#107: Doing it for the 'gram

The only reason to race.

issue #107: Oct. 2, 2024

All-sporters, we’re actually keeping it semi-short this week with some quick hits from around the tri world, lots of big races, and a wait-and-see approach to all the questions still to come.

A reminder that we have a voiceover for paying subscribers on the weekly newsletter — primarily for your convenience, not for my amazing audio.

I’m also slightly almost caught up on sleep, and my brain is starting to fully function again. I can tell because I have actual ideas again. Maybe I’ll tell you about all of them sometime. But first…

- Kelly

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Taking the T100

To recap: At the start of the year, the PTO announced eight T100 races with 20 contracted men & 20 contracted women on the circuit. Each of the athletes had to race five events + the Grand Final. The rest of the start line spots at each race would be filled out with wildcards.

Now: Since the cancelation of the Grand Final, there will only now be seven races total; we have two races left after Ibiza this past weekend (Vegas & Dubai).

It’s also become mathematically clear that even if contracted athletes only now have to race four events + the new Final in Dubai, a number of them will still not meet that contractual obligation. Just look at the standings and do the math (ie. add two to the number of races the person has done and you’ll get the maximum number they could possibly do). This is, of course, an outcome NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN COMING.

The race in Ibiza

In Ibiza this past weekend, we were set to see all the contracted women (except for Skye and Holly because pregnancy and Daniela because early retirement) — but then we obviously ended up missing Lucy Charles-Barclay, Chelsea Sodaro, Marjolaine Pierre, and Laura Philipp post-Women’s Nice. Which is understandable and also predictable.

Of course, the racing was still super fast and super intense. As is the case with the T100 races. The quality of racing is never the issue.

Taylor Knibb ultimately did what Taylor does, which is to dominate from early on the bike, win single-handedly, and then at the finish talk about she had a good time and a lot of things she could improve on 😂 God help us all if Taylor ever has a race she thinks she nailed.

Everyone was also happy to see Indie Lee bounce back from a DNF in Nice to take third. And I think one of the most interesting questions at this incredibly intense mid-distance, especially as there become more specialists in the distance, is: Which of the short-course athletes absolutely thrive and turn out to be even better than they were at Olympic racing, and which are just OK or take awhile to find their footing? We can clearly put Julie Derron in the thrive category. She was my only big surprise at the Olympics with the silver, but then put down the fastest run in Ibiza even after one of the first-ever T100 bike penalties. (I also only very recently learned her and Nina Derron are sisters.)

We can also put Marten Van Riel in the thrive category. Sure, he obviously was capable, he previously set a fastest-ever 70.3 time — but he had a bad Paris race this summer, it wasn’t clear if the Alcatraz T100 sprint finish was just one of those one-time type of things. But I think it’s clear now. In the same way you always wanted Gustav to just give up short-course and recognize that he was one of the best mid- and long-distance athletes in the world, Marten you have found your calling, embrace it.

It was also interesting/good to see Sam Laidlow again in second. He hasn’t raced anything besides T100s this year (and, of course, the much debated Ironman validation DQ), so I know we’re all curious to see how Men’s Kona is gonna go.

I’m actually deeply curious to see how Men’s Kona goes overall. Fewer of the top men signed T100 contracts than the top women, especially when you factor in the big IM names missing in the PTO’s rankings (the Norwegians, Patrick Lange), and even fewer of the top men have been chasing IM Pro Series points — I have guesses as to why on both. While missing those names might not be great for the PTO’s T100 success, it should also leave more of the male athletes fresher for their IM World Champs, which could mean fewer DNSs, fewer overall cracks in the armor, maybe? We’ll see.

Mostly though: We all just want to see Daniela teach Taylor Knibb how to party.

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Three world titles

Now, palate cleanser. Let’s just all take a second to take in the collection of vibes from the XTERRA World Champs in Italy this past weekend:

Photos: Carel du Plessis & Alice Russolo/XTERRA

OK, now onto the details.

Both Arthur Serrieres and Solenne Billouin earned their third straight XTERRA World Championship titles — which, evidently, makes them just the 8th and 9th athletes to ever win three. Somehow the French got super good at XTERRA in recent years, and now I’d really like to see Flora Duffy (the undisputed best ever with six titles) come back and take on this new European contingent. Who would win?

XTERRA also, evidently, hosted the first Youth World Championship — which is very interesting.

WATCH: The race highlights

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You all know a hurricane is a big deal, right?

I know this isn’t really news, and really mostly triathletes handled the cancellation of their races in the U.S. this weekend as reasonably as could be expected, but it was a little eye-rolling to see the reactions at first to the early cancellation of the IM Chattanooga swim. Like, you all, this was one of the deadliest hurricanes to make land in the U.S. Yeah, of course, Augusta 70.3 was definitely gonna get canceled. And the Chattanooga swim was gonna get canceled. (It has to do with water flow and surge into the river, but that area itself was OK enough from damage.) You can donate to help the people who really have it bad.

