#87: My Olympic team picks...
Because no one asked me.
issue #87: May 15, 2024
Sponsored by XTERRA:
Sometimes, all-sporters, when I’m out running on the trails around here some young mountain bike hotshots go bombing down past me (given that I live in the “birthplace of mountain biking”). And if I had the technical skills, lack of fear, and no injury history, I would totally also bomb down things. Since that’s not me, instead, I can live vicariously through watching the super fast, super crazy, super short short-track XTERRA World Cup this weekend — which I feel like all the high school kids I used to coach would love.
I’ll just stick to watching, dabbling, and doing what I’m good at: boring road triathlon 😂
Here’s what else to know this week.
- Kelly
The Yokohama aftermath
A short note to start: It feels tired to complain, at this point, about triathlon broadcasts and their medium-ness. But, especially in this era when we talk so frequently about going mainstream and reaching bigger audiences, it’s still sometimes useful to step back and look at it from an outside perspective. So here’s what my husband said when he walked in and looked at the TV: “Are you watching security camera footage from across the street? What *is* this broadcast?”
World Tri commentary is solid. It’s the camera access and positioning that’s an issue. But. Giant shrug. The racing was good — at least what I could see — and, thank god, we finally had a WTCS again. (Which, also, btw, a reminder: WTCS > World Cup > Continental Cup.)
The Men’s Race: Morgan!!
The number of times I feel like I’ve yelled “Morgan!” at my TV over the last few years really is higher than it should be.
Morgan Pearson is officially back. Given how the men’s races tend to play out right now, he is solidly a medal contender for Paris. And the first American man to win one of these in 15 years. I actually, for whatever it’s worth, feel somewhat good about the future of the American men — and not just because of Morgan.
The only problem is (something else I was telling my husband before the race): The men’s fields have gotten too tight. There are too many guys who can all swim the exact same speed, and then that makes the bike packs too large. This doesn’t happen every race, but too often. And it turns into just sorta a mess, because this isn’t a bike race, it’s a triathlon — so the incentives and positioning lead to too many guys all trying to be in the same spot at the same time. Something’s going to have to change. Probably hillier courses to break it up.
I was making that case and then: The crash happened. (It sounds like everyone will mostly be OK, but will they be OK soon enough?)
The Women’s Race: Well, who the hell do you pick for the Olympics now
Ahhh, so good to have Flora Duffy back for her first race in 18 months, after a major injury. Sure, she ended up 7th — but she looked like she’d be back in no time. As she said: Project Paris remains alive.
But. Oh man, that run from Leonie Periault. Whew. We haven’t seen someone win by a margin like that since basically, uh, Flora. And if Taylor Knibb gets all the pieces right, she’ll also be on the very short list of medal contenders this summer.
The major fall-out post-race, though, is who will actually be on that Paris start line. So let’s get down to it…
Men:
Morgan Pearson (US)
Matthew Hauser (AUS)
Luke Willian (AUS)
Leo Bergere (FRA)
Charles Paquet (CAN)
Women:
Leonie Periault (FRA)
Taylor Knibb (US)
Emma Lombardi (FRA)
Taylor Spivey (US)
Kirsten Kasper (US)
Next steps in Olympic qualification & who I’d pick for the teams
The only athletes who locked down their spots in Yokohama were Luke Willian (Australia) and Charles Paquet (Canada) — I believe no one else hit their country’s automatic requirements. Which means we’re coming down to WTCS Cagliari on May 25 for the final chance to show what you’ve got. Almost *all* teams will then make discretionary picks — ie. a country’s selection committee will choose the athletes for that country’s team. Some of those decisions are pretty clear, but many are not.
The most stressful of these situations:
French men: Pierre Le Corre & Dorian Coninx qualified last year but have to be top six at Cagliari to confirm their spots. Then, who gets the third spot?
Team GB women: Beth Potter has her spot. Who gets the other two?
