we should all be worried about France. Sure, they weren’t as dominant this year as they’ve been in other years. (They got beat, handily, in the elite men’s race.) But they took the mixed relay + when you look at the up-and-coming races (juniors, U23) it looks very French.

Full results: World Championship Finals + U23 + Juniors, Para Championships

And a bunch more updates from Pontevedra

On this week’s podcast we covered two big topics:

1. Every update you could possibly want from the big World Triathlon annual meeting (including hybrid racing?!)

2. An overview of the anti-doping and whereabouts systems

And here is a thing I learned while researching anti-doping for the podcast:

The World Triathlon testing pool now includes 24 T100 athletes (some of whom are exclusively T100 athletes, not also racing World Tri events), so the PTO does now have out-of-competition testing.

Also, when I asked Ironman why their 2025 anti-doping report wasn’t up on their site, they put it up. So it’s there now, if you want to peruse. And also that’s probably how frequently someone looks into this.

• Ironman’s 2025 report here

• World Triathlon’s 2025 report here

One of the big items out of the Pontevedra meeting was: The rest of the final official Triathlon World Tour 2027 schedule. Probably.

Go listen (or watch) the full podcast episode to hear me explain why the PTO CEO was wrong about non-endemic sponsorships: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube

Speaking of: What did you **think the LA28 course was going to be?

One of the other items announced in Pontevedra was the LA Olympics course. (See the course here.) And I’ve seen a lot of people complaining that it’s kinda stupid flat beach loops. To which I say:

What did you think it was going to be.

Ben Collins’ overview for Triathlete was decent. But I re-iterate: After they announced it was going to be in Venice, it was clear this was pretty much what we were going to get.

Swim: Beach start. Often very choppy. Two laps. The surf could make or break the race
Bike: Eight flat beach loops designed for TV. Lots of stupid turns. Everyone’s panicking about the part of the loop that goes on the bike path — which yes, will be very narrow and probably have a crash or two — but they’ll sweep it, they’ll barricade it, it’ll be clear of roller-bladers during the race.
Run: Eight laps. Up and down across the Venice canals. Designed 100% for that beach finish. IMO, the weirdest part about the run is the part that goes through the very residential narrow one-lane streets.

Welcome to L.A.

From the races

• Augusta 70.3: After the New York (Jones Beach) 70.3 was canceled, Ironman added the pro men’s race to the pro women’s race in Augusta, Georgia — a 13-hour drive away — and did, reportedly, give the pro men a $500 travel credit to make the switch. Which isn’t bad. Jackson Laundry came out on top. And shoutout to Lydia Russell for her win. Watch out for her.

Results: Augusta 70.3

Mark your calendars

• Xterra World Championships: Also next weekend on Oct. 10 and will be the first year (of three years) they’re in New Mexico. Given Xterra’s background and history in the U.S., it’s nice to hear U.S. participation is up again and they’re trying to build that community. Check out the pro preview ahead of the race.

  • And you can WATCH on Youtube if you need a break from Ironman watching. It’s at least very different and probably more exciting.

• Plus, a few Kona notes so far:

  • TriRating has his Kona report out — one of the best resources in the sport

  • We’ve started the tracking of who’s there and who’s not

  • And, there is a box jellyfish watch window from Oct. 4-8 — basically a surge starting eight days after the last full moon — and the beach at the pier is particularly susceptible because it is south facing. If I was racing, I’d wait until Wednesday or so to get in the water, but maybe you enjoy pain.

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• Hayden Wilde won $209,800 in September. I made much less than that this month. So samesies. (Instagram)

• Jocelyn McCauley gave birth to her kid. (Instagram)

• A fundraiser for Jeanne Collonge and more details about + a fundraiser for the athlete who had the serious accident at Ironman Maryland. (helloasso/Serbian Times)

• Ironman announced a re-birth/re-launch/new launch/rebrand/whatever of its women’s initiative. It’s called Woven now. RIP Women for Tri. I waited on today’s newsletter partially because I wanted to talk about this after it launched, but I find the bulk of what I have to say is that we’ll have to wait and see what happens. A lot of people have messaged me to ask what Woven actually is, and as best I understand it’s a bunch of little things that come together out of that Survey of 10,000 Women last year: marketing materials that center women, women’s specific facilities and needs at races, a women’s group and ambassadors with events and content, targeted races where they’re going to test efforts to drive up women’s registration. Some of those things I think are logical, some are not. (And some of the people I know they’ve gotten involved are good picks.) But, as we have said many times, so often how these things go down is in the details. And a lot of the rest of how it goes down is in how it fits within the larger context and history. Which is to say: During all of the debate the last few years, I had so many women say to me ‘oh so Ironman cares about women now?’ And I guess the answer Ironman is going for is: Yes? (Instagram)

• This is a good post about why exactly having a women’s-only race matters to a lot of women. (Facebook)

• Also an interesting report on the rate of injuries from crashes in the UCI pelotons being higher in women’s racing than in men’s, and involving more athletes. (CyclingNews)

• The U.S. has a cycling world champ again, for the first time in a long time. (The Athletic)

• Yes, Ironman is expensive. But no, it does not have to be £18,000 ($23,900) expensive. (Instagram)

• UTMB has changed its qualification, but it’s a little as if they only announced half of the change and now everyone’s confused. (Canadian Trail Running)

• Jessie Diggins was on Trail Society to talk about going from Olympic skiing to trail running. I gather she’ll also be in Kona with Salomon, along with Courtney Dauwalter. Will we get them to do a triathlon? (Youtube)

• On the note of Olympians-turned-runners: Jan Frodeno ran a 2:23:33 at the Berlin Marathon. (Instagram)

• The big news out of Berlin, though, was that Tigst Assefa somehow completely ruptured her Achilles with 2km to go and managed to still win. (Runner’s World)

• The Beer Mile World Champs. Any word on if we should do the traditional Kona Beer Mile? (Youtube)

• Is Nike still cool? It’s actually an interesting question, because sales are dropping as there’s more and more competition, the Chinese market has not panned out for them, they seem to be struggling with the All Conditions Gear re-launch. Yet, perceptions of the answer tend to be very split depending on the demographic. (The Economist/Slowtwitch)

• A good Hoka movie on Amazon Prime. (Amazon Prime)

• Strava is getting a governor candidate in trouble because it shows he may not actually live in the state. Or else he just really likes to ride and run in another state. You’d think by now people would know how to turn on Strava privacy settings. (MS Now)

• “We must create the shit machine.” (McSweeney’s)

One last thing

I’m sure no one racing in Kona identifies with this.

Support Triathlonish partners: Reach out to Lynette at Mint & Honey Co. to connect about ways to find potential partners, create earned media, and build campaigns for and from athletes.

Brought to you by:

Official start lists here: men’s & women’s. Four previous world champions still standing in the men’s race. Four in the women’s race. Plus, 70.3 world champions. And many many (many) podium-ers. Plus, newbies.

For the record: I never know what Taylor Knibb is going to do, and I’m often wrong. I think both her and Lucy are ready to med tent themselves again trying to not med tent themselves. The question is never will they take the lead; it’s always will they hold onto it. I think Kat is tired of getting second and, if her Achilles holds up, is the run course record-holder here. I think people count out Chelsea Sodaro at their peril. And I think Laura P. and Solveig looked Ironman strong in Nice. I’d probably pick Solveig in the #1 spot if I could enter my own contest.

And I’d probably pick Kristian Blummenfelt. But mostly just because I feel like you don’t bet against Kristian. Of course, yes, absolutely, Patrick Lange has proven over and over again that he knows how to win in Kona — even when we haven’t seen him much during the year. I think Gustav Iden looks like he’s back to the Gustav who won here. I think Sam Laidlow looks like Sam, which is to say you never know if he’s going to show up or blow up. I think Rudy Von Berg is consistent. And then there’s the Kona newbies.

As always: Pick your podium. Guesses must be in the comments below by race start.

