issue #97: July 24, 2024
All-sporters, my flight to Boston got canceled this past weekend, and now I head to Paris on Friday straight from here (hopefully that flight isn’t canceled, too). From France, we’ll be doing daily Feisty newsletters for our Women’s Sports Fan Club (you can sign up for the daily Olympic updates here), and we’ll be putting out a daily quick hit podcast for everyone, and we’ll be doing social coverage of the women’s events and athletes (mostly on Instagram, but some on Youtube/TikTok/Facebook).
For you all Triathlonish subscribers, it’s gonna also be a bit of a weird newsletter schedule: I’ll send out an Olympic race preview and guide from Paris this Sunday, then a regular newsletter next week after the men’s and women’s races, and then one more newsletter with in-person takeaways on the Monday after the mixed team relay. And then we’ll see where we’re at! If we’re still awake!
In the meantime, if you want one of our awesome ‘it’s not a moment. it’s a movement’ t-shirts, get it while the getting’s good.
And let me know if you’ll be in Paris! Trying to decide if we’ll do a pop-up event, too.
- Kelly
A bunch of updates
Usually we kinda focus on one main topic or slightly longer analysis/commentary, but this week I have a handful of shorter updates, so here goes.
FYI, Ironman validation was suspended during the pandemic
After last week’s discussion of Sam Laidlow’s DQ counting for Kona validation, it was brought to my attention that Sam also had not validated in 2023. (He DNF’d Lanzarote, and did no other IM events.) We even mentioned this on last week’s podcast.
So a point of clarification that I confirmed with Ironman, since a number of people have brought this up: The validation requirement was waived during the pandemic (ie. the need for the previous year’s world championship podium & the past five year’s worth of winners to validate by completing an IM). And given the announcement of last year’s split world championship locations came well into the start of the season, Ironman opted to continue to waive the validation requirement. The requirement is now back in place for this season.
New pregnancy deferral policy
Ironman also announced a revision to its pregnancy deferral policy this week. You can see the full policy here, but I summed it up here.
The policy extends deferrals for adoption, surrogacy, partners, and pregnant athletes. The main change, though, is that if you find out you’re pregnant after registering you now have two years to defer.
Ironman actually had a decent deferral policy before plenty of other large organizations, but only having one year to defer was something a lot of female athletes had been asking to change since it was announced. It’s just math: You can end up in a tricky spot where you either race an Ironman, for example, five months pregnant or eight months post-partum. Either/both are certainly possible depending on the person, but it’s a bit of a large undertaking so you also don’t want to end up pushing too much or too fast and screwing yourself up.
And fwiw: The reason Ironman can’t just have a deferral policy for any and all injuries is because some risk of injury is part of the cost/benefit calculation of simply doing the event. When you train for an Ironman, you could get injured. It’d be like giving people the option to defer because they’re not prepared or undertrained. Those things are part of the calculus of registering. Pregnancy is not.
Now, should you be able to defer if you get diagnosed with cancer? For example. Perhaps. Probably. But those are not as large-scale frequent situations. In the same way that some RDs (even if they don’t have an official pregnancy deferral policy) will work with you if you email them, many will also work with you if you have some kind of emergency. When we were registered for the NY Marathon and then Steve got emergency brain surgery instead, NYRR let me defer our registrations (though I still had to pay). Emailing them a photo of him with staples in his head might have helped. But certainly, not everyone will be sympathetic.
A formal policy is necessary for common situations (ie. pregnancy) for large organizations because then the responses don’t simply depend on who answers an athlete’s email or who an athlete happens to know. It creates consistency and sets a public example.
Athletes are fundraising to fight for their Olympic spot
Last update. I talked a few weeks ago about how some athletes were being denied their Olympic spots when their federations declined or turned down the slots that they had earned.
While Team GB took the most heat, Sweden was another country that denied nine athletes their spots. And now six of them have filed a joint suit with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that the Olympic charter says no national governing body can interfere with the selection process set in place by the IOC. A decision will be made by July 26 (the day the Olympics start) — but it’s not clear to me if the athletes will then be instated for this year’s Olympics since their spots have already rolled to other countries’ athletes. OR, if this will simply change policy for future Olympic selections. We’ll see.
They do have a GoFundMe to pay the legal bills.
New names win in Placid
Now, I should start by saying: We all know I have zero chill and am not the least bit impartial; I will always root for my friends. So I was absolutely rooting for Sarah True in the lead and was super worried about her when things got rough, knowing that she’s had some really messed up heat issues ever since that whole IM Hamburg collapse in 2019. (It sounds like she’s OK, just tough.)
But, even outside of that, it was a nutty race, right? Like how much walking was there?! First place in the men’s race walked (and still ran a 2:36). Second place in the women’s race walked. I’m sure there was more walking we didn’t see. Carnage-y. But also super fast times. How are both those things true?
This is one of the older races out there and so when you compare times over the years…
Just a quick sample: In 2018, Heather Jackson won by a lot (!) in 9:18; that would have been 5th this year. In 2019, Matt Russell won in 8:27; that would have been 11th in this year.
