#135: One last thought...
Just kidding. Many thoughts. Plus, our monthly PTO update.
issue #135: May 14, 2025
If you happen to read this right away, come and join us at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET for the live launch show of the new Feisty Triathlon podcast with Katie Zaferes, Mirinda Carfrae, and Joanne Murphy. If you read it later, then you can still subscribe to the podcast on your podcast feed.
- Kelly
Are the hard races going away?
I mean yes. But weren’t they fun while they lasted.
St. George delivered, I think, in its final iteration. And I did always enjoy that course — even if during the wild storms of 70.3 Worlds, I had to pull barricades off the bike route and athletes took shelter in spectators’ cars. Aren’t those stories part of the point?
Most importantly, my pre-race predictions were right: Lionel Sanders & Paula Findlay almost always deliver here. Also a shoutout to our Feisty intern, Lydia Russell, who had the fastest women’s run of the day.
We’ll save the rest of our predictions on the future of parking lot and bike path races for another newsletter.
A puzzle: How many races has Lionel Sanders won?
You’d think in the age of artificial answers, this would be an easy one for the internet. Yet, Sid & I were puzzled this weekend. The PTO database (which is generally the best source for these kinds of stats) has 38 wins listed. Lionel’s own website says 39 total I think, but it was either updated instantaneously or ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. And I found 36 (pre-St. George) on Coach Cox’s stats site. He’s won a lot, let’s just say.
One last thought about the Kona question
Kidding, I have lots more thoughts, but.
Someone was asking me (genuinely) why some (mostly male) athletes are spending so much energy to stop age-group women from getting an equal number of world champs slots, what is their motivation. And, well, the reality is it’s an attitude that stems from a sense of exclusivity, the idea that their accomplishment (ie. making it to Kona) will be devalued by *that* other person also making it to Kona, that they are obviously so much more awesome than *some of these women.* It’s an elitist attitude you also see a lot in the Boston Marathon, or around where I live an attitude that gets projected at e-bikes. “That person didn’t really earn this summit, not like I did.”
So. As a certified total elitist snob, I am here to tell you: This is tacky, kinda desperate. If you’re really elite, you don’t worry about other people bringing you down. Olympians don’t fret about keeping other Olympians out. It’d be gauche. Just an fyi.
The PTO’s Contenders plan
Now, to take a break from talking about Kona and turn our attention back to the PTO: It’s time for our monthly T100 update. When the PTO announced their new “Contenders ranking” system — which is designed to create a pathway for athletes to work their way onto the T100 tour — there were a few questions that it took me awhile to sort out:
Previously, the PTO paid out $2 million in year-end rankings bonuses to athletes based on world rankings. Those rankings still exist, but there won’t be any bonuses for them now. The new Contenders rankings has $560K in bonuses attached to it for 2025. In essence, this is the new rankings pot of money.
As best I can make out, (most?) athletes have still not been paid for their 2024 year-end rankings bonuses. I’ve asked athletes, managers, agents — none of them had seen money. I asked the PTO and they said that yes the year-end money for 2024 was the same as 2023 (which wasn’t exactly my question). Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 48 hours, it’s my understanding that the year-end rankings money hasn’t been paid yet.
The reason this started to simmer is because about two months ago a few athletes (and their agents) started to make noise about still also missing their last 2024 T100 contract payment. (Namely athletes who had been on contract in 2024 but turned it down for 2025.) I believe, around the time of the Singapore race, those payments got paid out.
Those athletes (not on contract for 2025) were also working themselves up about an aspect of the Contenders Rankings that’s completely public, you can see it in the announcement: If they were on a T100 contract before and they turned down a contract for 2025, they are not eligible for the Contenders Rankings. For them, that means they won’t earn year-end bonus money now and it makes it significantly harder for them to come in for a single T100 wildcard race (and earn that money).
Obviously, the PTO is a private for-profit race organizer that can invite whoever it wants to its races. It’s also completely understandable and was probably necessary that they needed to create a formal way for athletes to earn a wildcard and to work their way onto the T100 Tour — and you can understand why they wouldn’t want athletes who have already opted out of the Tour to be eligible for that.
But you can also understand why athletes who were honest about not being able to fulfill contract obligations now feel frustrated that it seems like some athletes took contracts in bad faith without the intention of fulfilling the requirements. From a spectator standpoint, it also makes it far less likely that we’ll see Kat or Magnus or Laidlow at any individual T100 race, which is sort of a shame. (There is a possibility a previously contracted athlete not in the Contender rankings could get a wildcard, but it’s a little complicated.) Plus, it’s hard not to get the sense that there’s a bit of a ‘which bill to pay’ situation going on, which (also) may not be uncommon but is still never great.