Update: Closest answers to correct now wins a random prize from me + brand new pairs of Roka’s top-of-the-line R2 goggles; there’s some good stuff sitting around my office and a lot of leftover swag, so who knows what you’ll get along with the best and most comfortable goggles on the market.

1. Absolutely everything that happened at the World Triathlon annual meeting and racing in Pontevedra.

2. What you need to know about how anti-doping works — and what that means for whereabouts violations.

See Ironman’s 2025 doping report here & World Triathlon’s 2025 report here.

Listen and follow Triathlonish on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the show on Youtube.

• (1:08) - What happened at the World Triathlon Congress? A follow-up.

• (5:11) - The latest updates about the World Triathlon Tour

• (16:16) - The LA28 Olympic course — see it here

• (19:20) - Hyathlon? Hybrid racing? The update

• (23:37) - Tim’s final World Triathlon news from Pontevedra

• (26:42) - The actual World Championship racing, a ramp collapses, and whether Kelly’s right to get confused

• (39:30) - How the anti-doping system works — because it seems like no one understands

• (42:08) - Why Ironman signed on as a WADA signatory

• (45:18) - In-competition v. out-of-competition testing

• (48:30) - “If they can’t find you, they can’t test you”

• (50:58) - What the h*ll is whereabouts, how does an athlete get a whereabouts violation, and what information are they required to provide

• (57:55) - How you could manipulate the system

• (1:05:15) - Is there a better way?

• (1:10:09) - Bad Week/Good Week

Presented by:

This is just your reminder that if you’re going to be in Kona in two weeks, you should get your COVID & flu shot now so you have a bit of a buffer. Kona is one giant petri dish anyway, might as well give yourself a chance.

And a reminder: Episode #2 of the Triathlonish podcast came out yesterday. I didn’t email it out to all of you because I, personally, hate getting too many emails, but I am going to now point you towards it a bunch of times:

In fact, one of the reasons this email is hitting you a little early is because today, right now as you read this, the World Triathlon Congress is happening in Spain. So. Buckle up.

- Kelly

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First, two quick Kona questions

In two weeks, I’ll be on the Big Island, so I’ve been lining up my meetings & events & interviews & plans. In the past, I’ve written a quick-hit daily newsletter, typically for Feisty, that includes a few fun facts, some links and recs, a blurb from the ground. (I’ve done the these from Kona, Nice, Paris.)

But I haven’t decided yet if I should do them this year. Would you all be interested in short daily emails only during Kona week?

Second question: I liked this idea Matt Trappe had during Western States and UTMB, where he simply brought together a bunch of people in the sport (industry, media, agents, athletes, RDs, organizers) for an off-line chat at a house with some drinks. To give everyone a chance to talk about all the things we’re all talking about anyway, but without worrying about how it looks or might be perceived. Off-line, not online. Share wild ideas, questions, half- (or fully-) formed thoughts.

I think this could be fun to do in Kona. (Formally. Since we all do it informally throughout the week anyway.) But, also, I simply do not have the energy for it to end up being an evening of lectures on why men deserve more World Championship spots than women. I’m not interested, I’m not going to change my fundamental core beliefs, and I have no desire to re-tread this well-worn inanity. I do not have space in my life for that.

So, is it possible to talk about Ironman and triathlon and the future without devolving into debate on proportionality? Would we be able to approach the evening with fresh insights and new ideas? Thoughts?

If you’re interested, slide into my DMs and I’ll mull the salon possibility.

One other Kona thing: Start time innovations have dropped

Do you remember when we all asked how a 2,600-person one-day race with the men and women crammed into the same course together could possibly create fair racing conditions for the women? And CEO Scott said “innovations in start times.”

You don’t remember that? Well, I do.

And now, the innovations are here:

Honestly, I’m being mean because this is what RDs have done almost since start waves were invented, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand what Ironman is going for.

Ironman race directors have often put thought into spacing waves by age and gender in order to give the pro women enough time before the age-group men, to create gaps between age-group waves of similar speeds, and to create speed differentials so that when athletes from one wave pass athletes from another wave they move quickly through — decreasing the possibility of clumping and large packs.

So I do understand what they’re going for here.

But, I also think we all know that those men’s Waves #3-6 are going to turn into one giant smoosh, and that the women’s Wave #7 is going to get swallowed up by men on both sides. We all think that’s what will probably happen because that’s what we’ve seen happen many times. Which is partially why I also think we’re having a bit of a short-term memory problem. I know Jimmy (the head ref) and Diana (the head of world championship events) remember what one-day combined Kona races were like with the massive packs and 90% of athletes coming out of the swim in a 15-minute window. But the last one of those was in 2019. I think a great many other people have forgotten a one-day Kona, and I do not think CEO Scott has any idea what that looks like on the Queen K. Guess he’s gonna find out.

fyi, World Triathlon has a Congress

Now. This week, alongside the World Championship races in Pontevedra, Spain, is the annual World Triathlon delegates meeting. Called The Congress. It’s where all the people in charge of stuff from all of the different countries meet to give updates and read budgets and have drinks and make deals and vote.

This year’s vote will include possible changes to the World Triathlon Constitution.

Because most of my Triathlonish work lately has gone into the podcast, and because we did a huge episode all about the World Triathlon drama leading into the Congress meeting today (which is happening right now), I’m just going to share here some of the background and links:

• The Inquisitor did a whole investigation into documents that showed people were given a list of who to vote for in the 2024 World Tri elections

• This then raised questions about corruption and a complaint was filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport

• Tim has interviewed many (many) of the people involved and written about the ongoing back and forth between the parties

• And you can read the full World Triathlon Congress agenda and packet here, if you so choose

🎧 GET THE DETAILS: We tried to explain it all clearly and concisely in yesterday’s podcast episode — because you need to understand the back story to understand what got us to today’s Congress

Go listen (or watch): Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube

Also happening: The World Tri races

In addition to the voting drama in Pontevedra, there is actual racing drama, too. The WTCS Championship Final: women on Saturday, men on Sunday.

As a reminder: The Final gives a 1.25x multiplier of points — meaning 1,250 points to the winner v. 1,000 in a regular WTCS race.

Also a reminder: In triathlon, the World Champion is the season series winner after the Final. (Which, personally, I think is confusing, and that there should be a world champion who wins the world championship race and then a series winner who wins the season-long series. Like in mountain biking. Or skiing.)

This does create a certain amount of drama, however, because series standings can swing wildly in the Final. And leads to a lot of announcers trying to do math mid-race.

Here’s where I understand it to be heading into the Final, based mostly on Tim’s math and World Triathlon previews:

The women’s race

Cassandre Beaugrand leads Beth Potter by 225 points, then Tilda Mansson by 363.

If Cassandre finishes on the podium, she wins the overall. Period.
If Beth is second, then Cassandre just needs to be 4th.
If Beth is third, then Cassandre just needs to be 6th. Etc.
If both Beth and Cassandre finish well down (as happened last year in Wollongong), then Tilda or Lisa Tertsch could win.

The men’s race

Vasco Vilaca leads Matt Hauser by 354 points after Matt had a very sub-par (for him) race in Weihai.

In order for Matt to win the overall, he has to win the race and Vasco has to finish 6th or lower.

Not that this has never happened. Think poor Alex Yee losing it in what seemed like an impossible race in 2023 and in a closer race in 2021.

WATCH: Para races on Friday @ 1 a.m. PT/4 a.m. ET, elite women on Saturday @ 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET, elite men on Sunday @ 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET

From the races

Highlights from this past weekend and what to watch this upcoming weekend.

• T100 French Riviera: Hayden Wilde was my pick for Good Week; he’s really having quite the September.

• Sao Paulo 70.3: No reason to mention other than a shoutout to Rachel Olson because I know exactly what it feels like to keep having things go south and your life turned upside down and to know you’re capable and just want to win one of these damn things.

• Cozumel 70.3: And Lionel Sanders returned to racing with a 3rd.

