#83: Let's go beyond the results
Presented by Precision Fuel & Hydration
issue #83: April 17, 2024
All-sporters, I am at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Media Summit—which is where they bring together a bunch of Olympic & Paralympic athletes and put them into a hotel and make them go through all the press rounds now, so it’s out of the way months before the Games start. It’s been two days of standing in a video row, with two minutes to ask each athlete questions and hope you’ll be able to pull clips out of that later. The athletes are tired, the media is tired, the people who’s job is to keep everyone on schedule are tired.
The two questions I’ve been asked the most, by other reporters, are: 1. What do you think about the water quality in the Seine? (Morgan Pearson’s response to this was basically: ‘I think I’ll swim in it’. And that’s pretty much what I think too.) 2. Will Gwen make the team? (Look, man, I dunno, probably not, but it’s definitely possible.)
But, in classic fashion, I’ve overbooked myself. So we’re going to try to bang this out. And there’s no audio version this week, sorry! Will be back next week!
A big thanks to Precision for keeping me on track in the final 10 days (!) before my 100K and as I’m traveling all over. Before I left, I jumped on a call to finalize my plans for the race — which I’ll go over next week — but you can also book a free video consultation and get advice from a sports scientist (whether you buy any product or not). So that’s probably worth doing, just fyi.
- Kelly
A not-recap of T100 Singapore
We’re not going to rehash the play-by-play of T100 Singapore. What we are going to do is give you our highlights.
Of course, it ended up being about heat management. And, of course (like we discussed on the podcast), there very much ended up being a question of how hot and humid is too hot and humid, at what point does any of this stop being a good idea or even a good show. Everyone seems to have opinions about which athletes and why DNF’d, but I’m not going to pretend to know what each of them were dealing with.
What I do know is: While the racing was brutal and the broadcast was better than in Miami (though probably not as good as what the expectations have created), the biggest question starting to come out of these first two T100 races is: Aren’t the athletes on contract supposed to be the best?? Aren’t they supposed to be winning these things?!
You had two “wildcard” women and two “wildcard” men in the top five in Singapore. You had a wildcard win the men’s race — who is now leading the *overall* series standings. On the women’s side, a wildcard is in 5th place in the overall standings. Sure, everyone likes an underdog and sure, it’s still early in the series. I’m all for these wildcard victories. But, from a business standpoint, you can’t have a series of all underdogs. Or, I suppose, you can try, but eventually it doesn’t work out as a media property because at some point they’re not underdogs anymore. At some point you have to deliver on the promise of the biggest names at every race to create storylines.
Women’s race: We want Taylor v. Ashleigh!
Lucy Charles-Barclay might be the biggest name on the T100 tour right now, but Ashleigh Gentle is just so damn good at these. And she’s so damn good in the heat. (What I wouldn’t give to have that skill.) She looked like she was just out for a fast afternoon run, while everyone else looked like they could pass out at any moment. She ran *seven minutes* faster than Lucy in a 70-minute run. That’s wild.
The only other person as dominant at the mid-distance right now is Taylor Knibb. But the last time we saw the two head-to-head was at the 2022 U.S. Open — mostly because Taylor is primarily focused on the Olympics right now and because Ashleigh skipped 70.3 Worlds last year.
However! After Paris, we should see the two of them up against each other a number of times on the T100 Tour and, at least, at the Grand Final. And, I know Ashleigh’s original plan has also been 70.3 Worlds in New Zealand (kinda a home worlds for her); not 100% sure that’s still her plan (it’s wildly hard to keep track of athletes’ ever-changing plans), but I hope so! This is the big name, superstar match-up we all want!
Men’s race: ‘Death before DNF’ doesn’t have to be literal
Now for the men’s race — which was even wilder.
Look, I’ve been a lowkey Youri Keulen fan since his epic finish line speeches. He’s had a steady progression over the years. And it’s fantastic (and hilarious in a perverse way) that a wildcard wins one of the T100 races and is leading the overall series standings over the heavily-contracted highly-touted athletes. GOOD FOR HIM.
I am also almost never going to blame an athlete for going for it; they’re all just trying to make the best choices they can in the middle of a race. And he was just trying to hold on and win. I get that, not going to question him.
I am, however, going to question other people’s decisions and our tendency to lean in, at times, to the car crash aspect of the sport.
I completely understand that what it takes to win a race isn’t always pretty. And while I’m not entirely sure the race needed to go off in the heat wave conditions (or, at least, it could have been modified or moved to the morning…?), I understand that’s a hard change to make. I get that live broadcasts happen in real-time and you can’t always control what airs.
But, go ahead and watch this — with Youri nearly unresponsive on the floor, just asking for someone to hold his hand, and then getting carried to the hospital — and tell me that all the right choices were made by the people in charge. At a minimum, it’s simply hard to watch. At a minimum, it probably didn’t need to be shared as a social media highlight in an effort to go viral…
Women:
Ashleigh Gentle - 3:44:23
Lucy Charles-Barclay - 3:45:58
Els Visser - 3:51:38
Amelia Watkinson - 3:52:03
Lucy Buckingham - 3:52:10
Men:
Youri Keulen - 3:21:01
Sam Long - 3:22:38
Pieter Heemeryck - 3:23:30
David McNamee - 3:26:03
Kyle Smith - 3:26:57
What’s going on with College Club Nationals?