IM Chattanooga

Sarah True is officially a duathlon specialist after her win at IM Canada earlier this summer and now here. I also enjoy how she literally didn’t mention that she was racing when we recorded the podcast on Wednesday; usually I catch these things, but I must have been off my game and jet-lagged!

And we all would have loved to see the actual sprint between Sam Long & Cody Beals that we didn’t really get because of the (understandable and necessary) time trial start. Instead, we had to wait around to find out who won. Plus, full-out sprinting at the end of an Ironman without knowing if your effort is enough sounds insane.

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Best of the rest

• WTCS Weihai: Alex Yee is now one step closer to finally winning that world series championship title — something that I had not realized a British man hasn’t done since the Brownlees. And Lisa Tertsch topped the Brit duo of Beth Potter and Georgia Taylor-Brown (both of whom now have to turn around and race Supertri Toulouse this weekend — the life of a pro).

Results: T100 - Ibiza, IM Chattanooga, XTERRA World Champs, WTCS Weihai

Mark your calendars

• Supertri Toulouse: The last one before the final one. Zero idea which team is winning, no one could know. But it’s fun to watch anyway. And Georgia TB hashtagged her IG post about the race turnaround as #prayforG.

  • WATCH: Saturday at 6 a.m. ET/noon in Toulouse on Supertri’s Youtube

• Then we hit T100 - Vegas (which is really outside of Vegas, definitely not *in* Vegas), but since a number of the guys are using it to shakeout before Kona and everyone is using it to hit their contract race numbers, it should be a good field. Start lists here.

• Ironman Barcelona: This weekend, but seriously not a big deal race. Has $100K in prize money, no broadcast coverage, no Pro Series points — and yet 85 pro men & 26 women are on the start list?

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The -ish

Stuff from around our sports worth knowing about this week.

• Ooof, a spectator posted a video of Some Random Dude jumping on the wheel of a woman racing during Women’s Nice (in the flat section at the end/start, where it’s painfully clear it’s a championship race) and sitting inches off her wheel to draft her — and the “not all men” “maybe he’s a friend” comments on the post from Other Dudes are just a little too on brand. (Instagram)

• Monica Puig, the tennis gold medalist, talked about her experience getting into triathlon and her World Championship finish. (The Athletic)

• Katie Zaferes officially announced her retirement — a decision which she talked with me about weighing back in Boston and came on the Ironwomen podcast to discuss last month. (Instagram/Feisty Triathlon)

• Marybeth Ellis went on the podcast Rarely Normal to talk about losing her daughter, Sidney, when she was hit by a truck last year and about working to make the streets by them safer. (Rarely Normal/WBZ News)

• Precision Fuel & Hydration signed an extended partnership with Ironman in Europe, Oceania, and S. Africa. (Endurance.biz)

• You can check out the fastest bikes, shoes, and wetsuits at Women’s Nice. (Triathlete/Slowtwitch)

• The Pro’s Closet is shutting down after 18 years. Ben’s replacement recommendation, over at The Ride, is Buy the Mojo for your reselling/buying cycling needs. (BRAIN/Youtube)

• Exciting races in the rain at the UCI World Champs. Tadej Pogačar became the first male cyclist in 37 years to win the Tour, the Giro, AND the world champs in the same summer. And I will eventually learn to pronounce his name correctly. Also, he seems so adorably excited about it. Lotte Kopecky totally battled back in the women’s race, after getting dropped multiple times, to win her second world title in a row. Plus, apparently now she’s just gonna jump into the UCI Gravel World Champs this upcoming weekend because why not. (Youtube/Instagram/CyclingNews)

• In the juniors race, though, Swiss rider Muriel Furrer crashed and died from head injuries — raising questions about the safety of the peloton and the response. (BBC)

• A number of U.S. riders are pulling out of those Gravel World Champs because of the lack of support. (Velo)

• The Athlos NYC race — the one with just women, six races, record-breaking prize money, and Megan Thee Stallion performing — attracted a different kind of spectator and was a different kind of event. Is this what’s going to finally work for our sports to go big? (Vogue/SELF)

• A world record 54,280 runners finished the Berlin Marathon this weekend. (Runners’ World)

• This woman supposedly stopped to deliver CPR on course, too, and still ran a PR. (Twitter)

• I have not watched the new Amazon Prime doc following the Ingebrigsten brothers, but all the clips I’ve seen are absolutely unhinged, so put it on your list. (Amazon Prime)

• One of the reasons I was having a hard time getting worked up about the Camille Herron-Wikipedia editing scandal last week was because it felt like a lot of people were ready to jump on the worst aspects of the story simply because they’ve had bad interactions with her husband over the years. (There are a lot of stories out there.) So they were primed. But the actual details seemed overblown. Anyway, Alison at Fast Women went through the specific edits and did a very nuanced deep dive of what was more pedantic than vindictive and what wasn’t. (Fast Women)

• Maybe hustling the Citi Bike system should be my new job. (New York Times)

• And, obviously, I have zero patience for expecting women to justify their existence, their health, or their rights — but even if you don’t really give a shit about women, this is still infuriating. (The Atlantic)

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One last thing

Doing it for the ‘gram.