#96: Hot take: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The world champion DQ controversy is really actually....fine?
issue #96: July 17, 2024
All-sporters, I am not in Placid right now. Dunno if you’ve noticed. Kinda bummed to not be seeing all my tri-friends. It’s not so much the Ironman I miss; it’s the hanging out around the Ironman.
But next week I’ll be headed to Paris for the Olympics — and we’ll be doing a lot of on-the-ground coverage here and for Feisty. (Relatedly: Sent out a few interesting archival tidbits about the Olympics to paying subscribers this past Sunday.)
In the meantime, it’s still about triathlon gossip! And drama! And analysis! Just trying to give you things you might not know otherwise and ways to think about our sports.
- Kelly
The world champ was DQ’d, wasn’t going to validate in time for Kona, and then was told ‘actually it’s OK’ — and that’s OK
First, a short explanation of this week’s triathlon drama:
Every year, the previous year’s Ironman World Championship podium and all of the previous winners for the last five years get automatic entry into the world champs race — but they are required to validate their entry by finishing a full Ironman or two 70.3s.
Sam Laidlow waited until this past weekend to validate, with IM Vitoria as his first Ironman race of the year. (Why? I dunno. Probably partially hubris, partially youth, partially T100 money.)
He was then given a drafting penalty during the race, and was seen arguing about it with the ref on camera. He did NOT serve the penalty — which is an automatic DQ.
He still went to finish the race (in 2nd) and protested the penalty, but it was upheld. He was DQ’d and removed from the results.
His only other option to validate before the deadline would be IM Frankfurt. However, Frankfurt’s pro field is full and Ironman has been clear before that there are no exceptions to the registration deadlines once the fields are full.
The outcome: It seemed we would be without the defending world champion at the Ironman World Championship in Kona this fall.
But! Plot twist I didn’t see coming!
Ironman yesterday announced they would count Sam’s finish as a “finish” for the purposes of validating. And, my my my, people who have no horse in this race certainly have a lot of opinions about this decision.
Here’s the actual definition in the Ironman rulebook on what counts as validation:
“Validation Race” means racing competitively (as determined by IRONMAN in IRONMAN’s sole discretion) and finishing at least one (1) Qualifying IRONMAN (excluding the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship) OR two (2) Qualifying IRONMAN 70.3 (excluding the 2023 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship) events that offer Pro qualifying slots during the 2024 IRONMAN Qualifying Year.
Which means how you view this all depends on what your definition of finishing is. I’d say counting a DQ as a finish is an interesting interpretation, but not outside the scope of logic. Sam did finish. He did the whole race. Ironman coming to that conclusion seems…fine. (It seems fine even if I don’t really understand what Sam meant when he said that Ironman officials took into consideration his Race Ranger data — as if he’s suggesting that it mattered that he was able to show he wasn’t in the draft zone at the time of the penalty? Kinda irrelevant to the definitional question at hand. But still, fine.)
What I find more bizarre is how much people are upset about this decision.
Look, there is no slippery slope here. Validation applies to a grand total of five men & five women in the entire world. Accepting a DQ solely for validation purposes doesn’t mean anything else. It doesn’t invalidate any other rules. There’s no benefit to those 10 athletes to adopt this as a strategy now. No one’s getting away with anything.
Should Sam have simply served the penalty? Of course! But he’s never shown the best decision-making skills. Could Ironman have given him a wildcard to Kona instead? Sure, they have the discretion to do so. Did Sam’s “finish” meet all the goals of validation anyway (ie. showing fitness, not giving the defending champ an advantage by not having an extra race in their legs, using them for publicity and PR)? Yeah, definitely.
So, it’s fine. A totally fine conclusion to come to. You don’t need to have any more feelings about it than that.
If there’s one thing we could all take away from the world right now it’s this: Not having an opinion about things you don’t need to have an opinion about or don’t have enough information to be fully informed on is an option infinitely available. (This also applies to tweeting.)
