#90: More drama with the Malibu Triathlon

You know I love spilling triathlon tea.

issue #90: June 5, 2024

All-sporters! It’s my birthday this week! Plus, it’s T100 - SF week! And, so as the universe’s gift to me, we have lots of low-stakes gossip. My favorite thing.

For anyone coming into town for the race, I sent out my Bay Area recs to paying subscribers this past weekend + here’s my super detailed Escape from Alcatraz race review. I will now spend the rest of my time arguing about burritos with all the triathletes who have come to town.

So, let’s get straight to the hot topics…

- Kelly

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Watching a Malibu town council meeting so you don’t have to

With everything going on in triathlon, bet you didn’t expect us to start here.

A quick recap of the Malibu Triathlon chaos to date:

• Michael Epstein sold Malibu Tri to Motiv Sports (yes, the same company that bought Wildflower and shut it down) back in 2017; Motiv then sold the race to Super League (now SuperTri)

• Super League ran a pro Malibu race as part of its championship series alongside the famous age-group race for a few years

• Last year, Epstein took back the only Malibu triathlon race permit available from the town council under the name of the Zuma Foundation/Zuma Beach Triathlon — effectively ending Super League’s Malibu race. It was a WHOLE THING.

• In April, the Zuma Beach Triathlon announced there would be no race this year due to construction and safety concerns

Now, the Malibu Town Council has decided to essentially cancel the contract with the Zuma Foundation and re-open the permit process up to everyone — which, yes, means SuperTri could make a bid to take it back again.

After watching the relevant Malibu Town Council meeting (last 15 minutes here) & reading the supporting documents, 1. it brought me back to when I used to cover local council news and 2. it made my head hurt to try to work out the council’s circular logic. But as far as I can understand: The five-year race contract between the town & Zuma Foundation never actually got signed due to some insurance questions. Since this year’s race was then cancelled before the contract was signed, the council is viewing it as a preemptive breach of contract. So they decided to NOT wave through the request to simply start the contract next year; they DID decide to re-open the whole damn thing again. Also, they were very not pleased about the whole thing.

The official statement from Epstein and Zuma Foundation:

"With the athletes and community safety being our biggest concern, due to the ongoing construction on Pacific Coast Highway and Trancas Bridge, as well as the flooded Zuma Beach Tunnel, we made the prudent decision to postpone the upcoming Zuma Beach Triathlon. The City of Malibu is reopening bids for the event and The Zuma Foundation looks forward to once again being selected to host this world-class event in 2025.”

I know it’s a real problem for triathlon RDs to not have reliability in their permits, with broad-reaching implications, and we could definitely use more races in California, and it’s an actual issue. But, come on, this is just kinda funny, too.

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A few pre-approved takes on any U.S. Olympic selections

Since I expect the U.S. Olympic selection announcements any minute (I already made my picks last week), here are a couple of opinions you can use for whatever the outcome:

“It was a hard choice, but I’m sure she/he will rise to the occasion now.”

“I can’t believe the selection committee would leave her/him off the team! This is behind-the-scenes politics at its worst!”

Take your pick.

READ: Tim did put together a incredibly comprehensive overview of every country in the Olympics and all the triathletes who have already qualified/been named to their teams

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The craziest race from this past weekend: IM Hamburg

Now let’s talk about the actual triathlon that happened this weekend!

Ironman Hamburg had it all, just so much happening: First pre-race favorite Kat Matthews’ whole front hydration system broke off, then she hit a barrier after she got going again, then she was DQ’d for passing in a no-overtaking-zone (she explained a little bit about what happened — but you can imagine that after last year the officials in Hamburg were not going to be relaxed about that violation). Sara Svensk also crashed into Els Visser after missing a U-turnaround and riding right into her. Els recovered but then got a flat. Fenella Langridge dropped a bottle. Four of them headed out onto the run together — things went back and forth and accordian’d and came together and re-opened up.

Ultimately: Jackie Hering took the lead and held onto it ahead of Maja Stage-Nielsen, in her first full Ironman distance in nine years. Which was also, reportedly, the 5th fastest Ironman time by an American (8:19:14).

And, of course, Jackie being unable to climb up onto the podium and having to sit to receive her award is the most relatable thing an Ironman winner has ever done.

Photo: Ingo Kutsche/IRONMAN

One last thing: The winning age-group man, a two-time Olympic rower, went 7:50:42 for a new age-group world record. And, like, I mean, personal goals and all that, and good for him. But, can we just acknowledge that what constitutes “amateur” has gotten kinda arbitrary and ridiculous?

The best of the rest of the results

• Europe Cup - Kielce: The World Tri Continental Cup got a surprise Youtube stream after it hastily became the final deciding race in the Team GB men’s Olympic decision — with Sam Dickinson outsprinting Jonny Brownlee in the final of the super sprint rounds. Will that be that for the final selections?

• Challenge Gunsan: Jack Moody went 7:50 for the full-distance win here & Regan Hollioake went 8:39.

• Switzerland 70.3: Good to see Julie Derron on top.

• And Javi Gomez was back, winning a local half.

