#77: Gettin' hot in Miami and other puns
That you're sure to hear on the broadcast.
issue #77: March 6, 2024
Presented by Precision Fuel & Hydration
All-sporters, I have been head down on a project and it has been frying my brain (and somehow this newsletter takes me longer to write every week, so maybe my brain went awhile ago!). So we’re just going to get right down to our Miami T100 preview.
I also opened up this story that went out to paying subscribers this past weekend: A super short explanation on why triathlon is very un-diverse
And get 15% off your Precision Fuel & Hydration order here. (I also just saw that you get a credit on The Feed with your USAT membership - so you could also order your Precision that way!)
- Kelly
And now it starts, again, for the first time
To begin, a PSA: Miami Beach has declared an end to Spring Break partying (with lots of fines & tickets in you’re from out of town and party too much) — in case you were planning on going hard after the PTO/CLASH race this weekend. Just fyi.
Now that that’s out of the way. It’s time to pedal to the metal, get down to business, see how the shit hits the fan. It’s time to do this. It’s time to get the PTO T100 series started. Again, but for the first time, better than those other iterations!
The quick PTO T100 recap
(Eventually, we’ll stop doing this recap—once everyone stops asking me the same questions—but not yet.)
8 races around the world from March to December: Miami, Singapore, London, San Francisco, Vegas, Ibiza, Dubai, and the still unannounced Middle East country
Each race is 100km of: 2K swim, 80K bike, 18K run
20 women & 20 men were signed to commit to the series (or at least to promise they’ll definitely try to do 5 races + the Grand Final)
An athlete’s best four races count to their series total — with the Grand Final worth more points
Every race has a $250K prize purse, plus $2 million on the line for the series title
Who’s *really* racing in Miami?
That’s the $2,500 question, isn’t it. As of me typing this, here are the additional athletes out with injury and illness: Anne Haug, Javi Gomez, and Imogen Simmonds. No word, yet, on if there’ll be any extra last-minute wildcards to replace them.
I asked the PTO what the policy is on contracted athletes who ultimately aren’t able to meet their season race obligations because of injury or illness (like, if they get hurt and end up not able to do 6 races), but I haven’t heard back. It sounds as if there will be a good faith judgement (ie. if you say you’re hurt but then race Ironman instead, you likely will not get your last contractual payment). But what if you do Ironman races early in the season and then get hurt later and can’t hit all your PTO T100 starts? What differentiates bad luck from choices you made?
Because here’s the thing: This is triathlon; you’ve never going to get everyone healthy on the start line. Almost every pro is always nursing injury and illness and riding the line. That’s just sorta the deal, and which side of that line they’re on or whether they decide to push things a little one direction or the other just depends on their choices. It’s all a risk-reward analysis. It has to be worth the risk to them.
Women in Miami
Lucy Charles-Barclay
Kat Matthews
Paula Findlay
Daniela Ryf
Emma Pallant-Browne
Skye Moench
Tamara Jewett
India Lee
Holly Lawrence
Lucy Byram
Sara Perez-Sala
Haley Chura
Lucy Buckingham
Jackie Hering
Kaidi Kivioja
Diede Diederiks
Marta Sanchez
Jodie Stimpson
Men in Miami
Magnus Ditlev
Jason West
Mathis Margirier
Pieter Heemeryck
Rudy Von Berg
Leon Chevalier
Sam Long
Daniel Baekkegard
Bradley Wiess
Sam Laidlow
Clement Mignon
Aaron Royle
David McNamee
Youri Keulen
Menno Koolhaas
Gregory Barnaby
Ben Kanute
Rico Bogen
Alistair Brownlee
The Miami course is loops around a racetrack, as with all CLASH races. And with a late afternoon start time, it’ll be hotter than most people are acclimated to right now. My personal picks? Jason West & Paula Findlay (but the women’s race is nutty hard to pick).
Race: Saturday, March 9: Men at 1:15 p.m. ET/10:15 a.m PT & Women at 4:50 p.m. ET/1:50 p.m. PT
How to watch: In Europe, it’s Eurosport; Everywhere else, it’s PTO+ or PTO Youtube
One last aside: Hire more damn women in your commentary team. Why? Because half your athletes are women, half the potential audience is women. Because many of the women in triathlon already feel like the male commentators often show a lack of understanding about their half of the sport and a condescension that makes them feel like an afterthought (kudos to those men who have been doing the work to get up to speed). But even if all the men know every stat about every woman, hire more damn women because you should have a range of voices to offer a range of different perspectives and insights. Because it’s 2024 and a bunch of dudes + ‘we have a woman’ doesn’t look like an operation that’s going to revolutionize anything. Because, and I can not emphasize this enough, statistically speaking, if you really were getting the best people you wouldn’t always end up with the exact same demographic make-up — that sorta suggests, by definition, you’re not pulling from the full pool of possibilities. That’s just math.
News from the other pro series
Been rumored, but was confirmed last week: The Ironman Pro Series will use RaceRanger at all of its events.
This is especially interesting because at Kona it appeared to me that the Ironman officials were still super skeptical of the draft-detecting technology. So what changed? It sounds like a very successful demo at Ironman Florida.