Is this really the new kinder gentler Ironman?
I’ve been somewhat skeptical of all the chatter about how different Ironman already is under the new CEO. Mostly because it takes a long time for ships that big to really turn (so anything you think is new was likely already in the works before), but also because a lot of the things people keep citing as “new” aren’t actually new.
But I do think it’s possible that there’s been a slight shift within the organization, just in how and what staff feel empowered to do or what they believe matters. Because so much of a CEO role, anyway, is in setting the tone. I’m not entirely sure yet what the tone is of Scott DeRue’s Ironman. But I do think it’s possible it’s changing.
A lot of that is seen in small things: One of which is little decisions like this. One of which is in the content and social media they’ve been putting out (actually quite on point lately). And one of which is how well they’ve been using and promoting the IM Pro Series.
I did NOT have IM Pro Series really outpacing T100, in terms of athlete interest and attention, on my bingo card for this year. But here we are now
Best of the rest: Results & upcoming races
Trying to keep these recaps, results, and upcoming races short and to the point – so you can get just the highlights and click through to more info if you feel so inspired.
IM Vitoria: Antonio Benito Lopez took the win at home ahead of Sam (before/besides the DQ), and then Cam Wurf got the final podium and Kona spot (after the DQ). Kat Matthews won her second Ironman of the year, and Ruth Astle was back in an impressive 3rd off a calf injury. (Of course, the two of them chatting in T2 was adorable.) But race of the day: Els Visser took second one week after placing third at Challenge Roth. Yes, backing up Ironmans against Ironmans has become somewhat normal, but those fields were no joke.
Swansea 70.3: Congrats to Nikki Bartlett!
WTCS Hamburg: Like we mentioned last week, this was an odd one in that it had some of the big Olympic names and favorites but not all of them. So Cassandre Beaugrand winning over Beth Potter and Lisa Tertsch means something but probably not everything (with Taylor Knibb, Flora Duffy, Georgia TB all missing). The men’s race was even odder with more big Olympic names out and maybe the fastest WTCS race? Matt Hauser won, but I think most eyes were on Pierre Le Corre in third.
Germany then took the relay…
XTERRA World Cup - Montreal: It was a double race weekend — with short-track first and then the full-distance. And 2x world champ Solenne Billouin won both. As far as I can tell she’s pretty untouchable in the series now (even though there’s one more World Cup stop left before the World Championships in Trentino, she’s won three of the five races to date). The men’s race is significantly closer, with the two Forissier brothers battling (though the reigning world champ beat both of them this weekend in the full after crashing in the short-track). It’s all happening.
Results: IM Vitoria, Swansea 70.3, WTCS Hamburg, XTERRA World Cup - Quebec
Mark your calendars for this weekend
IM Lake Placid: Given there were only two N. American Ironmans before the World Champs qualifying deadline and this is the last of the two, it’s certainly going to be a big race. And so, of course, you’re gonna see the huge 60+ men’s fields we’ve been seeing in some of the IM Pro Series races. There are two previous champs in the women’s race (Alice Alberts and Sarah True) and Jackie Hering is clearly on form, too. For the men, everyone’s excited to see Lionel Sanders back at an Ironman — even though he said he wasn’t going to do another but then he was, I dunno. But I think Dr. Matt, Chris Leiferman, and Braden Currie are probably all podium picks, as well.