We also saw a passing-of-the-guard type thing this weekend: Two brand new winners with Trevor Foley finally seeing all the sacrifices be worth it, and Danielle Lewis finally getting her first big win (showing all those old haters it worked out I think).
Passing the torch is never a one-time thing. It’s never a simple switch turning on or off. The greats who were great before will still continue to be great, they’re just less consistently great. The new names won’t always win, they’ll have breakthroughs and off days. It’s never a new generation all at once. That’s not how it works. Gradually it shifts. And you can feel the shifts happening right now.
Other results & races
Challenge Quebec: First big Challenge race back in N. America (yes, New Jersey also rebranded as Challenge this past weekend but) and it sounds like Quebec had about 750 athletes, was well-done, and a small but mighty pro field. Valerie Barthelemy topped Jodie Stimpson in a quick turnaround after ending her short-course career fairly suddenly this summer, and Jack Moody won the men’s race. Is this the start of Challenge coming back here? Eh?
Upcoming races: Does anyone care about anything besides the Olympics?! Oh right, and T100 London! There’s also Maine 70.3 this weekend & the famous Alpe d’Huez triathlon.
See full results: IM Lake Placid, Challenge Quebec
In between this and that: T100 London
Next up: The Olympics. But first up: T100.
It’s a tough sell to promote a different other major medium(?)-distance triathlon in Europe just days before the Olympics race. Not that the T100 London race doesn’t have an awesome field. It does.
It’s just a tough sell.
The course is loops (as is the T100 custom) around the docks, which is a bit industrial. It’s very flat, so we’ll see what breaks it up.
The start lists have changed quite a few times. Jess Learmonth is out. Els Visser needs a break, understandably. But you still have Lucy Charles-Barclay, Ashleigh Gentle, Kat Matthews, India Lee, and finally Chelsea Sodaro and Anne Haug — plus some interesting wildcards like Lisa Norden and Sophie Coldwell. You have Sam Long, Rico Bogen, Magnus Ditlev (is it finally his turn at the 100K distance?!), Youri Keulen, Sam Laidlow, and Ali Brownlee. So it’s a really strong start list. It’s certainly an exciting start list. People just have limited attention.
Women’s full list here. Men’s here.
WATCH: Women’s race on Saturday and men’s race on Sunday — both at 2 p.m. London time/9 a.m. ET/6 a.m. PT on PTO+, PTO’s Youtube, Outside Watch
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
I put together a mini-guide to the key women’s Olympic events (bookmark these dates). (The Feist/Instagram)
I also can not get *enough* of random Paris content — been watching all the athlete gear haul Tiktoks and building facilities Reels — so here are a few other fun things. (New York Times/Instagram)
A record number of tickets have been sold (8.6 million), but there’s also apparently a glut of tickets on the secondary resale market. Make of that what you will. (Inside the Games/Financial Times)
After my experience with the very French security chaos last summer at the Test Event, it made me feel incredibly vindicated to hear the shutting down of everything around the Seine a week ahead of the Opening Ceremony was equally chaos. My personal description of French security: intense but not effective. (Triathlonish/SF Gate)
France is banning its athletes from wearing hijabs. Which is bullshit. (NPR)
There are still so many coaches who have been accused of abuse continuing to coach in gymnastics. Some of the which is crazy stuff. Like we’ve said before: What was considered acceptable before is definitely not anymore. Catch up. (Washington Post)
The surfers in Tahiti are staying on a cruise ship — ie. a floating Olympic Village. (TikTok)
Triathlete talked to some of the previous Olympic alternates on what it’s like. Another track & field alternate also said she had to try on the gear to make sure it fit and then give it back. Geez, y’all, let them keep the gear. (Triathlete/Fan Hub)
Oh man, this Tour de France is over and it was just SO WHOLESOME, wasn’t it. I mean, I know, I know, they could all be doping. But, still, it just felt like everyone in the race was rooting for each other. (Instagram)
A sprinter is suing Gatorade, arguing their recovery gummies caused him a positive drug test. (Washington Post)
The U.S. Olympic Committee is suing Prime Hydration. (New York Times)
A former Mexico national team sprinter died at the finish line of the Mexico City Half-Marathon — but it took awhile to identify him because he wasn’t wearing a bib. (Endurance Sportswire)
The ESPN list of top 100 athletes since 2000 is designed solely for clickbait and arguing. But also, I totally clicked it and thought some of their picks were dumb. (ESPN)
How much do Olympians make? Not much! (Which is why there’s a fundraising effort for some of the U.S. athletes who are struggling.) Though evidently gold medalists from Singapore and Kazakhstan earn quite a bit more than U.S. gold medalists. And, World Athletics is awarding prize money. We covered many of the money issues on the last podcast episode before the Games start. (Instagram/Fan Fund/Forbes/Croissants & Commentary)
One last thing
Very sad to announce I also was not selected for the Olympics. A painful but funny meme.