From the races
World Triathlon World Cup Chengdu: Reese Vannerson won his first World Cup, and that’s a really big deal for U.S. development and for Project Podium and for a lot of people who have been keeping an eye on how the U.S. plans to build future Olympic medalists.
St. George 70.3: We should also note that Lionel’s St. George win was a course record, though the courses have changed a lot there in different iterations.
Challenge Salou: Anne Haug DNF’d - so we still haven’t seen her in force in awhile…
Results: St. George 70.3, Challenge Salou, World Cup - Chengdu
Mark your calendar
Lots and lots of big races this weekend (and coming up now — peak race season), so we’re going to just bang through them.
WTCS Yokohama: Finally, the WTCSs are back. And we’ve really got some of the big names — minus Hayden Wilde still recovering from crash and Alex Yee from marathon. (Women’s start list & men’s start list.)
WATCH: On TriathlonLive — women on Friday at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT & men at 11:45 p.m. ET/8:45 p.m. PT
Challenge Championship: Heavy on the European athletes of course
WATCH: On Challenge Family’s site on Sunday 2:30 a.m. ET/Saturday 11:30 p.m. PT
Aix-en Provence 70.3: The next in the IM Pro Series with the Norwegians headlining the start list.
WATCH: Outside Watch in N. America and proseries.ironman.com everywhere else on Sunday 12:30 a.m. ET/Saturday 9:30 p.m. PT
IM Lanzarote: The big news is Lucy CB & Sam Laidlow starting their seasons after some health issues.
Chattanooga 70.3: Normally might be a whatever, but you do have quite a lot of the U.S.-based athletes taking advantage of the few IM pro races they have here.
The -ish
And a few other quick things worth knowing about this week in our sports.
I legitimately didn’t realize the Giro was happening until I was trying to schedule an interview with a sports scientist who works for one of the teams, and he was basically like ‘I can talk in June.’ These things are way too long; I’m now a fan of the 7- and 8-day women’s Grand Tours — that’s a reasonable amount of time to pay attention to a race. So, the main thing I’ve really picked up about the Giro, so far, is that goats attacked the riders mid-stage. (Cycling News/Instagram)
An update on the One Cycling project — which is a whole thing in the pro cycling world. (Escape Collective)
Another event no one realized happened: The World Relays — in which the mixed 4x100m made its debut. (Youtube)
One of the original triathlon podcasts, IM Talk, said goodbye and recorded its last show. (IM Talk)
It sounds like Challenge Roth is going to have more testing at the race of age-groupers. (Challenge Family)
An ex-Royal Marine just did the world’s “longest” triathlon, which took eight months and finished with a climb of Everest. (The Guardian)
Latifah Lowery became the first African-American woman to win an Ironman brand race at the Gulf Coast 70.3 — which, like, sure, there wasn’t a pro field, but she’s still the first to win an overall amateur women’s title, too. (Instagram)
Xtri are the series of self-supported extreme Iron-distance(ish) triathlons that culminate in crazy or epic or beautiful locations. (Think Norseman, etc.) Apparently, no woman had made it to the finish line of the Himalayan one before, but then three women did this past weekend and Nikola Corbova became the first woman to outright win an Xtri. They’re making a whole movie about it. (Xtri/Instagram)
In the middle of massive storms, with 27% of runners DNFing, both the men’s and women’s course records were broken at Cocodona 250 (a 256-mile race across Arizona). (Outside Run)
Sydney McLaughlin is going to run her first 100m pro race and this is the kinda thing I’m here for. (ESPN)
Sara was on Sarah Spain’s podcast talking about the Ironman & Kona situation — at the 45’ mark. (Apple Podcast)
Sarah True and her siblings were featured in a new book about sibling success (which is a good family to pick, btw) and were talked about on the New York Times’ The Daily podcast. (Instagram/Penguin Randomhouse/The Daily)
Kate Courtney — the only mountain biker non-mountain bikers know — was on Rich Roll. (Rich Roll)
New York Road Runners (ie. the New York Marathon) has launched their own production content studio and will premiere their first documentary at the Tribeca Festival. (NYRR)
And, OK, I was skeptical of all the headlines saying record numbers signing up for xx marathon or yy race — yes, there’s a pent-up demand for marquee core life experiences but I also thought it’d kinda die out eventually — but now the record 1.1 million people putting in for the London Marathon lottery for next year makes me want to put in for it, too? That many people can’t be wrong! (The Independent)
What it’s like to run a marathon in Antartica. (National Geographic)
One last thing
You may not be shocked to learn no Mother’s Day posts really spoke to me. But this “Take Your Kid to Work” video from Sam Long did crack me up — and for a second I really thought he dove into the water with his toddler strapped to him.