WATCH: Sunday at 6 a.m. ET/3 a.m. PT on Outside Watch or proseries.ironman.com or DAZN
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
Fair warning: This will almost definitely become an Olympics newsletter for a few weeks. Sorry, not sorry. But for now, here are just a couple funny Olympics things I enjoyed this week:
How do athletes get all of their equipment (and horses) there!? Made me think of Taylor Knibb telling us she had to take four bikes (road, time trial, and back-ups for each)! (Washington Post)
How do you feed the Olympic Village? Lots of bananas (but also lots of halal food). (Eater)
Triathletes are out here worrying about, like, arm hair and how much lighter their hydration system could be if it was 3D-printed — meanwhile the gymnasts are adding 10,000 crystals to their uniforms and it’s going to be awesome. (New York Times)
Sifan Hassan is currently signed up for the 1,500m, 5,000m, 10,000m, and marathon and I, for one, want to see her try it. (Runner’s World)
There are also, of course, the dark sides of the Olympics: France is shipping homeless people out of the city, as seems like the best and most empathetic way to solve a deeply systemic societal problem... (New York Times)
The sports minister finally swam in the Seine — or, rather, slipped on the ramp and fell in while wearing a wetsuit — so, you know, everything’s totally cool now, right? (Inside the Games)
And, while I’m pretty soft on crime, generally speaking, and a big believer in rehabilitation, it sorta seems like competing in the Olympics shouldn’t be a privilege you get after being convicted of raping a 12-year-old? (New York Times)
Triathlete did a breakdown of the past data on what it takes to win the Olympics. Here’s my short primer on Paris, though: The current in the Seine is strong (less so along the edges if you’re smart about swimming closer to the wall on the way back into the current); this will matter because it’s unlikely to be a breakaway bike course (though there’s certainly going to be a couple of athletes who try, especially in some of the technical spots); which means it’ll most probably be a runners race out of that front swim pack. (Triathlete)
The Tour is really coming down to crunch week now, there were hella DNFs this past week, and they finally got a rest day. Mostly, though, I think this AI summary my dad sent me at the start pretty much sums things up accurately. Good thing AI doesn’t just give you fake answers and generate bullshit, but as a bonus it also burns way way more energy and is killing the planet while doing it. Totally worth it. (Velo/Instagram/The Guardian)
Evidently, the Tour riders are also experimenting with inhaling carbon monoxide for performance benefits. And I’ll tell you: Three years ago, the Norwegian tri coach mentioned to us they were testing something like this, but we opted not to include it in our article because there was a concern across-the-board that the dangers of screwing up were high and triathletes might accidentally kill themselves trying to DIY the technique. I still stand by that belief. (Escape Collective)
Courtney Dauwalter won Hardrock 100 for the third time in a row — breaking her clockwise course record by 30 minutes and overall course record by two minutes. And 49-year-old Ludovic Pommeret broke Kilian Jornet’s course record. I hope I get faster over the next 10 years, too. (Outside Run)
I also found this graphic fascinating: Nine of the top 10 women’s times at Western States were set in the last two years. (Instagram)
The XTERRA Trail Run World Champs are heading to Wales next year. (Run247)
Supertri’s new NXT Gen initiative is interesting in that it’s supporting a few different young athletes to help get them into the sport, and some different programs to grow the sport in different places. Especially love to see this Eshe Stockton video with Boston Tri — she’s going to be a star. (Endurance Sportswire/Youtube)
I don’t know if you’ve watched SPRINT yet on Netflix, but it’s probably worth it. While some of the stuff may seem basic to uber-fans, it’s more well-done than most tri things. And it hadn’t occurred to me until I was watching that ‘oh yeah, the idea that everyone competes against each other and then eats in the same dining halls and travels on the same circuit is normal to us but weird to people who are used to team ball sports.’ (Netflix)
Some details about the crazy “spray-on” On shoes. I still don’t understand how these are gonna go mass market, and I do NOT believe they are more environmentally friendly because there’s no way that factors in the energy or robotics, but fascinating. (New York Times)
And I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at the amount of beating-the-bushes it took for the 1999 ground-breaking women’s World Cup soccer team to grassroots create interest and momentum in what ultimately became an iconic game, but it’s still somewhat validating to hear it worked for them too: People care about what you tell them to care about. (The Athletic)
A hiker took the 487-mile FKT on the Colorado Trail and then went straight to the hospital. Obviously, I’m aware that none of this is healthy at a world-class level, but. (Backpacker)
One last thing
Jumping over the Tour peloton.