It was also the USAT Collegiate Club National Championships this past weekend. But you probably didn’t know that from the lack of coverage and results.
Overall team results still aren’t out yet (as of Wednesday morning). Which says quite a lot. Word is:
Faith Duncan from Wilmington College (pop. 1,200 students) won both the draft-legal and the Olympic — which I don’t think anyone had predicted, so good for her
Josh Berles from Queens crossed the line first in the men’s race, but given the entire first wave of male athletes was sent off course, Ben Hinchcliffe from Darmouth ended up winning — which just isn’t a good way to run things operationally (yes, the waves are seeded so this doesn’t generally happen)
Queens took the mixed team relay and the understanding right now is they won the overall title too — though that’s such a mixed bag, given they have a varsity funded club program when everyone else doesn’t (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
But I’ve heard now a number of complaints and concerns about the race: huge groups of athletes being sent off-course, crashes due to a lack of volunteers on course, and poor planning on the organizational side. (A lot of these are outlined very clearly here.)
Of course things happen in events and people are always going to have complaints, but at a National Championship these things should be run smoothly. USAT got largely out of the race directing business and contracts out the race management now (as it does for all of its championships except Age Group Nationals), but race directors are only going to be able to do what they can with the support they have.
I love collegiate club triathlon. I came up through it. A lot of my friends did. Some of the best pros on the circuit right now did. Everyone who goes to nationals will tell you the vibe is on point, it brings big-time college energy and fun to triathlon. It has the potential to be everything that’s great about triathlon and everything that’s supposed to be great about being a college student-athlete. I don’t know if the same can always be said for the NCAA.
So, you know, let’s keep that alive.
And there was a world champs this weekend
Congrats to Beth Potter & Chase McQueen, who took the E Tri World Champs titles. Especially to Chase, since that’s a big jump for him and last year his treadmill malfunctioned so he swam butterfly out of protest.
However, once Jonny Brownlee pulled out, the women’s race had more of the big names: Beth battled it out with Cassandre Beaugrand (in, yes, what was a preview of what we’ll probably see in Paris this summer). And Katie Zaferes was right behind them in third.
The rest coming up this weekend:
Ironman S. Africa: Daniela Ryf is back! (And it looks like Ali Brownlee and Kristian Hogenhaug opted for S. Africa after they couldn’t get into IM Texas)
World Triathlon World Cup - Wollogong
WATCH: TriathlonLive - Men at 10 p.m. PT Friday/1 a.m. ET Saturday; Women at 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET Friday
Valencia 70.3: Over 90 men on the start list, so we can discuss later what is happening with long-course start lists this year
Challenge Gran-Canaria
See all the results and details here.
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
The Boston Marathon, of course, was *the* big event of the week — though I’m not really a ‘Boston is the most amazing race in the world’ person, but maybe that’s how runners feel about triathlons too. Fast Women has a lot of details about how the race played out (and how hard it’s going to be to make the Kenyan Olympic team — all three of the top women!) and Citius has an analysis of what to take away. (Fast Women/Citius)
For me, the most interesting things were: 1. After last year's racial profiling incident on course, the group TrailblazHers Running Co. is now suing the BAA. And 2. The 2014 eventual champ is still waiting to be paid. (Boston.com/Wall Street Journal)
Diamond League races are going to FloTrack — which makes them a lot lot harder and more expensive to watch. Which is always what you want as a spectator. (LetsRun)
Track is becoming the first sport to pay prize money for Olympic medals. (A country, like the U.S., typically pays athletes a bonus for medals, but the sport’s governing body doesn’t pay prize money.) And I am shocked by how many people are still saying shit like ‘amateurism!’ Please. Do you know how much investment and cost goes into becoming an Olympic medalist? (New York Times)
And, OMG, the Nike U.S. uniform reveal fiasco. Yes, there are actually 20 something different uniform options and it’s possible the one stupid women’s cut just looked really bad on the mannequin, so maybe they shouldn’t have led with that one. As any woman could have told you. (Instagram)
‘Chasing the Burn’ had an interesting podcast episode about the NCAA situation — which I’m increasingly unsure triathlon will be able to get across the finish line — and one point brought up was the need for a World Tri Continental Cup in the U.S. I definitely can see why we need development opportunities, but I will say USAT lost something around $2M when they hosted the WTCS race in Chicago... (Apple Podcasts)
Ironman Canada is moving to Ottawa. As my Canadian colleague said: At least there’s less chance of fires. (Triathlon Magazine Canada)
Jan Frodeno is signing on with Fuelin as ‘Chief Performance Officer,’ which does seem to mean he will have actual involvement with the company. He’s certainly, in the past, made a point as well of taking an investment-type interest in brands he works with. Probably smart, from a business perspective. (Endurance Sportswire)
The reason Javi Gomez had to miss T100 - Singapore was because his mom’s health had deteriorated and he went home to be with her. She has now passed away and I’m glad he got to spend those last days with her. (Instagram)
And maybe the most surprising news of the week: Holly Lawrence is pregnant! Congrats! (Instagram)
One last thing
Weird.
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I was appalled that they kept the camera rolling on someone in medical distress…and kept with the super close up shots too. I get showing the initial collapse but to keep rolling when medical treatment was being given and then posting it on social media was completely tasteless.
Youri Keulen's collapse immediately reminded me of Chris Legh at Kona before the turn of the century. If you don't know about Legh and his cautionary tale and you race long... well, you need to.