• IM Maryland: This was the wild one here in the U.S. this weekend. Cam Wurf can still win an Ironman, with the fastest run split too btw. But the big story was…

  • A bad accident required a helicopter medical evac, which necessitated stopping bikers from entering the helicopter landing zone. Depending on where you were on the course you may have not been stopped at all or may have been stopped for about 10 minutes. Because of where it landed in the two laps, this heavily split the pro men’s race and was also emotionally rough I think for those who witnessed the accident. And then after the finish, it was later determined that the most fair way to adjust the results was simply to subtract the entire ~15-mile segment between the two timing mats. Which **did ultimately change the results. I checked those details with Ironman and they’re accurate, but OnYerLeft has the best graphical explanation.

Results: T100 French Riviera & standings, IM Maryland, Sao Paulo 70.3, Cozumel 70.3, Emilia Romagna 70.3

Mark your calendars

• Also happening this upcoming weekend (in addition to the World Tri racing): New York 70.3 (men) & Augusta 70.3 (women)

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• I don’t even totally understand this Backyard Ultra Triathlon, but: It operated essentially the same way Backyard Ultras work (one loop every hour on the hour until you can’t go on), except these athletes did a sprint triathlon every two hours until they couldn’t go on (500m swim, 20km bike, 5km run). In the end, two women did 33 loops in 66 hours with the closest man in third place at 21 loops. Which is still a lot of loops. (Instagram)

• Taylor Knibb was 13th overall and the top American at the UCI time trial world championships. (Tri247)

• Which is part of the Cycling Road World Championships, happening right now this week. (Velo)

• Triathlete had a fun list of the top triathlons in every state — which is really more like the most popular non-Ironman-brand triathlon in each state, but still, they got California right. (Triathlete)

• The World Road Running Championships were this past weekend and I’m going to leave it to Citius to give you thoughts. (Citius)

• Hyrox issued refunds after the “poop incident” and also sold a majority stake at a $700 million valuation. (Canadian Running/Huddle Up)

• If you missed it in the podcast: World Triathlon has claimed “hybrid racing” under its purview for the purposes of being the international governing body. Except now they might call it “hyathlon.”

• A good story about the steps this paramedic took to save their partner after a bike crash while they were riding.

• And a cool contest from FORM to fund someone’s first triathlon. Share it with that friend who keeps thinking about trying one. (FORM)

One last thing

Accurate.

Support Triathlonish partners: Reach out to Lynette at Mint & Honey Co. to connect about ways to find potential partners, create earned media, and build campaigns for and from athletes.

What the h*ll is a Congress? Why have there been two years of Congress drama and controversy? How has that all led up to this week’s big annual meeting? Good questions!

Tim Heming read hundreds of pages of documents, talked to almost everyone involved, and is ready to explain it to us. The World Triathlon Congress meets on Wednesday (tomorrow) in Pontevedra, ahead of the World Championship racing, and will vote on proposed Constitutional changes + hear updates on the state of the sport.

Episode #2 is all about World Triathlon. Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or watch the show on Youtube.

• (2:20) - One last thing about Nice: Listener feedback and insight from the 70.3 Worlds Championships episode

• (10:14) - Now: World Triathlon! What is a World Triathlon Congress and why the big annual meeting matters for regular triathletes

• (12:23) - How did we get here: Tim tries to explain the scandal over the World Triathlon presidential election and the fallout, and Kelly translates it for Americans

• (23:08) - A quick chat with the Norwegian federation head

• (27:00) - Which brings us to … the World Triathlon constitutional changes being proposed

• (38:18) - Other important World Tri Congress things: budgets, broadcasts, and changes coming

• (45:30) - World Triathlon claims Hyrox under its umbrella? Hybrid racing? Hyathlon?

• (50:20) - The actual World Championship racing: Who could win and how

• (1:00:58) - Good Week, Bad Week picks

Presented by Mint & Honey Co.

Sure, sure, there was a massive world championship this past weekend and we re-launched the Triathlonish podcast yesterday with an episode all about 70.3 Worlds. But the biggest news of the week: I did my first Hyrox (or Hyrox-like event). And you all, whatever the haters hate, it’s super fun. Also, I actually hands-on-knees mid-race blew myself up and was crippled for two days. And also, I 100% started Googling to find the next one.

I think that officially makes me a lifestyle athlete now.

Even though I additionally promised to do Jan Frodeno’s SGRAIL race here in three weeks — and will probably dust off my TT bike for it 😬 because triathletes gonna triathlete. Come join me in trying to remember how to Olympic-distance triathlon.

Now, let’s get to your weekly newsletter: Lots of tidbits, results, and more races races races.

- Kelly

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Au revoir Nice *French emojis*

Subtitled: Does anyone love triathlon more than Taylor Knibb and Kristian Blummenfelt? I’d say no.

My husband asked me why Taylor was doing 70.3 Worlds + UCI Worlds + Ironman Worlds, while Lucy CB was just focusing on Ironman, and I said: Because Taylor just loves it all too much, she can’t help herself, it’s all just SO FUN, aren’t you having fun!? (Zero criticism. She’s a 4x world champ, there’s nothing to criticize. Fun is fast, and you only get so many years at this level so you better enjoy them.)

We re-launched the Triathlonish podcast yesterday with a very (very) detailed episode about the 70.3 World Championships from me and our on-the-ground co-host Tim Heming. So I won’t repeat here all the industry and broader multi-sport things we covered extensively and in-depth: The numbers, the history, the money, the big announcements.

🎧 Go listen (or watch on Youtube for clips from the Nice finish line too): Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube

Women’s race

I watched the start of the bike, thought ‘OK, Taylor’s going to win,’ and went to bed because it was 11 p.m. here. Honestly, I could have been wrong, things happen, but I was right.

Full race recap. Interviews with the pros here and here. Results here.

1. Taylor Knibb - 4:19:24

2. Julie Derron - 4:23:30

3. Alanis Siffert - 4:25:10

4. Solveig Lovseth - 4:25:50

5. Marjolaine Pierre - 4:26:38

My surprises of the race: I underestimated Alanis Siffert in third. I thought she was better at the longer distances and this course wouldn’t suit her. I was wrong. I think Imogen Simmonds also got slightly under-rated in 7th. People (including me) might have just overlooked her following her 2025 and her understandable lack of a desire to grab a spotlight now.

Other end of the spectrum: I always think Kat Matthews is going to pull it out and just run her way onto the podium, because she so so frequently does. She didn’t quite this time — nursing a run injury, which happens — but I didn’t see that coming, even when I heard rumors about the injury a few days before. I too had irrational optimism, lol.

A thought for Kona: Quite a few people looked like they were solid but carrying training fatigue: Solveig, Paula Findlay, Laura Philipp. I would keep an eye on those people.

Also a reminder that Julie Derron and Imogen Simmonds will be racing in Hawaii.

Men’s race

Obviously a very different style than the women’s. 27 men out of T1 together. Too many lead changes to count on the run. A descent that made me very very nervous to watch, but that Gustav Iden says was under control so believe him if you want. Lots of complaining about draft packs and Race Ranger lights, but really what are ya gonna do.

Full race recap here. Interviews here and here. Results here.

1. Hayden Wilde - 3:50:51

2. Kristian Blummenfelt - 3:51:09

3. Jelle Geens - 3:52:40

4. Gustav Iden - 3:53:16

5. Lasse Nygaard Priester - 3:54:08

My surprises of the race: I’ll admit it: I didn’t think Hayden Wilde would even podium. I thought he was tired — he has a big September (raced Supertri, has T100 this upcoming weekend, then WTCS Finals) — and I thought he’d just get rolled. Boy was I wrong about that. I had pretty much everyone else in the right order after him, but minus him.

And, if anyone said they had Michele Bortolamedi in their top ten beforehand, they are lying now.

For Kona: I’d worry about the Norwegians. All of them.

French odds & ends

Since we did cover far too much dense detail in the podcast, I’m only going to add a few 70.3 Worlds tidbits.

