#88: How many races can one athlete do at the Olympics?

What do you want.

issue #88: May 22, 2024

All-sporters, I’m trying something new and likely going to be getting this out mid-morning my time more often. Since there’s a decent number of you on the East Coast and in Europe, I’m just not sure it matters anymore that this hit your inbox right at 5 a.m. PT. But maybe I’m wrong, we’ll see.

Reminder: This quarter’s Book Club book is getting rave reviews, so pick it up before the Olympic Trials at the end of June.

And, a big thank you to all the new subscribers.

- Kelly

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What else is there to say about Taylor Knibb

I remember running into Taylor Knibb in Boulder back in 2021, right after her surprise win (and Olympic spot) at WTCS Yokohama. It was the first time we’d met in person but she immediately started to tell me all about the COVID protocols and paperwork and craziness that went into international travel to Japan. Basically, she was the Taylor Knibb we’ve all come to know. Unfiltered and genuine.

It’s been fascinating to watch her get faster and faster and better and better, one of the best there is, but still retain so much of that authenticity, of the sense that she’s doing it all just because it’s fun.

Last week, Taylor won the national title in the cycling time trial. She covered the 33.7km course in just under 42 minutes. (That’s 48.24 kph or 29.97 mph, fyi.) I know she got 4th last year and I know she’s really good, but I still think actually winning was a surprise even to her. She beat some very good pros, pros who have won international races (and who, reportedly, were not thrilled to be beaten by a triathlete).

The win also qualified her for the U.S. Olympic team in cycling. Taylor is now the ONLY athlete to qualify for two sports at the Paris Olympics. She has confirmed she is going to race the Olympic TT on July 27 & the triathlon on July 31.

Evidently, winning the national TT title also earned her a spot for the U.S. team in the Olympic cycling road race. I know a lot of people are speculating about whether she’ll race it, but I don’t think she will. That’s my pure speculation. While I’ve come around to the idea that a 40-minute all-out cycling effort four days before the triathlon actually could be optimal for medaling in the tri anyway, I’d like to point out Taylor has never done a pro cycling road race* and doing your first one at the Olympics is probably not the best idea.

(*Yes, I’m sure she’s done some lower-level road races and, sure, WTCS draft-legal triathlon has elements of road racing, but international pro road races are a different thing.)

A few other Olympic qualification notes

Speaking of Paris.

A few people have pointed out that, despite saying I was going to, I didn’t actually make Olympic team picks last week.

OK, OK, you’re right, sorry. Yes, yes, it’s an ‘if xx then yy’ situation right now. If Kirsten beats Katie. If Georgia TB is healthy and fast. If! We have to wait to see how WTCS Cagliari goes this weekend! I promise I will make my actual picks after this weekend.

There is one thing to say, though, about how the U.S. will make its final discretionary selections: The focus is on medals. They will select now primarily and exclusively to optimize the chance for the relay team to medal, based on results for the last 18 months, results head-to-head, results in mixed relays, and results on courses similar to Paris. This is laid out in the criteria.

Another note:

• Dorian Coninx has confirmed he broke his wrist in that crash. Technically speaking, that means he hasn’t validated his Olympic French team spot (neither has Pierre Le Corre — though Le Corre is on this weekend’s start list). I don’t know if the French federation is going to trust that Dorian can get ready in time or try to push him out and replace with Leo Bergere or Vince Luis. I’m sure there’s lots of behind-the-scene-ness happening right now.

And then there’s the last-minute quota and standings chaos:

• World Cup - Huatulco: The final event for relays to qualify (which is one of the main ways countries earn quota spots for individuals now). But chaos reigned. Canada’s third athlete entered the swim through the exit and the team was DQ’d. South Africa crashed and eliminated their final chance to earn a spot. Netherlands won and qualified but then had to get their second guy a good enough spot in the individual race the next day for him to move up in the world rankings enough. Spoiler alert: They did it. (I also only just realized Richard Murray transferred to the Netherlands to race with his wife, Rachel Klamer.)

• And I won’t even try to explain all the ups and downs and last minute qualifications, points grabbing happening for the final Olympic quota spots.

WATCH: WTCS Cagliari

This weekend, the final WTCS before the Olympics. (Technically, there’s one a week before the Olympic race, but this is the last one before teams are picked and the last one many of the athletes will do before Paris.) If there’s a big name to be had it is on this weekend’s start list: men’s start list & women’s start list.

On TriathlonLive.tv - Women go at 1:45 a.m. PT/4:45 a.m. ET on Saturday & Men go at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET

Photo: Wagner Araujo/World Triathlon

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The best of the rest of the results

• Challenge Championship: India Lee backed up her win from last year! And Kyle Smith had arguably his biggest win?

• Chattanooga 70.3: Emma PB seems like she’s in excellent form right now at the mid-distance (I think that’s two 1sts & a 2nd for her — after the start of the year DNFs). And I think we’re all happy to see Matt Hanson win one of these IM Pro Series races.

• XTERRA N. American Championship: The French men stayed on top, but interestingly an Italian woman got into the first spot (Sandra Mairhofer). Because it was the N. American Champs, there was also a championship claimed by the first N. American athlete — which was the youngest Middaugh in 4th for the men and Amanda Felder in 5th for the women. And that means I also just learned that Amanda Felder, who was racing in college when I was racing, is still winning!

• IM Lanzarote: And can we all just take a second to appreciate that Anne Haug set a course record and had to wait 44 minutes for second place to finish.

Results: Challenge Championship, Chattanooga 70.3, XTERRA World Cup - Oak Mountain (N. American Championship), IM Lanzarote, IM Brazil, Pays d’Aix 70.3, World Cup Huatulco

There are a couple of other races coming up this weekend, but don’t you want me just to tell you about the ones that matter?