Results: Switzerland 70.3, Challenge Gunsan, Challenge Salou, World Tri European Cup - Vigo, World Tri European Cup - Kielce

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Mark your calendars for this upcoming weekend: My hometown race - T100 SF

I did a short preview of this weekend’s upcoming T100 race for the NPR station to air later this week, but they didn’t necessarily care as much as you all care that: This might be the best field we’ve seen at one of these yet (especially for the women, especially now that you add Kat Matthews to the already stacked start list).

Start lists: For men & women

Course: Rough & cold swim (though, honestly, not as bad as it’s been before) + quite hilly & semi-technical bike + very very flat boring run link

My picks: Marten van Riel or Magnus Ditlev for the men & Taylor Knibb for the women

WATCH:

• Saturday at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET for the men & 6:45 a.m. PT/9:45 a.m. ET for the women on HBO Max, Eurosport, Outside Watch, Youtube

• In-person: Come on down! I don’t think you need to be there right at the start (since they’ll be jumping off a boat and you can’t see anything from shore anyway), but the first men should be out of the water in ~25 minutes.

  • If you do plan on coming down, there’s a raffle you can enter for some big prizes & as a fundraiser for the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

  • Best spots to watch: After you see them exit the swim (because that’s always funny when they’re coming out of the cold water), I think the best spot on the bike will be on the climb up out of Crissy Field on the west end, by the warming hut. It’s a sharp turn and a steep ass climb — that they have to do 6x. And then, from there, you can walk down the waterfront trail to where the run turnaround is.

One of the weird things (IMO) about having a big race in a big city is that unless you’re at the race hotel, you wouldn’t know anything was happening. I live 25 minutes away and haven’t seen anyone in town yet (besides Chelsea). It just sorta blends into the landscape, sucked up into everything else in San Francisco.

But, I’ll be there bright and early on Saturday! Come say hi!

The best of the rest this upcoming weekend

• XTERRA World Cup - Belgium: It’s a very cool course where they’re actually going to be racing around the Citadel, swimming down a river and biking up cobblestones. It’s the fourth stop in the series and there’s some very tight rivalries shaping up. (You can also watch the recap from the N. American champs if you want some inspiration.)

• Boulder 70.3: The next race in the IM Pro Series sees the usual huge men’s list and all the local Boulder athletes who aren’t in SF. (BTW, I did not write the write-up at that link, even though it has my name on it.)

  • WATCH: Also on Saturday at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET on Outside Watch in the US — so you can go back and forth between races coverage streams

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The -ish

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

• What are endurance sports going to look like in 2030? I put together my five predictions for Precision’s newsletter. (Precision Fuel & Hydration)

• World Athletics (ie. track & field’s governing body) is going to test a whole bunch of new events and changes to innovate the sport & plans to hold a championship meet every other year called the “Ultimate Championship” — kinda like the world championship but ultimate. (Instagram/Citius)

• This is a fun chat with the beer mile world record holder, who is now getting into triathlon. (Slowtwitch)

• Dave Scott announced he underwent open heart surgery; he said the issues were caused by long-term damage from years of too intense training. (Instagram)

• XTERRA world champ and Oscar winner Lesley Patterson announced her husband and co-writer Simon Marshall passed away. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in November. The couple has a GoFundMe. (Scottish Daily Express/GoFundMe)

• You can watch the Patagonman doc now, if you need more inspiration. (Youtube)

• Supertri is moving to a franchise model, which means local owners of each team. Plan is it’ll also be a way for development athletes to gain experience — at least from the federations that intend to use that. (Endurance Sportswire)

• T100 still hasn’t announced its Grand Final yet — even though the word has been forever that it’ll be in the Mid East.

• Ironman has signed a two-year deal with DAZN to stream all races globally (except in the US & Canada, where they’ll still be on Outside Watch). (DAZN)

• Some other Ironman news: Since everyone has a podcast, it’s actually kind of surprising it took until now for Ironman to get one too. And, Ironman has also signed on to move registration off Active and onto a white-label registration platform — the reason this matters is because (my guess) it’s ultimately a move towards owning and controlling the whole athlete pathway and data. (Ironman/Endurance Sportswire)

• Triathlete has an interview with the new Ironman CEO five months into his tenure — and even though the word “exclusive” seems to be getting thrown around a lot, there’s some interesting insight into what he’s been up to on his listening tour. (Triathlete)

• The biggest event of the past weekend, though, was Unbound Gravel — the Kona of gravel — and the nine-way sprint for the finish in the women’s race. Can you imagine sprinting after 200 miles on dirt? Poor former triathlete Heather Jackson (who got 5th!), I can’t think that’s a skill she practiced a lot in Ironman. Yes, Lachlan Morton winning the men’s race was great. But every woman I’ve talked to who was there said the women’s race was one of the best experiences of their lives, the first time they really had their own race, and more women behind the camera and more coverage and more women out there. It was what we got in Kona last year. (Instagram/Velo)

• Speaking of: The women are in at Redbull Rampage! (Bike Mag)

• And I leave you with: The two-time cheese rolling champion. (Instagram)

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One last thing

Quite the finish.