• The fastest bikes and the bike count. (Triathlete/Instagram)

• Kristian’s 1:05 Strava run file and Gustav Iden’s fastest bike file. (Strava)

• Ironman posted the Col de Vence times. I had a hard time finding the right segment on Strava, because even in this day and age there are too many Strava segments, but if you want to see the overall leaderboards I think this is it. (Instagram/Strava)

• As Tim explained on the pod, there was evidently a crash as the front pack of pro men came into T2 on the Promenade — the moto head-on’d into an age-grouper coming out of T1, and then almost took out the whole group. Sounds like everyone is OK. (Triathlete)

• Taylor Knibb went on The Triathlon Hour to talk about her race. And Jelle Geens went on his own show, All In Triathlon, to talk about his race. (Youtube/Apple Podcasts)

• We talked lots of the numbers on our show: And as far as I can tell there were 3,003 women who started (though started is a little tough, since it’s more like ‘who checked in and had a chip/bib’) & 2,689 women who finished; there were 3,498 men who started & 3,145 who finished. (Spotify)

• We also talked about the big heavily rumored Salomon title partnership deal (and my estimate at how much the deal is worth). The next question I keep coming to is: Why, what is Salomon’s goal? (WWD)

• Which, speaking of, in case you were wondering, Salomon does have a super shoe. (Outside Run)

Mint & Honey Co.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, one of the things that’s nice working with Lynette at Mint & Honey Co. is that she really understands and is a part of both the triathlon and running communities but also the growing wellness and health spaces. So I asked her to explain what she thinks it means to combine wellness and endurance:

“To me, the intersection of wellness and endurance sports combines the grittiness of exploring what you’re capable of physically and mentally, while nourishing your body with real food, doing workouts you actually enjoy, spending time with loved ones, prioritizing recovery and sleep, and ensuring you have alone time.

Wellness is supposed to make you feel well, not overwhelmed. Before the optimization boom of biohacking, wearables, tracking everything, we subconsciously lived healthy, active lifestyles.

I find it important to be in this intersection personally and professionally because recognizing the line between over-optimization and understanding the numbers allows us to live in a balanced way with flexibility.”

Reach out to Lynette to find out what Mint & Honey Co. can do for you as an athlete, a brand, a race director, or even just as a person also passionate about endurance & wellness.

From the races

There were a lot of other races this past weekend and quite a few on the calendar this upcoming weekend, so we’re just going to try to hit the highlights.

• WTCS Karlovy Vary: Lots of crashes in the rain. Big shoutout to Georgia Taylor-Brown for the win three years after her last one. Good to see her back on top. And Alex Yee looks like he’s starting to return to WTCS form — didn’t quite hunt down Dorian Coninx but close.

• IM Wales: Speaking of rain. Another big shoutout to Nikki Bartlett for winning this one.

• Challenge Samarkand: Sam Laidlow did have to walk but did also win. So make of that what you will.

Results: WTCS Karlovy Vary + the standings ahead of the Championship Final next weekend, IM Wales, Sunshine Coast 70.3, Challenge Samarkand, Challenge Almere

Mark your calendars

• T100 French Riviera: In which Hayden Wilde continues his epic September. Joined by quite a few of the guys who raced in Nice.

  • WATCH: Saturday 2 a.m. ET/11 p.m. PT the night before on Youtube

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• This was a sweet homage from Daniel Baekkegard to The Norwegians. (Instagram)

• Daniela Bleymehl won’t finish off her career in Kona, like she was hoping. Because, unfortunately, most of us never get that fairytale ending and that’s OK. (Instagram)

• Challenge Roth was happy to report all the doping tests conducted in-race were negative. Which I feel like you should actually have mixed feelings about. (Roth)

• An athlete died during the swim of the Wisconsin 70.3, which is the fourth death in Madison (full and half). I’ve done that race, my husband’s done that race, I love that race; no idea why or what’s happening. (The Athletic)

• The World Ultimate Championships — track, guys, they’re talking about track & field — is meant to be something exciting in the off-years, a shorter and more money and more pizzazz meet, and a way to test innovations. It happened this past weekend and, despite the fact that you probably didn’t know that, it sorta succeeded. (The Athletic)

• Canyon made LeBron James a massive 3XL custom bike. (Velo)

• Just a thought but maybe we don’t need high school sports content creators. (Front Office Sports)

• Lots of people on podcasts this week: Jenny Simpson was on Rich Roll to talk about her heart stopping, Chelsea Sodaro was on Trail Society, and Kilian Jornet talked to Jan. (Youtube/Apple Podcasts)

• Kate Courtney’s RedBull movie is pretty solid and way to go Etienne on the shooting and producing it. (RedBull TV)

• Here’s a little more about the Canadian runner who disappeared on the Matterhorn. (Outside)

• Seems like all retired gold medalists are getting into ultra trail running. Jessie Diggins was next up, winning her first 100-miler. (MPR News)

• Of course, we can’t not mention the pro winner who had explosive diarrhea at the Hyrox in Beijing. So I’ll just say while it is not uncommon for elite athletes to shit themselves in triathlons, I think the primary difference is that in marathons or Ironmans if you accidentally poop you’re only really impacting yourself (and it tends to happen during the later portions of the run, outdoors, almost finished). In Hyrox, which is an indoor competition, you’re sharing equipment and space with all the other athletes who come after you (and this was very much not self-contained, it was running down her legs, and it was early in the competition — so). I absolutely feel bad for her, I think she just did what she’d trained to do (continue competing), and she doesn’t deserve the amount of viral-ity that’s now happened, but I think most criticisms have less to do with her as an athlete and more to do with the impact it had on other athletes. (NY Post/The Athletic)

• “We Are Pleased to Announce the Acquisition of Hell by UTMB®” (Zoe’s Substack)

One last thing

I do not think I would have finished (or started) this half-marathon.

Support Triathlonish partners: Reach out to Lynette at Mint & Honey Co. to connect about ways to find potential partners, create earned media, and build campaigns for and from athletes.

For our first episode, with Tim back from the 70.3 World Championships in Nice, France (the last one in Nice. for now!) he shares his reporting, a few interviews, and everything from the biggest championship week in the sport.

Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or what the show on Youtube.

• (0:00) - Hi, welcome to the new Triathlonish podcast

• (5:03) - Biggest takeaways from the ground in Nice + all the numbers (so many numbers): big, busy, fun — and does jet lag cause GI distress?

• (17:02) - The history of 70.3 Worlds: How we went from a sad little race in Clearwater to 7,000 people next year

• (26:12) - Does Ironman make money in Nice? Do the vendors? Will anyone ever actually answer our money questions?

• (35:45) - The actual championship pro races: Surprises from us and complaints from the pros

• (47:30) - How dangerous is that descent? That bike course?

• (1:01:14) - The two big Ironman announcements out of Nice

• (1:16:15) - Best guesses at where 70.3 Worlds will be in 2028?

• (1:19:40) - Good Week, Bad Week picks

Presented by Mint & Honey Co. — a unique public relations and digital marketing firm that is personally invested in the same industries their clients work in. Reach out to talk about how they could help you grow your business, where there might be opportunities, or just to brainstorm.

The big news of the week is the podcast is back. Or will be back. On Tuesday. New co-host, new angle. Gonna try to just nerd out.

And yes that nerding out in episode #1 will be almost exclusively about Nice — which I went to in 2019 for my husband to race 70.3 Worlds + me to cover it for Triathlete, in 2023 for the Global Tri Awards, and then in both 2023 & 2024 for Men’s & Women’s Nice 1.0. Feels weird to not be in Nice this year.

But, fear not, we’ll have the industry and event reports from the ground. What is the future of 70.3 Worlds? What’s the history? Do brands make money? Does Ironman make money here, what’s their business objective?

First, though. One quick-ish thing about doping. Just one.

- Kelly

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The anti-doping whereabouts app has a 2.2-star rating

Just a fun fact. The system used to log your location so that anti-doping testers can find you (called ADAMS, with the app now called Athlete Central) is universally hated by athletes because it is cumbersome and buggy and a huge pain in the ass.