U.S. women: Taylor Knibb has the automatic spot. Taylor Spivey’s gotta be a shoe-in for one of the discretionary picks, but the third person on the team…
Here’s who I would pick for the Olympic teams if I was on all the selection committees. I think. Maybe. It’s still hard to decide:
France: For the women, I think it’s pretty clear it should be Leonie Periault & Emma Lombardi who join Cassandre Beaugrand — and that’s going to be a tough team to beat for everybody else. For the men, oof. There’s been some whispers that there’s behind-the-scenes politics happening to try and push out one of the guys who’s already got a spot (which is why both Le Corre — who we haven’t seen yet this year — and a now-injured-post-crash Coninx have to show up in Cagliari). For the last spot: Vince Luis and Leo Bergere were both top 10 this past weekend in Yokohama, and while Leo’s been more on form recently, you never count out Vince. There’s a reason he was the favorite to win the 2020 gold until the Olympics got postponed a year.
Great Britain: For the men, Alex Yee is already in and they probably only have one more spot — and I think there’s a desire to pick Jonny Brownlee (given relay performance and history) over Barclay Izzard or Max Stapley. But that’s probably a tough pick to justify. For the women, Beth Potter has to be the 100% favorite for gold in Paris. The question is: Sophie Coldwell, Kate Waugh, or Georgia Taylor-Brown for the other two starts? As a rule, I never bet against a defending Olympic medalist (ie. GTB) — but she’ll have to perform at Cagliari (ie. basically a podium there), since she was out all of last year. If she doesn’t, then the other two have been too on fire more recently (because I think you have to pick Kate over Sophie right now) to not be selected.
U.S.: For the men, it seems probably fairest if Matt McElroy joins Morgan, but the selection committee might decide to focus on relay medal possibilities instead. For the women, it should be a no-brainer that Taylor Spivey joins Taylor Knibb — even if Spivey was one spot off the automatic qualification this past weekend, she’s been too good too consistently to not pick her. Now, what’s interesting after that: Gwen Jorgensen was 15th in Yokohama (her best WTCS since her return), and Summer Rappaport was 49th. Summer has certainly shown she can podium at WTCS races, but I think given the bounty of riches and desire to focus on the relay they probably won’t pick her. Katie Zaferes would have been the default pick — because you never bet against a defending Olympic medalist, even if she’s still on the return — but Kirsten Kasper’s 5th place this past weekend amazingly solidly put her name right in the mix. Good for her! I’m always gonna root for someone shooting their shot. So now it comes down to: If Kirsten can beat Katie at Cagliari, it’ll be hard for them to not select her.
The best of the rest
Yokohama Para Cup: Lauren Parker won her 15th straight (!) race in the wheelchair division. Francesca Tarantello outsprinted the defending Olympic champ Susana Rodriguez in the VI race (by four seconds!).
Mallorca 70.3: Some interesting power numbers from the men — where Nicholas Mann won by eight seconds over Jan Stratmann (and a lot of high-profile DNFs: Youri Keulen, Gustav Iden). Plus, it was really good to see Emma Pallant-Browne coming back from a tough start to the year to make up a sizable deficit to Laura Philipp from T2 to take the tape.
Coming up this weekend:
XTERRA World Cup - Oak Mountain: The first short track stop on the 2024 World Cup tour — and the first race in the U.S. Which gives athletes the chance to earn double the points in the full on Saturday and then the short track on Sunday. (That’s a lot of points; it could totally change the XTERRA World Cup standings!) The short track is also super nuts: Only the top athletes qualify from Saturday to Sunday and then it’s loops of 2x200m swim, 2x3.5km bike, 2x1.5km run. Sullivan Middaugh of the Middaugh XTERRA dynasty will be trying to defend his N. American title, and Eric Lagerstrom is jumping in.
WATCH: Short-track on Sunday at 10 a.m. ET on the XTERRA live stream or on Youtube
Chattanooga 70.3: The next race on the Ironman Pro Series! Where we actually have 53 women starting (including Emma PB, Sarah True, Jackie Hering) + Dr. Matt and Jackson Laundry heading up the 60-person men’s field.
