issue #153: Sept. 18, 2025
This week’s newletter is brought to you by:
All-sporters, a reader reached to me about a new sports tech startup she’s launching to help coaches navigate all the technology in this modern coaching era, so that technology can help (not replace) them. And I agreed to a small sponsorship from augo and to share this survey they’re conducting of triathlon coaches so they can better understand coaches’ day-to-day challenges.
Tri coaches: You can win a 200CHF gift card to On Running for completing the survey. It takes about six minutes, it’s anonymous, it’s open until the end of September, and mostly I agreed to share it because I also think coaches are getting overwhelmed with all the platforms and data and gadgets, and I’m curious how they can be helped without having more and more things they have to do.
Other than that: Keep an eye out next week for some more news in terms of moving this newsletter to a new platform. And scroll down for the latest from Feisty.
- Kelly
A few last things from France
It is hard to overemphasize how wild it is the Norwegians went 1-2-3. The other countries that have gone 1-2-3: The U.S. (back when basically no other countries did this shit), and Germany in 2016. [There have also been a few reports that a sweep has never happened in the women’s race, but that’s not totally true. The U.S. women also swept it back in the years when there were basically only Americans doing it.]
It’s also hard to overemphasize how fast the race has gotten. Chris, at Triathlete, tried to quantify it. Let’s just say: It’s wild. Probably some of that increase in performance is technology (but accounts are that still doesn’t account for the last 20 minutes). But a lot of it is just athletes push athletes.
READ: Our Man in France — Tim’s report from Nice
Many people have said a lot of other words about how the race played out, so I’ll just share a few things I enjoyed:
Personally, I subscribe to the school of thought that says the Norwegian Method is just find some other training partners who also have fun but work hard — and this clip of Gustav Iden giving Casper Stornes a hard time earlier this year (“just win something already”) is excellent
Oof, the cramping from Kristian Blummenfelt (even in the chute) looked painful
Santara also put out a post-race pod episode with “the boys” as their agent once called them to me
The bike count from Nice and the fastest shoes
A graphical representation of how it all went down
And a photo montage-y representation of how fast it goes
I still think it’s wild that Ironman has to basically turn the descent into a slalom — but age-groupers, this is what you’ve made them do!
And. The DNF Files are a lot less fun when all the answers to ‘why did he DNF’ are “just didn’t have it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
Full results here. Kudos to Dr. Matt on being the first American.
Now for your regular reminder: People will care about what you tell them to care about
Of course, the other question coming out of Men’s Nice II: Did the hype for a new world champs, a different course, the whole men’s & women’s race experiment come too late?
I mean, yes. Obviously. But. Sometimes it’s still nice to point out when you were right; even if it’s too late after the fact. (Let’s hope I’m not as right about a bunch of other things over the next few years.)
The general consensus coming out of Nice The Second Edition seems to be that it’s an awesome exciting course that creates conditions for great racing, the racing lived up to those expectations, the vibes were high, the travel and city is easy, the crowds were bigger, fans and media can then really be invested in one race without interference or split attention. And, oh, oops, maybe we should have given this whole thing a few more years.
[See: For example, the comments on this Triathlete IG post asking whether we’ll miss the split world champs locations — which, yes, include a few ‘no, Kona is king’ diehards, but also a whole lot of comments like this one: “I started off as a detractor, but I have to admit that the split solution gives both males and females the stage they deserve…plus a course hard enough to test everyone.” Or this one: “Moving back to Kona only looks like a huge strategic mistake. Catering for US tri-customers is short-sighted.”]
Some of this shift in tone and perspective might be because there were so many more short-course athletes who moved into Ironman this year, and short-course athletes are used to rotating championship locations, it makes no sense to them to always crown a world title in the same conditions. They also simply aren’t as emotionally tied to Kona as the be-all of triathlon.
But some of the shift is just because anything new takes time.
Or as my husband said: You mean the thing that’s only three years old didn’t already have decades of history to draw on? Did no one tell them transition years were going to be transitional?
Get your shirts
Speaking of hype. Now that then men are done, the hype is building for the women’s race. And Feisty is the official partner with Here For The Women’s Race to bring these limited edition shirts to Kona — with all profits going to their Women’s Trailrunning Fund.
You can check out the full Kona collection. Orders close Sept. 25. After that, you’ll just have to come find us at Feisty HQ at the Kona Canoe Club any morning during race week.