And that’s basically Joe Skipper’s argument for why he now has an 18-month doping ban: He had three whereabouts failures between July 2024 and May 2025, and he’s more or less saying he didn’t dope, he just messed up the paperwork.

(((An aside: Jack Kelly had a whole video with overly detailed explanations about this one time Joe was on a bike ride and the testers showed up, and then this other time he updated his overnight location for a race but forgot to update his daytime location, etc etc etc. But then Joe said Jack was full of shit, and then Jack took down the video, and then all of our heads imploded.)))

A FUN READ: Who is responsible for anti-doping in long-course triathlon?

A quick explanation of how whereabouts works:

• Depending on what kind of testing pool they’ve been put in, athletes have to provide a daily one-hour window in which they must be exactly where they say they’ll be so they can be tested

• For the other 23 hours of the day, they have to provide general information and keep it updated: overnight location, travel schedules, regular training/work/social commitments, contact info

A good way to understand this is that in the one-hour window the burden is on the athlete, and in the other 23 hours the burden is a best effort accuracy that the tester has a reasonable chance of locating the athlete.

There are two ways athletes can get a whereabouts “failure.” And if they get three failures within a 12-month time period, then it counts as an anti-doping violation — because you can’t be tested if you can’t be found — and that violation comes with the requisite ban.

The two ways to get a failure:

• Missed test: If the tester shows up in the hour window and the athlete isn’t there or can’t get there within the hour time period, then it’s an automatic missed test.

• Filing failure: If, for the other 23 hours, the athlete doesn’t submit location information, provides incomplete information, or gives incorrect information.

There’s a little more gray area in the 23-hour period (IMO), because if your information generally says you’re home but then you go out to dinner that’s fine — but if you say you’re home and then you’re really in another country, that’s not fine. (So how far away can you go to dinner? lol.) The burden is on the tester to locate you, as long as you provide reasonably accurate information. It’s not automatically considered a missed test if they can’t find you, but once you’ve been found you can not refuse a test. I’d say there’s also a little more gray area in the 23-hour period because testers don’t necessarily know if your information isn’t accurate unless you don’t fill it out, or if it’s super obvious or suspicious and they’re checking up on you, or if they show up to test you and you’re really somewhere else. So, honestly, you could make mistakes a few times before it catches up to you.

The general consensus from athletes is both:

1. that the whereabouts logging system doesn’t work well (updates don’t save, you have to re-enter all your info, athletes are constantly changing their training and racing plans and then they have to re-update it all again)

and also…

2. that once you have one or two whereabouts failures (which happens to lots of athletes) you get really freaked out about not getting a third and you work hard to make sure your information is always correct.

Do I particularly think Joe Skipper is doping? No, not really. Do I think the idea that he’s ‘really against doping’ proves anything? No, not really. You can’t argue that the rules should be super strict unless you also believe they apply to you.

In conclusion, I will leave you with Joe’s own words from 2023 about how dopers could, theoretically, use holes in the whereabouts system to cheat.

Now what you came for: 70.3 Worlds

OK, onto the big exciting fun stuff of the week: The first (and, personally, my favorite) world championship of the season.

Here’s everything you want to know for Nice — and we’ll have a NEW podcast episode on Tuesday post-race with the industry news, gossip, analysis:

• Previews from Triathlete & ratings from Thorsten

• Very long podcast shows from Triathlon Hour & ProTriNews

• And the (nearly) complete list of which pros are really starting

Men’s race

I think the general consensus is that the men are going to go up (and blow up) in a giant pack on the climb, and then pay the consequences on the run. And it’ll mostly come down to who, out of the group, is able to keep the gas on in the second lap of the 13.1.

Here’s Rudy Von Berg’s analysis from the climb during the last 70.3 Worlds here — plus, he’s lived in the area and knows the numbers pretty well.

Personally, I think we see a run back-and-forth and possibly another sprint finish in the final Ks. Kristian Blummenfelt seems to be in full fucking with the others form, so read into that what you will.

Women’s race

Will likely be a smaller group and more catching up on the bike from the second swim pack. It depends a little bit on where Kat Matthews and Taylor Knibb end up out of T1, because they (and Laura Philipp) will want to attack on the climb — while some of the newer short-course athletes, like Sophie Coldwell, may have a bit of gap out of the water.

I feel like we have some very different styles in the women’s race, and different opinions. You have Taylor doing this + cycling world champs + Kona and Laura P. racing herself into shape, and then you have Paula Findlay turning down cycling worlds because it’s too much and Lucy CB opting out of Nice to focus just on Kona.

Can they all be right?

Hit the comments below with your podium predictions. Closest guesses may win our standard ‘whatever random stuff I have in my office’ contest. Personally, I’m picking: Taylor & Kristian — with Kat & Jelle right behind.

WATCH: Women on Saturday & men on Sunday (will they ever rotate that order??) @ 7 a.m. in France/1 a.m. ET/ 10 p.m. the night before PT on Ironman’s Youtube

A few other odds & ends

• The stats on the pros & on the giant age-group field (men + women)

• Precision’s breakdown on how they fuel

• Slowtwitch with some of the gear

• And Ironman evidently sent out a notification reminding athletes to practice safety on the bike and ride to the left of the road — except in France you definitely want to ride to the right of the road

From the races

Highlights from this past weekend and what to watch this upcoming weekend.

• Supertri Final: Matt Hauser & Cassandre Beaugrand did what they’ve been doing all season and this time they each got $100K for it.

• Long-Distance Duathlon World Champs: Congrats to Merle Brunee for winning her 5th one of these.

Results: Supertri: men & women, Gerardmer XL, World Tri Long-Distance Duathlon World Champs

Mark your calendars

• One other big one this weekend: WTCS Karlovy Vary — the last WTCS race before the Championship Final next week and one a lot of athletes skipped China to do

  • WATCH: Sunday women @ 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT + men @ 9 a.m. ET/6 a.m. PT

• There’s actually quite a few other races happening here in the middle of the championship weekend — but honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that’s perfectly fine for your personal fulfillment but I don’t feel compelled to follow: IM Wales, the World Tri Long Distance Championships at Challenge Almere, Sam Laidlow at Challenge Samarkand instead

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• BTW, there’s another big World Championship — the World Triathlon Championship Finals next week in Pontevedra — and with that comes the World Triathlon Congress. Which a fancy name for the big annual meeting where World Tri votes on a lot of stuff. More details TK in episode #2 of the podcast. (World Triathlon/Youtube)

• Ironman announced the 2027 IM Pro Series schedule, which is more or less what was expected. (Ironman)

• There were a few more thoughts from the trail runners about the UTMB mega-growth and the World Series-ization of the races. And I’ll say what I said here: That I think trail runners over-index on the Ironman investment when they debate the growth of UTMB and the “ruining” of the sport. I don’t think Ironman actually has that much say in what is and isn’t happening. (TrailRunner/Borderlands/Matter of Brand)

• It was the Otillo SwimRun World Champs this past weekend. Still very much on my bucket list. (Instagram)

• Megan Eckert set a new six-day running world record, covering 636 miles. (iRunFar)

• And this upcoming weekend is also the track World Athletics Ultimate Championship, which no one understands. (ESPN)

• Jonny Brownlee retired. (Reuters)

• Kristian Blummenfelt & Sam Laidlow are talking a lot of trash at each other. (Instagram)

• The Ironman Foundation has started a fund in memory of Jennifer Reinhart. (Ironman Foundation)

• An update from Jeanne Collonge after her bad crash. (Instagram)

• Canadian runner Kalie McCrystal is missing from a training summit on the Matterhorn. (The Guardian)

• This is a good piece about attempting Mt. Ventoux again as an amateur. (Escape Collective)

• Sam Appleton is doing Patagonman, as is required for retiring triathletes. And Olivia Dietzel is one of the athletes participating in the first organized triathlon in Antarctica. (Instagram)

• Triathlete had an interesting roundtable discussion about the pros and cons of creating extreme personal challenges. (Triathlete)

• It also came out this week that Tomas Rodriguez had a follow-up doping violation for “tampering” and for violating the prohibition on participating in events while serving his previous ban. He also posted a self-explaining IG video. And I don’t have an opinion about this other than that the responses to him v. Joe Skipper are … different. (ITA/Instagram)

• When the six-time bog snorkeling world champion tells you not to swallow the water, it’s good advice. (The Athletic)

One last thing

Who’s faster: Mountain biker or ultra runner? In my experience, up it’s usually the runner, down and flat it’s the biker.