I think the part of that demonstration that has captured everyone’s imagination is that the devices (which sit on the front and back of each pro’s bike) were able to record and track cumulative time in the draft zone. While the RaceRanger guys said they’re being very careful about publicizing any data, because of privacy laws and concerns over who owns the info (which is 100% understandable), what they track is basically which athletes repeatedly enter draft zones and fail to pass and what is the total time spent in the draft zone that goes beyond the allotted passing time — and they’re then able to produce a post-race report.
Think about how that can be used for targeted enforcement? And how they may be able to improve on it? The options are impressive.
The other races this weekend
WTCS Abu Dhabi (!) - Oh my gosh, as if this wasn’t a big enough weekend. We’re also kicking off the WTCS season. Kristian Blummenfelt & Alex Yee are both back. And, most excitingly, Georgia TB has finally returned. (She’s got a tough fight to prove she deserves a Team GB Olympics spot, though, on such a competitive squad.)
WATCH: TriathlonLive
Continental Cup - There is also a Continental Cup (and a Para Cup — and the final U.S. Paralympic qualifier) being held at CLASH Miami. And a few people have asked why Katie Zaferes is racing in Miami while Gwen Jorgensen is racing in Abu Dhabi.
The short answer: Katie needs points to move up in the rankings of U.S. women in order to get her start at WTCS Yokohama in May, which is the last U.S. auto Olympic qualifier. There are, like, 500+ points if she wins in Miami. Right now, Gwen is ranked above her (after that whole DQ thing last year). Gwen won a Continental Cup last weekend, but she needs to show USA Triathlon that she can perform at the WTCS level. Hence, here we are.
Results from the races
Ironman New Zealand: Steve McKenna got a “frullet” after he won and Chelsea Sodaro set a course record (even with a penalty, it sounds like).
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from around our sports this week.
It came after last week’s newsletter (but if you somehow missed the news): Daniela Ryf confirmed she’s done at the end of this year — which we definitely already knew back at Kona, but now it’s official. Ironman world title #11? (Instagram)
BTW, Kristian Blummenfelt says Ironman told him he can validate his Kona spot by winning the Olympics in Paris. And I know being a world champion requires an extreme degree of confidence, but that still seems like a new level. (Instagram)
Also wanna shoutout Chelsea Burns’ new tri podcast (with a great Flora Duffy interview as the first episode) — partially because I’m always for more women in the news, pro coverage, analysis space & partially because Chelsea knows more gossip than anyone in the sport even if she doesn’t share all of it. (Spotify)
And Daily Tri has launched a new sorta replacement site for the old ObsTri — **with** very cool fantasy picks (and a prize for whoever wins this first weekend of fantasy)! (Daily Tri)
And, just because I seem to be on a supportive tri kick, I also thought Dan at Slowtwitch had some good points (though not all good points) about how Ironman needs to rebuild its multiple customers (ie. vendors and parnterships) and get the expos going again. (Slowtwitch)
The Indoor Track & Field World Champs were this past weekend (which, apparently, true story, the governing body wants to call Short Track, and I’m actually kinda OK with that). And race of the weekend went to Elle Purrier-St. Pierre who won her first world title, in the 3,000m, 364 days after giving birth. And teammates celebrating together on the track won everyone’s hearts. (Instagram)
Lululemon’s FURTHER thing is starting today in the desert — and, since no one understands it, here is my super simple explanation: A bunch of women (including a few top-level ultrarunners) are running around a 2.5-mile loop in Indian Wells for six days, attempting to set various records (24-hour, 48-hour, 3-day, 6-day) in the process. But the main thing is that a lot of research and testing has been done on the group of varied women in the lead-up and during the week so that we can learn more about women’s sports science — about which we know so little. And, anyway, Laura Green is IG storying it for us all to follow along. (Lululemon/Instagram)
There’s been a new $850,000 gift to support collegiate women’s triathlon. So let’s get that across the line now. (USAT)
Supersapiens has shut down. Turns out no one ever figured out how to actually use all of that continuous glucose data. (DC Rainmaker)
The Precision Fueling & Hydration crew answered a bunch of questions of reader questions for The Morning Shakeout. My favorite: How do I come out of a bonk? (The Morning Shakeout)
Triathletes are all freaking out about this crazy TT helmet at the Giro — but I still think those Japanese running neck magnets were weirder. (CyclingNews/Reddit)
REI has bought 20 acres near the Grand Canyon for glamping and adventure camps. (GearJunkie)
Strava for dogs is now a real thing. (Outside)
As is skijoring. Apparently. (Instagram)
Dartmouth men’s basketball has voted to unionize! Wild! I am here for it! (Front Office Sports)
And did you know you can run “unattached” as an NCAA runner? ie. Not race for your actual school’s team. Things I learned today. (Instagram)
There’s also this whole controversy about whether the Boston Marathon should give race bibs to influencers — but I can’t find any actual examples of it happening, and it seems like one of those controversies where the people freaking out about whatever thing is happening exceeds the actual thing happening.
One last thing
Already the best sports photo of the year? And an outstanding gallery, if you click through. From Ashley Gruber, at Strade Bianche.
This issue was brought to you by Precision Fuel & Hydration. Get 15% off your first order here.