From the other races
WTCS Karlovy Vary!! - If you took a break from watching Ironman to go watch the rainy, wild racing in the Czech Republic, then you saw some exciting triathlon-ing on the other end of the spectrum. Having a hard bike really does change the race. Who knew. I felt all the feelings for Beth Potter on her win, though I also really did think/hope Taylor Spivey was going to hold her off for the lead. We had Taylor on the Feisty Tri podcast coming out tomorrow and talked all about how race dynamics change with different courses, and how you decide to just go for it.
Results: WTCS Karlovy Vary, Sunshine Coast 70.3, Challenge Almere
Mark your calendars
T100 Spain: Really got the short-end of the stick here crammed between Men’s Nice & Women’s Kona, in between WTCS Karlovy Vary and WTCS Weihai. But it’s apparently this weekend! And it actually does have a very solid start list: Jelle Geens, Hayden Wilde, Ashleigh Gentle, Lucy CB.
Start list here. WATCH: Men - Friday at 11:45 p.m. PT/Saturday at 2:45 a.m. ET & women - 1:10 a.m. PT/4:10 a.m. ET
Supertri Jersey: Also this weekend!
The -ish
Some of the things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.
When Ironman first teased “something interesting” coming from Oman, I thought to myself that the only really interesting thing would be if 70.3 Worlds was there. So, kudos to them! They have actually impressed me! After making it first seem like it was just another new race announcement, Oman is in fact hosting 2029 70.3 Worlds — which will be the first Ironman-brand world champs in the Middle East. Personally, I am hesitant to make any plans based on what global geopolitics will look like in four years, but. It’s cool they’ve expanded into the region. (Ironman)
They also announced the schedule for the 2026 IM Pro Series, funded by Oman, with a few new locations and some old staples. (Ironman)
However, I actually can’t quite figure out what’s going on with Ironman race location announcements. By that I mean that I can’t figure out yet what the strategy is (though I have a couple of guesses). Other than individual contracts and one-off reasons. They announced this week a new full Ironman (and a 5150, a brand that apparently still exists) in Argentina at the same time that they announced the end of IM Arizona after 21 years. (Ironman)
Supertri bought the New Jersey State Triathlon (which was most recently a Challenge franchise) and the Blenheim Palace Triathlon (which is one of the biggest in the UK). (Endurance.biz)
The new version of the Malibu Triathlon — now the Zuma Beach Triathlon — finally went off and raised $150,000 for CAF and L.A. wildfire relief. (KRON 4)
T100 has put their Race Ranger data up on their site. (T100)
Hayden Wilde, reportedly, has offered to DQ himself for racing in the illegal shoes. And I suggested to someone that Asics pay his prize money for all the publicity he’s gotten their shoes. Now, though, we’re worked up about his bottle position instead. And honestly I sometimes miss the old days of triathlon journalism. (Instagram)
Track & Field World Champs have been excellent. Usually, the marathon is kinda the sad forgotten stepchild of track, but man, the 26.2s have delivered the moments in Tokyo. Look at this sprint photo finish. And then the women’s race — which was also a sprint finish, but pshaw was decided by a whole two seconds — had the heartwarming moment of the champs so far with the third place finisher who had no idea she was in third when she crossed the line. A good point also is that if she’d still been competing for the UK (where she moved when she was two) she would have been left off the team, because Brit Track is notorious for leaving off athletes who they think aren’t medal contenders. (Facebook/Instagram)
One of my pet peeves about track, though, is how persnickety they can be. It’s like they’re trying to ruin their perfectly interesting sport. Like go ahead and tell me how this is a DQ for Cole Hocker. (Twitter)
And an excellent post from Nike in honor of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce — who raced her first Olympics in 2008 and her last World Champs in 2025, and who, fun fact I had to doublecheck, was the first Jamaican woman to ever win gold in the 100m. (Instagram)
Eric Lagerstrom won the Otillo Orca Islands Swimrun solo race (and I believe did it starting behind the field and raising money for every athlete he passed). (Instagram)
Georgia Taylor-Brown tried to solo to the win at the British Gravel Cycling Championships, but ended up with silver. (Instagram)
Cycling World Championships start in Rwanda on Sunday. It really is one world champs after another after another right now. (Velo)
Zwift canceled all elite racing. (Escape Collective)
Fred Kerley is not just the first track athlete to join The Enhanced Games (the Olympics with doping, which may or may not actually ever get off the ground) and the first American man. He’s also the first active current athlete to sign on. Which is…unfortunate. (The Athletic/Triathlonish)
And in case you thought cheating was specific to our sports: Scandal rocks world stone skimming championships. (BBC)
One last thing
What a picture after the 1500m finish line.
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