Support Triathlonish partners: Mint & Honey Co. is at the intersection of wellness and endurance. Reach out to Lynette to connect and talk about ways to find potential partners, create earned media, and build campaigns for and from athletes.

Listen on:

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• Youtube

First episode Sept. 15. Coming on Tuesdays. At least through championship season, and then maybe Tuesdays-ish.

Content warning: You’ll need to really care about triathlon to want to listen to this podcast.

This past Sunday I went for a run from one of the main popular trailheads here, and afterwards I went into the liquor store to get a Gatorade. The cashier asked me how far I’d run, so I said ‘about six miles.’ And he goes: Oh well, it’s better than nothing.

Welcome to Marin, bitch.

Now that I’m not flying out to Kona until the Monday of race week, should I also do Jan Frodeno’s new SGRAIL race here that is most definitely not a gravel triathlon, and report back? Many things to consider.

But first: Nice is almost here and it’s my favorite time of the year. It’s 70.3 Worlds time!

- Kelly

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The limit does not exist

Right now, there are roughly 3,000 women + 3,500 men registered for the 70.3 World Championships in Nice in 10 days. According to Ironman, when you add in the Foundation slots, partner slots, some athletes who have taken their spots but not registered yet, and then you factor in the likely DNS rate, they expect to end up with about ~6,500 athletes over the two days.

Seven years ago, I was at the last 70.3 Worlds in Nice because my husband raced and I covered it for Triathlete. There were 2,022 women + 3,690 men who checked in/started that race. And I re-enjoyed this line in the story I wrote at the time about how 70.3 Worlds had grown to what was then the biggest world championship race ever:

“Next year, the numbers will grow even more…the men’s championship race is largely at capacity. It’s the women’s event that has room to grow.”

That’s the kind of insight I bring you.

Obviously, that was the end of 2019 and then 2020 happened and things went sideways and numbers went all over the place doing what they did. But now, here we are back in Nice with roughly 800 more athletes. 800 more female athletes, broadly speaking. (And, yes, this is the highest number of female athletes at a World Champs, if you were wondering.)

Next year, they’re saying the total number of athletes could be up to 7,000.

We all know I’m on the low end of the ‘it’s too easy to qualify for Worlds’ worries spectrum. (ie. I don’t worry about it.) I think if these are the xx best women and the xx best men, then let them fight it out for world titles, and if they’re the best then it doesn’t matter what you think about how good they are or how many of them do triathlon in the world or how they compare to each other.

And yet, even I am starting to wonder: Is there a limit?

For the record, I personally think it should be roughly 1,500 men & 1,500 women in Kona, and ~2,500-2,700 men & 2,500-2,700 women at 70.3 Worlds. Give or take. If we just get to pick what we think is the ideal number for a fair championship-level race.

Sure, it’s possible to space out wave starts more for 70.3 Worlds than for 140.6 Worlds, because there’s more wiggle room. Sure, this is almost certainly why they’ve split transitions in Nice, so that they can check the men into T1 while the women are still utilizing T2. But, still, the roads can only hold so many. The towns can only hold so many. That descent in Nice was already a lot last time around. Guess it’s good 70.3 Worlds isn’t in Kona.

Who’s in, who’s out

Out: The big news is defending champ Lucy Charles-Barclay is out. She wants to focus on Kona instead. I don’t think you necessarily have skip Nice to do well at Kona, but I could see why Lucy would be nervous about that question after last year.

Sam Laidlow was never in. Ari Klau is out, Justin Riele is out.

In: The Norwegians have been training hard in St. Moritz and Gustav Iden debuted his Worlds’ hairdo. Hayden Wilde will be following up the big Supertri final this weekend with Nice next weekend. And Laura Philipp thinks winning Zell am-See 70.3 this past weekend actually works perfectly for racing Nice and then Kona; Mirinda Carfrae appears skeptical, but I think it makes sense for Laura.

Typically, Tri-Poll Athlete will start their tracking of who’s in/who’s out sometime this week. Previews next week here. Let the speculation begin.

This week’s other non-ball sports news: A UTMB review

Technically speaking, yes, the man who won the ~100-mile UTMB over the weekend (“the big loop” as the runners say) was second at UTMB last year. And, yes, the woman who won is now the second woman to win all three: CCC, OCC, and UTMB.

Technically speaking, neither Ben Dhiman nor Blandine L'Hirondel came out of nowhere. They’ve been here doing this for awhile. Yet, they weren’t the favorites, they weren’t the hyped names, they weren’t who the big bucks were betting on. And so it felt very much this year like the runners’ runners dominated, the journeymen workhouse athletes, the people who the people in the know are rooting for. Which is interesting, because that’s in sharp contrast to the other story out of UTMB — which was about all the brands and the activations and the hype hype hype and how much money/crowds/influence can truly “authentically” descend on a mountain race in a mountain town.

It’s almost as if once the hype is done and the money’s been spent, once the actual runners are out on the trails doing the actual running, “it’s still just running, eating, and a lot of walking too.”

Some other UTMB odds and ends:

• Retired triathletes dominated the 45-49 age-group in the 60km OCC: Beth McKenzie and Jan Frodeno

• If you missed the to-the-absolute-wire race at the front of OCC, it was the most watched of the weekend as Lauren Gregory moved from third to first in the last 15 minutes and then took the win by just three seconds

• This guy did all eight of the races over the week, which I don’t even understand the logistics of

• The first amputee to finish the big lap and this adaptive athlete

• Ben Dhiman’s Strava file of his win

• And, yes, the course was re-routed so the very fast times are semi-unofficial in so much as there are ever really official times in trail running

• Plus, there’s been some trail debate about whether or not amateur athletes are influenced by what shoes the fast runners wear (“I totally actually don’t even look at advertising”), but I know you all care about the fastest shoes

And let’s get to know Doug!

As part of our partnership with Mint & Honey Co. we’re highlighting some of their work and clients. Today: If you don’t know him, let’s meet Doug Guthrie 👋

Doug is a USAT Level 1, TrainingPeaks Level 2, and U.S. Masters certified coach who founded GU3 Training a decade ago to support athletes of all levels. He’s also been an expert source for media outlets likeTriathlete, Men’s Health, US News & World Report, Runner’s World, and Bicycling.

I (me, Kelly, hi!) met Doug when he guided Adrienne Bunn in Kona, an autistic athlete and the youngest female to finish the Ironman World Champs at the time.

Mint & Honey Co. has supported Doug through all of this with earned media, helping establish him as a trusted expert while also coordinating relationships with brands like ROKA—which led to increased visibility and credibility, attracted GU3 Training team sponsors, and brought in new coaching clients.

If you’re also looking to grow your visibility within the endurance sports community, be like Doug and reach out to Lynette.

From the races

Highlights from this past weekend and what to watch this upcoming weekend.

• Zell am-See 70.3: The last of the IM Pro Series non-championship races. Will Laura Philipp’s gamble pay off? Is Lasse Nygaard Priester now a favorite going into Nice? (IMO, yes on Laura, maybe on Lasse.)

  • In pros cheering on their significant others: Julia Lange won her AG.

• WTCS Weihai: Felt like a little bit of a WTCS bust? Not to say there wasn’t news out of China (there was!), but would someone please try something other than just hoping to outrun Cassandre.

