issue #202: Sept. 9, 2026
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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
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:
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…
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.
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