WATCH: 6:30 a.m. ET on Sunday at Outside Watch or proseries.ironman.com
Challenge Championship: Current 70.3 World Champ Rico Bogen (alongside Peter Heemeryck) and India Lee is returning to defend her title (with Fenella Langridge & Els Visser).
WATCH: 8:15 p.m. ET on Sunday at challenge-family.com/live
Also happening: Ironman Lanzarote, Ironman Brazil, Aix-en-Provence 70.3
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
The PTO & World Triathlon finally announced what many of us had been waiting for: an out-of-competition testing pool! Yes, sure, I understand it might come with a higher price tag because all parties involve kinda round up their bills. Yes, I’m sure there were other ways to do this. But. It’s the most straightforward and logical outcome: All PTO athletes who aren’t already in a registered testing pool will be put in this one and it will be coordinated by the ITA, on behalf of World Tri.
For some background: Start here — and we talked about some of the context on the podcast. (Triathlonish/PTO/If We Were Riding)
Interestingly, it sounds like the PTO will also be expanding their live data on broadcasts. (PTO)
Precision Fuel & Hydration is the official hydration partner for European Ironman-brand events. Which means: Athletes get on-course hydration from Mortal in the U.S. & Precision in Europe; and fueling from somewhere else. The most important thing to know is it’ll be PF1000 on course (because that’s what most lines up re: thousands of athletes’ sweat tests), so you can and should get your sodium from the cups — but do not plan on getting your calories that way. (Triathlete)
Youtube video updates: Lucy Charles-Barclay has celiac’s and Daniela Ryf has a bit of a mysterious injury (and is out of the T100 - San Francisco race). But most importantly: Daniela gave us ‘Cribs: Her Wine Cellar.’ (Youtube)
Sebi Kienle was in a bad crash in his first gravel race — but is OK. (Instagram)
I, literally, do not understand this “privateer” gravel race that claims to be the future: like you have to do the B race on Saturday in order to the do the A race on Sunday, and this is going to somehow solve gravel’s concerns about culture? (Velo)
Did you know XTERRA has a Youth Tour for kids 14-19yo? I just found out about it, but there are three age divisions and races at the Oak Mountain stop this weekend and kids can qualify to the XTERRA Youth World Championships. (XTERRA/Endurance Sportswire)
Will Leonard Korir get to go to the Olympics? Literally, no one knows. Not even USA Track & Field. (Runner’s World)
Marathons are booming in S. Korea, but with booming races comes the usual expansion beyond safety protocols. (The Korea Times)
We’ve lost a lot of races around Northern California — the pandemic’s been tough — so it’s always great to have a new city marathon: The Reno-Tahoe Marathon. (Reno-Tahoe Marathon)
There’s also been a good amount of outrage about the moving six-hour cutoff for the Boston Marathon — and, at first, I thought people were being irrationally upset. But, with more details, it does seem bullshit to not just tell people straightforward what the cut-off time is. Make it work the way Ironman (mostly) works: Yes, people can still cross the finish line if it’s open — I saw a handful of people at both Nice & Kona who crossed and then the time flashed up 17:xx — but then any chip time that’s over the 17-hour limit simply doesn’t count as an official result. That’s really very clear and simple. Don’t tell people, instead, that they’re just supposed to guess what the cut-off time is. (Runner’s World)
Your favorite bike company is struggling. (The Cycling Independent)
New York Road Runners is suing NYCRuns for misleading consumers with their Brooklyn Half. (The Brooklyn Paper)
The 2014 Boston Marathon winner finally got her prize money. (Wall Street Journal)
Cycling’s silent epidemic: The percentage of women getting labioplasty because of saddle pain and swelling is *bonkers*. Also made me feel good about all the times I insisted on the saddle I liked and how I wanted to be comfortable. (Bicycling)
One last thing
Another relatable moment from Taylor Knibb.
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