  • Cassandre Beaugrand ran a personal WTCS 10km best, which was already very fast, and looks nearly unbeatable. Matt Hauser had looked unbeatable but crashed, and now it’ll be a tough but not impossible ask for him to take the series title over Vasco Vilaca. And Max Studer hadn’t raced a WTCS in almost a year and won, so there you go.

Results: Zell am-See 70.3, WTCS Weihai, Challenge Fortaleza, Poznan 70.3

Mark your calendar

• Supertri Final: Also known as “the biggest one-day prize purse in pro racing. this year” = $800K total, $100K to the winners. There’s some debate about whether this is one last big hurrah for Supertri pro racing or simply the new format style, but they have managed to line up a pretty solid start list for the big day: Matt Hauser v. Hayden Wilde v. Alex Yee. Cassandre v. Georgia TB. And a whole bunch of the up-and-comers who earned their spots in via the series

  • WATCH: Sunday @ 1 p.m. local time/8 a.m. ET/5 a.m. PT on their Youtube or TriathlonLive

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• Craig Alexander and Karen Smyers were announced as this year’s Ironman Hall of Fame inductees. I love Karen (Craig is great, too) and she always has a lot to say about how we got here; let’s see if I can grab her in Kona! (Slowtwitch)

• Alistair Brownlee is doing all the things he always wanted to do, and that includes getting back to off-road and XTERRA. (Triathlete)

• Eric Lagerstrom also made a nice Youtube about XTERRA Portland. In case you wanted to get in the XTERRA mood. (Youtube)

• There’s a whole controversy out of Embrunman (the popular long-course grassroots French race), which it took me a little while to decipher from French, so stay with me: It seems that the girl who got second didn’t get the prize money for second place because she wasn’t in the elite race. Which, OK, is a common rule. But then it turns out that in order to qualify for the elite field the race requires athletes to meet certain time standards and those times were the exact same for men and women, which is obviously a different standard of elite for men than it is for women. Plus, the prize money for primes only went to the first overall athletes, which also obviously are primarily men. These might have been just your standard terrible French race policies and garnered less attention, but I gather that when an athlete emailed to ask about it, the race director then wrote back saying something to the effect of: ‘There are the real elites, and then there is no question of giving money to the rest of you cattle; we could just make the race all men and avoid this controversy.’ I genuinely thought there must be something missed here in the translation, but Jeanne Collonge posted about it too and she certainly speaks fluent French, so. (Instagram/Youtube)

• Here’s your other ‘gee why don’t more women want to race’ item of the week: Evidently, at the European Gravel Championships, the race organizers started the elite women behind nearly all of the age-group men — ie. after the 60-74-year-old men — and that, shockingly, went badly. The race also enforced a time-of-day cutoff — ie. be off the course by 4:30 p.m. — so the age-group women (who then started after the elite women and after all of the men) had much less time to complete the course and many were then stopped at an intermediate point without being told they needed to clear that checkpoint by a certain time. Just the standard kind of stuff that pisses athletes off. (Instagram)

• Nina Derron had to have surgery after hurting her foot at Alpe d’Huez. And Rosie Wild broke her butt falling down the stairs—which is only a slightly funnier way to injure yourself than Sara Svensk’s breaking a rib throwing things in the recycling bin. (Instagram)

• Sam Appleton announced his retirement. (Instagram)

• Liis Kapten talked to Triathlete about her viral stumbling through the last 200m of Tallinn 70.3. (Triathlete)

• Would you want finisher hats or towels? I gather that Ironman is testing towels instead of hats — very popular in Oceania — and one of our readers wanted me to share that they’re collecting feedback. (For the record, she was very unhappy about the towels. But me, personally, I’d much rather a towel (not a tiny one, a normal-ish one) than a hat.)

• Supertri acquired another UK race, Brighton & Hove Triathlon. (Supertri)

• Tim went deep on whether or not Supertri is really selling out their races. (Triathlete)

• I’ve been admittedly, we all know, somewhat skeptical of the self-reported reports that numbers are up — though we acknowledge there’s an overall growth in “fitness” among “the youths.” To that end, the annual Sports & Fitness Industry Association released its yearly sports participation report, and activity levels overall are at an all-time high. And I had to Google “padel.” (SGB Media)

• Athlos announced they’re canceling their New York event because the calendar is oversaturated, which is somewhat fine but also somewhat late to be realizing how dates work. (The Athletic/Instagram)

• And the Sydney Marathon went from 5,000 runners to 41,000 since it’s become a Marathon Major. That’s come with some predictable growing pains, of course. (Canadian Running)

• This is the best story and explanation I’ve read about what the hell is going on with youth sports and how it happened. (New York Magazine)

• And it’s been big news here in the Bay but it’s just too damn funny: A guy pretended to be a player on the 49ers and scammed women out of millions of dollars — and it’s only funny because of how thoroughly he committed to the bit: posting videos running routes, working out in 49ers gear, throwing himself a “team” birthday party. Has anyone tried this yet with professional triathlon? (Defector)

One last thing

Sometimes I think that one of the main upsides of existing within our triathlon-ish universe is this: Whatever crazy thing you come up with, it’s never going to be the craziest thing someone you know has done. So that’s nice.

From a few weeks ago, laying down in a field at the end of 93 hours of running loops.

Presented by Mint & Honey Co.

You all, this is issue #200. Which means I’ve been doing this for almost four years, in ups and downs, and so I wanted to give a brief State of Triathlonish overview. Skip ahead if you don’t care and you just want this week’s news.

• When I left Triathlete about this time in 2022 there weren’t a ton of triathlon podcasts or newsletters; Triathlete still does good coverage (IMO) but the print magazine had been axed, and the number of English-language outlets really covering the sport was extremely limited. Furthermore (!), most triathlon media still tended to focus on beginner ‘how to get started’ content and inspirational profiles.

• I wanted to give our sport(s) the commentary and analysis that mainstream sports get, so I started this newsletter right before Mega Double Kona that year. Triathlonish then added the podcast; we added more original reporting and Q&As and monthly gear & training roundups; we added a Book Club. I never did much social, because honestly I didn’t want Triathlonish to get caught in the ‘what’s the hottest trend’ ‘must always stay current’ trap. I wanted us to keep this space for taking a beat and thinking about things.

• By late-2023 I was working with Feisty on content (and other things) and we soon merged the triathlon podcasts and killed the Triathlonish pod. By mid-2024, I was full-time with Feisty, with the goal to build out the women’s sports podcasts, newsletters, social, and events. Triathlon, by extension, became simply one of the sports we were covering — sometimes a lot and sometimes less so — and I folded a lot of the Triathlonish things we’d started into Feisty.

Today, we’re back here and we have a little over 2,300 people who get this newsletter every week. There was some loss in the transition of the list to Feisty and then the transitioning it back to here. (I believe that’s what is called ‘shrinkage’ in retail.) There was also some shrinkage in the open rate, especially as this transition settles, but it remains close to 60% and some of you all read it many many times (and share it many many times).

Our audience also remains heavy N. American + the UK, but is actually about split gender-wise. And it remains heavy on industry people: RDs, C-suites of most of the big tri companies, coaches, the hardcore dedicated tri fans, plus my mom.

In this time, though, the sport and market (and my life) have changed. There are many many people now talking about triathlon on Youtubes and podcasts and social media. (I do love a good meme account.) I like to think I helped wrought this transformation, but maybe I didn’t. Some of these outlets are very good, lots of them aren’t. Most of them are Dudes, a few of them aren’t. I also think triathlon has changed in this time; I haven’t decided yet if it’s changed for better or worse.

So, what can Triathlonish be here and now in this landscape?

I’d like to still do the reported analysis you’ve come to expect in the weekly newsletter. My husband says in a different life I’d have been an op-ed writer for a major newspaper. I like and care about doing the reporting and research to come up with the why and how to think about a thing. I still think there’s a space in our sports for slow takes — even in the era of fast content — where we don’t need to be first to tell you a thing, we can take a second and maybe tell you a more interesting thing instead.

