#147: Lol.
This and the shrug emoji are my two top reactions to everything right now.
issue #147: Aug. 6, 2025
We’re halfway through the season. I think probably officially. So, how’s it going? Some amazing races, some OK ones, some same problems we had at the start of the season. I’d say a solid B?
I was “off” a bunch of the last week, which was somehow not exactly relaxing, and am just catching up now. And by catching up I mean am still very behind. Solid B.
Today’s newsletter is a quick hitter, and we may be adjusting the schedule of when these hit your inbox soon (to sync better with some other things I’m working on, like our weekly women’s sports podcast), but for now, it’s still a Wednesday! B+
- Kelly
London’s burning (for 100km)
First off: I’m pretty sure the swim is on. There’s been a lot of talk about the algae bloom at the docks closing the swim area, but it sounds like it’s been tested a bunch, reopened, and T100 sent an email out to all athletes saying things look good (enough).
Second: Word is there’s ~6,000 age-group athletes signed up for the variety of events available (100km, Olympic, sprint, super sprint, open water). I still don’t think mass participation events are a money-maker at scale, but at least people are signing up again!
Third: It really is quite the start list for the pro race, isn’t it. There have been different winners for every T100 race so far this year (Kate Waugh, Julie Derron, Taylor Knibb & Hayden Wilde, Rico Bogen, Jelle Geens) and, as of right now, all of them are racing in London.
Plus, athletes like Ashleigh Gentle, Lucy CB, Indie Lee, Mika Noodt, Sam Long & the wildcards/hot shots/contenders/whatever we’re calling them now (Leo Bergere, Jamie Riddle). And I feel like there’s an entire GB contingent stacking the start line (Jess Learmonth, Georgia TB, Holly Lawrence).
Triathlete has a pretty fully in-depth preview if you really want to go deep.
WATCH: Women go Saturday at noon in London/7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT & men are three hours later on HBO Max, Eurosport, Discovery+, PTO Youtube
I guess, fourth thing: Hey, the PTO is paying athletes out their year-end 2024 bonuses now. (Told you that’s what they needed to spend the new money on first.) The fact that this was breaking news made me lol, but it was pointed out to me that if it was news whenever orgs paid their invoices then it would quickly publicly sort out who pays and who doesn’t. So that’s an option.
From the races
Norseman: Julia Skala broke the women’s course record.
Alpe d’Huez: It looks like Alanis Siffert is quietly building a solid resume for herself, winning over Nina Derron & Jeanne Collonge. Both of these races are really about the experience though, aren’t they. And I also learned this week that Huez is an actual town in France.
Results: Norseman, Alpe d’Huez, Krakow 70.3
Mark your calendars
We’ve had a bit of a lull and then obviously this weekend is all about T100 London and then it starts building back into big race after big race. The start lists are out for IM Kalmar (pro women only) & IM Copenhagen (pro men only) next weekend. Both have just one world champs spot up for grabs and it’s the last chance. «For age-groupers, they’re the last races for 2025 qualification and also the first races for 2026 Kona qualification. Which means it’s also the first races we’ll see the age-graded women/men breakdown in action. Shrug emoji»
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
Yes, a few people have messaged me about the Ironman-TriDot breakup, but I was out last week so I don’t have a lot more insight than the Slowtwitch article (which I thought did a decent job laying out the likely underlying issues and tensions between coaches & AI coaches). (Slowtwitch)
Speaking of: I do not think AI training plans are going to be the way Strava brings in the revenue, but the CEO disagrees with me. Personally, I don’t know why Strava doesn’t market its mapping features more to its loyal users; its route mapping is the best mapping for actual running, biking, hiking, etc. (Wall Street Journal)
USAT Age-Group Nationals is this weekend, back in Milwaukee. And along with that the inductees into this year’s USAT Hall of Fame class. (Instagram)
It was a very weird U.S. Track & Field National Championships: A pre-meet arrest & detainment, shoving after the 200m, Shelby Houlihan back and winning her first post-burrito national title, a 16-year-old running 1:42 in the 800m to surprise win, and then a whole bunch of other upsets. Truly a mystery why they can’t make track a mainstream pro sport. (Citius Mag/New York Times/The Guardian/Runner’s World/Running Magazine Canada)
Speaking of: Where did all the pro track meets in America go? (Letsrun)
It was also a slightly weird Swimming World Championship, only mostly in the sense that Michael Phelps & Ryan Lochte started sharing memes about the death of U.S. Swimming. (Washington Post)
Tour de France Femmes was epic, too. Just in case you somehow missed the fact that France went crazy and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot won the Tour, Paris-Roubaix, and Olympic mountain bike gold all in one year. (The Guardian)
BTW, Maya Kingma was racing in the TDFF — a nice break (?) from the World Tri circuit — and says it was/is wildly different from being a pro triathlete. Just fyi. (Tri247)
Gwen Jorgensen had surgery on her foot. (Instagram)
This is a cute clip of the U.S. Olympic relay team athletes thanking their coaches a year ago in Paris. (Instagram)
Triathlon Denmark sent an official letter about the World Triathlon election corruption stuff. (The Inquisitor/Triathlonish)
New Zealand will host the 2028 World Triathlon champs. In case you weren’t keeping track: 2025 is Wollogong, Australia; 2026 is Pontevedra, Spain; and bidding is still open for 2027 — it wasn’t just my imagination that we skipped a year there. (World Triathlon)
Alistair Brownlee & Ruth Astle are opening a youth triathlon academy. And, honestly, our Feisty Tri episode with Ruth (which didn’t touch on this topic) was one of my favorites so far this year. (BBC/Spotify)
And this question came up on this week’s Feisty Tri pod (coming out Friday): Do you name your bikes? Joanne Murphy does; Katie Zaferes & I do not. (Triathlete)
This is an interesting review on female (mostly Masters) Ironman triathletes. (Frontiers in Sports & Active Living)
And this essay best summed up nearly all of my issues with sex testing in sports: “World Athletics’ mandatory genetic test for women athletes is misguided. I should know – I discovered the relevant gene in 1990.” Over the weekend, I was thinking about how all these scientists who worked on gene testing spoke out the last time the IOC instituted sex testing for female athletes and launched a campaign to explain that’s not how sex differences or genetics work and to get it overturned, and I was thinking ‘are those scientists who worked on those tests still alive, maybe that’s why they couldn’t stop it this time, because that was 30 years ago and they’ve died.’ And then I saw this essay and I realized nope, they’re just back fighting the same battles they thought were over again. (The Conversation)
One last thing
Been all about Dominique’s photos and Crew Diaries from France.