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Chattanooga v. Morro Bay: What do you all want anyway?

This weekend, I heard both from people who were not thrilled with ~3,500 athletes on narrow crowded unsafe roads at Chattanooga 70.3, and I heard from people who were upset that the swim at Morro Bay 70.3 was colder, tougher, and with heavier currents than expected (which resulted in 250-300 people getting pulled and just ~1400 finishing the race).

Guys. You hear yourselves, right.

Of course, both things can be true. But I’d suggest, also, that you ask yourself what races do you want to do, what events do you want to exist in the world.

Morro Bay, for example: 250-300 people is a LOT of people getting pulled from a swim, many of whom were hypothermic, some of whom got to continue on the course even though they were past the cut-off. Is this race mismanagement? Should the event be canceled? Is it a remote, terrible location that will never succeed or be profitable? (As has been suggested.)

I’d argue, no. [I did the inaugural race last year, but not this year, because three weeks after my 100K seemed soon even for someone with my extreme levels of overconfidence.] I’d argue Morro Bay is driving distance from two major cities (SF & LA), at a time of the year when there are very few races on the West Coast, and there’s a huge market opportunity. The cold water and the tides are incredibly predictable — like, Farmer’s Almanacs literally used to write out tide tables a year in advance in a book, because they’re so predictable — but you still have to prepare for them. I’ve done a lot of races in that area over the years and it’s some of the coldest water I’ve ever raced in. I’d guess that a lot of people flying into California didn’t know that and just assumed “California,” and I’m sure a second-year event is still sorting out some of the logistics and didn’t appropriately prepare. I’d also argue that Morro Bay will never be a 3,500-person race; it will always be a ~1,900-person race just because of the capacity and course.

But is that bad? Don’t we want the future of triathlon to include all kinds of events?

The problem isn’t that one event is massive and one event is smaller, or that some events are weird and extreme and quirky and maybe too hard (see also: IM Alaska). The problem is that the Ironman brand — and, to a degree, the business model — has become so reliant on selling huge numbers of people a specific packaged version of hard-but-not-too-hard that when things are outside of this mold those people, understandably, don’t know how to handle it. This isn’t what they were sold. And then they complain about the DNF rates at Alaska or Morro Bay or the old IM Tahoe.

But that model can also become self-immolating, it eats own young. Because how many times are you going to come back to a race that’s overcrowded and unpleasant, how many times are you going to want to be one of 3,500 people running loops around a parking lot. Not that many times. I won’t really do it anymore.

So, if the answer is that, actually, really, we want both things, we want all things, triathlon must be the big races and the smaller races and the “easy” races and the impossible races, well, then, it’s going to have to change, we’re going to have to change.

We’re going to have to ask: What do you want?

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The -ish

The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.

• Semi-retired triathletes are doing well: Heather Jackson won Stetina’s Paydirt (which, interestingly, has a $10K prize purse for women but not men) & Beth McKenzie won the Ultra Trail Australia 100K. (Velo/Instagram)

• Here are all the pro qualifiers for Nice & Kona so far — and the races left in the qualification. (TriRating)

• Ironman Lake Placid has been extended through 2027 and a few of the contract details with the town have come out. (This happens almost every time a public entity or town council has to vote on a permit, because democracy.) (Adirondack Daily Enterprise)

• T100 is hosting a fundraising event for the Challenged Athletes Foundation with Purplepatch here in San Francisco in the lead-up to T100-SF. There’s also a virtual ride for anyone in the world, with a special guest world champ option. You can donate & sign up here. (Challenge Athletes)

• Skye Moench announced she’s pregnant. (Instagram)

• Turns out Ruth Astle qualified for Gravel Worlds. (Instagram)

• A few other results from US Cycling Nationals: Photo finish in the men’s road race and Coryn Labecki won her 74th (!) national title. (Youtube/Instagram)

• Also, I met Alise Willoughby briefly at the US Olympic Media Summit thing and she just won her third world title in BMX racing and that shit is WILD! And, anyway, I dunno how she’d get back on the bike after her husband was paralyzed in a crash, but she did it. (Youtube/Yahoo)

• The injured list is starting to get longer as we near the Track & Field Trials. Partially, pros are always on that line, and partially it’s just that people are really pushing themselves to be ready in time: Emma Coburn broke her ankle, Courtney Frerichs tore her ACL, and Alicia Monson tore her meniscus. (NBC/Citius Mag)

• Speaking of Trials season: There’s a young swimmer who will take on Katie Ledecky this summer and she just broke her 400m IM world record (4:24.38) at the Canadian Olympic Trials. (Olympics)

• Track and field is getting the ‘Drive to Survive’ treatment, premiering in July. (FloTrack)

• A 55-year-old woman became the first person to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge out to the Farallon Islands (yes, that’s the red triangle of sharks) — apparently, no one’s ever swum it in that direction and only six people ever have swum it the other direction. (San Francisco Chronicle)

• Kite surfing took over this small Colombian town. (New York Times)

• What’s getting more popular: Hyrox or rucking? (New York Times/CBS)

• I think we all agree this ad for a mountain bike radio didn’t sell any women on anything other than an instant divorce. (Instagram)

• Why are there no women on the Forbes’ list of 50 highest paid athletes? (Forbes)

• An IOC-backed study to examine the actual physical performance differences between a group trans women, cis women, and cis men found that while there are some small advantages trans women maintained over cis women (ex. grip strength), there were far more things they didn’t have any physical advantage at (and some markers that were lower than cis women). There was no measurable evidence of a blanket overall performance benefit for trans women. (New York Times)

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One last thing

Most of the time my confidence 100% exceeds my ability. What the video of what I think I look like…