I’d like to do more of the original triathlon stories and Q&As we did here to support that. We all know I love a good dive into the finances and business of sports. I might add some sections or weekly picks in the newsletter on the other non-ball stories worth paying attention to. And, I’m very much planning on bringing back the podcast in a slightly different form (more TK on that) because it’s a lot easier to go deep deep weeds on triathlon topics when talking — and, trust me, if we do a podcast it’ll be deep weeds. No ‘what to wear for your first triathlon’ here. (Not that that’s not a totally valid question. It is. It’s also just answered many other places.)

But, I also am trying to figure out how else to fill my time (and money) and what that job/portfolio/projects looks like.

In short: What do you think is missing from coverage and media? What would you like to see more of? What of those things could I actually deliver? Lots of you usually press reply and email me, but feel free to leave as comments below too 👇

And, now, back to triathlon(ish).

- Kelly

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The first of the lasts

Which is just another way of saying Champs Season is starting. We’ve got…

• The last IM Pro Series race before the World Championships: Zell am See 70.3. Which means the last chance to get Pro Series points before the World Champs. (Though World Champs, especially Kona, count for a LOT of points, so pros be trying to remember their maths.) Interesting names on the start list: Laura Philipp & Jelle Geens.

  • WATCH: This Sunday @ 11 a.m. local/5 a.m. ET/2 a.m. PT

• It’s also WTCS Weihai, which is the second-to-last (also known as the penultimate) race before the World Triathlon Championship Final. Interesting names: Beth Potter v. Cassandre Beaugrand v. Lisa Tertsch & Matt Hauser.

  • WATCH: This Saturday — men @ 9 a.m. local/9 p.m. the night before ET/6 p.m. PT & women @ three hours later (9 p.m. Friday PT/midnight ET)

• And T100 announced its penultimate event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Nov. 26-27. Pure coincidence it’s men’s only in Saudi Arabia this year.

An addendum: More more more on 70.3 Worlds next week — which is only 17 days away.

And speaking of other non-ball sports I’m super interested in: UTMB Week!

Many of the operations & production & brands & media crews coming over to Nice for 70.3 Worlds are actually in Chamonix right now. At UTMB. Along with everyone loosely connected to running long distances, Ironman CEO Scott is very much at UTMB, too. Partially because of the Ironman minority stake in UTMB, but also because he loves ultrarunning in a way I don’t think he’ll ever love triathlon. (I get it, first loves and everything.) And also mostly because UTMB Week is the Place to Be In Endurance Sports right now. Vuelta? Pshaw. TDS, OCC, MCC, CCC? Yes, please.

Confused by the acronyms? Full explanation of the different races here.

Also, UTMB included this acronym guide in their marketing email, which is handy and something other large events should probably consider:

There are race previews (so many previews) and a lot of athlete withdrawals (both UTMB defending champs are out). I don’t think it’s the most amazing field ever assembled for the race, but it’s solid and I’m curious how Rachel Entrekin will do. Really the thing I’m most interested in, though:

Is this the year the race finally breaks Chamonix? Possibly, probably. Accounts are the Mayor is not happy and the race organizers told brands to cut down on shakeout runs and yet there are still 40+ shakeout runs — which, honestly, duh.

From the races

• Leipzig 70.3: Shoutout to Caroline Pohl for the home win. And I just learned Rico Bogen’s wife is a very good AGer and won the amateur race.

• Allgäu Triathlon: Anne Reischmann is back racing postpartum.

• Tallinn 70.3: And OK, yes, we can all agree this is not a great way to end your first ever 70.3 that you were in the lead of — but, like, shit happens, we make mistakes, and she’s able to laugh about it now.

Results: Leipzig 70.3, Tallinn 70.3

And this week’s other big thing I’m paying attention to

Jenny Simpson is opening up about her sudden cardiac arrest back in June. CBS segment here and The Athletic story here. The doctors have said it was a rare genetic condition that caused her heart to stop, and does not necessarily have anything to do with her running career.

These stories are not uncommon though. Tim O’Donnell’s mid-race heart attack. A well-known ultrarunner had a heart attack during the TDS race at UTMB this week, and remains in a coma. (Both very different situations.)

There’s a lot we don’t know about the heart. And, certainly, a lot we don’t know about the effect years of intense exercise have on the heart — though I do think we’ve all calmed down a little with blaming everything on “athlete’s heart.” The research suggests that many of these sudden cardiac arrests in athletes are often the result of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic mutation.

Here’s David Epstein, certainly one of the most-well-versed on the subject, on the problem. His video on what to know about it. And the original Sports Illustrated story.

The -ish

Some of the other things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.

• Race Ranger is raising investment to scale up its business so they can have enough draft-detection units (900 units, says founder James) to serve amateur races. (Endurance Sportswire/Slowtwitch)

• A long time ago my sister told me that you’re supposed to punch an alligator in the eye if you’re being attacked, but I’ve never actually had reason to put that into practice. Well, turns out it works. At least according to this triathlon coach who was attacked while swimming in S. Carolina. This is also why I have a fear of swimming in bodies of water in the South. (WRDW)

• To help you out, Triathlete put together this list of craziest triathlon-related animal attacks. (Triathlete)

• Russian triathletes are officially back and allowed to compete under their flag again for World Tri races. (Inside the Games)

• Also, Collin Chartier is back(ish) after the doping ban and doing a 2,000-mile charity run that’s raised $100K for an addiction support and recovery nonprofit. Though this sentence is an interesting take on the facts: “In 2020, Chartier was fifth in Olympic qualifying, three spots short of qualifying to go to Tokyo.” (ARLnow)

• Laura Philipp has been making the podcast rounds post-IM Kalmar: She was on Jackie Hering’s The Women’s Race show and on Daniela Bleymehl’s show in German (if you speak German). (Youtube/Spotify)

• A few of the people on UTMB Week pods: Jan Frodeno went to talk pre-his OCC race, and Molly Seidel withdrew from OCC but I just find her interesting. Freetrail actually has a full line-up of shows and interviews, of course. (Youtube)

• I’m not a big Youtube person, but the Hoka vid about the effort to go sub-14 hours at Western States was solid. (Youtube)

• I also enjoyed Salomon’s behind-the-scenes on bringing an all-female video & photo team to UTMB last year. As someone who has stood elbow-deep in the photo/content pools behind finish lines, it 100% is always a LOT of dudes. (Youtubes)

• Also fully identified with the Vuelta riders seeking refuge in a hotel during a freak hailstorm. (Instagram)

• We’ve got a new half-marathon world record (56:51) and under 57 (!), because — if you remember, which you probably don’t — the previous sub-57 record was discounted after he ran too close to the pace car. (BBC/Athletics Illustrated)

• Here’s one for all the ‘my watch says the course was long’ people: The Edmonton Marathon actually was too long. (The Athletic)

• Speaking of knowing when to listen to your watch: I’ve had a lot of coaches tell me that athletes will insist their Whoop or Garmin score is low and they can’t do the workout — which, to me, is wild. If you can’t do the workout because you feel like death, then you shouldn’t need a watch to tell you that. And if you need a watch to tell you, then you’re probably fine and do the workout. But if you’re looking for more guidance: When to listen to your watch’s recovery score and when not to. (Triathlete)

• You can join the New Zealand Elite Selection Commission. Or, you can if you’re part of Tri NZ. (Facebook)

• I don’t know why I find this Zwim virtual swim training so funny, but I do. And also I had to doublecheck that it’s not a joke. (Instagram/Zwim)

• Public swimming in the Seine is fully open. More or less. (Financial Times)

One last thing

If you missed these videos of Max Alran winning the downhill mountain bike race in Les Gets, it makes anything you think about crowds in triathlon pale.

Support Triathlonish partners: Mint & Honey Co. is at the intersection of wellness and endurance. Reach out to Lynette to connect and talk about ways to find potential partners, create earned media, and build campaigns for and from athletes.