#49: Paris v. Singapore

And a few questions for the PTO.

Aug 23, 2023

issue #49: Aug. 23, 2023

We have a lot of news this week, so we’re going to get right down to it and keep our ‘ish’ section short. For paying subscribers, I wrote about my takeaways from the Paris Test Event. I’m also going to remind everyone that if they want all the news on women’s sports and performance, to subscribe to The Feist—which comes out on Tuesdays.

Now, on to everything triathlon-ish…

- Kelly

The Brits are gonna be hard to beat

It turns out a lot of you don’t have TriathlonLive.tv and/or did not watch the Paris Test Event, so let me give a sum-up real fast: the swims were a bit odd because of the strong current and that caused some gaps based on who took which line, almost everyone came together on the bike (in both the women’s race and in a massive ~50-person group in the men’s race), and then they all ran very very fast on cobbles. But Alex Yee and Beth Potter ran faster.

Here’s a visualization from Tri-Stats of how that played out:

Yes, these races (especially the women’s) played out differently than we’ve seen lately. (We’ve typically been seeing smaller groups get away in the women’s race.) Partially, that happened because there were some big names missing who would normally shake it up (Flora Duffy and Georgia Taylor-Brown—both of whom I expect back for next year’s mega races, and Hayden Wilde—who had a slow motion crash riding into transition in the morning and had to pull out). Partially, because it was a qualifying race for so many countries, it changed how people raced—ie. athletes were more likely to race for a top 5 or 8 or whatever place they needed to get their Olympic spot, than to risk it all on a win.

But, regardless, unless the Brits played all their cards a year too soon, or unless the French decide the test of the course was not successful because they didn’t win, Team GB is going to be hard to beat: 1st, 1st, and 2nd in the relay.

My major takeaway from Paris was: This course is designed for iconic-ness, it is designed specifically for the TV money shots, and it is designed 100% to be the marquee event of the Olympics (and it’s no accident that’s an event the French athletes are poised to do well in). It’s not really a course designed for breaks to stick (which is probably good for Cassandre Beaugrand, but isn’t necessarily ideal for the French men), and it’s not really a course designed for spectators to truly watch (the finish/start is on a bridge that you can’t get to or see from behind the barricades).

Beth Potter has to be a favorite at the moment, right? When she moved from being a British track & field Olympian over to triathlon, everyone wondered why—and I think it was Brad Culp who told me: she’s doing it because why be an Olympian, when you could be an Olympic medalist. Well.
Taylor Knibb should no longer be considered “just” a biker. While Beth and Cassandre battled it out shoulder-to-shoulder to the blue carpet, maybe the biggest run of the day was actually from Taylor. She was off the back coming out of T2, and ran her way all the way up and through and into her Olympic spot in 5th. (She also ran Team USA back into the top 10 in the relay on Sunday.) There are some small strategy things that once she addresses she’ll be unstoppable.
Holy hell, Laura Lindemann can sprint.
Alex Yee is one classy dude. Like when people think of the classy kind of British, he’s who they’re thinking of. He waved to the crowd, applauded the fans, and then used his post-race interview to wish Hayden Wilde well on his crash—all while running a 29:00 10K.
But race of the weekend: Goes 100% to Morgan Pearson. Morgan did not even roll onto the start list until 5 p.m. the night before the race. He was, literally, the last person on the start after two others dropped. And then he ran his way into 6th and earned his second Olympic spot. And, once he was in the race, he didn’t just sit back and hope, he ran to the front, attacked, and broke off a small pack to get his spot. I can not imagine how hard that has to be mentally and emotionally to go from resigning yourself to a vacation in Paris to putting it all out there on course.

OK, let’s talk about water quality. After the water bacteria met standards for both days of individual racing, levels were then past the limits and the swim was canceled for para and for mixed relay the following day. (This also happened to para at the Tokyo Test Event.) My understanding is there is some kind of lock system in the Seine that was potentially released farther upriver. Which is hard not to read into when that was managed for two days and then it wasn’t.

My other final takeaway: These athletes are really really good. It’s hard to understand or quantify or really appreciate until you see it up close. IMO, it’s much much harder to win than you think it is.

Hot & hot in Singapore

But! Let’s not have the whole ‘which is harder: Test Event or PTO’ debate. Let’s just talk about the other big race of the weekend.

The PTO Asia Open in Singapore looked hot hot hot, and humid, and hot. In short: Ashleigh Gentle kills it in those conditions—and she killed it. Looked so smooth. Even if Anne Haug hadn’t had a “mechanical” I don’t know if Ash was getting beat. And by mechanical we mean: her spare tube taped under her seat came loose, because triathlon still gonna triathlon. I also loved seeing Chelsea Sodaro back in form—and I think everyone should shut up with giving her shit; people have tough years, it’s part of the deal of being a pro athlete. Lucy Charles-Barclay looked, obviously, undercooked after her broken foot (she got beat out of the swim, ffs!), but toughed it out. Still, even given that, race of the Asia Open goes to Imogen Simmonds in 4th and working her way back up to the top again after some tough times.

I also would just like to be clear (because, ugh, the internet): If we’re following Ironman rules, then yes, you can race in a sports bra. And, yes, most of them pulled their kits down and did so, because it was hot, humid, hot. I don’t know if the PTO is following Ironman rules or not, because *shrug emoji* — but the rule is you can race in a sports bra, the rule is also you can fully pull down (and tuck under/roll up) your race kit if you have something (like a sports bra) underneath. The only point of contention is that zipping it back up at the finish line is recommended.

The men’s race was even more chaos (?): DNS from Sam Laidlow (viral infection), crash from Gustav Iden, many mechanical DNFs. And, of course, Kristian followed up his 9th place in Paris with finally a win at a PTO race. Now, he’s already in Lahti, getting ready for 70.3 Worlds.

Personally, I just hope he sprung for first-class and the full lay-down bed.

Yes, right, the PTO-World Tri thing

Last week, the much-rumored super big announcement also came: The PTO & World Triathlon announced a partnership that will result in a 6- to 10-race series next year over the 100K distance. It’ll run parallel to the existing World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS), in locations TBA. It’ll have an official world champion awarded at the end of the series, via a points competition. It’ll have prize money, with 20 pro men & 20 pro women at each race. It’ll also have an age-group series that runs concurrent with each event, and age-groupers will be able to represent their country in the world championship, in much the same way they qualify for any World Triathlon world championship. It’ll be funded entirely by the PTO, so the World Tri part is mostly in for the rubber-stamping and some marketing/anti-doping/officiating support.

Those are the basics and they’re pretty huge. I still have quite some questions that mostly revolve around the logistics and finances, but Tim Heming was able to answer a lot of them in this story—and the ones he didn’t, I sorta assume they wouldn’t answer.

Here are a few of the questions that remain:

How will the 16 athletes (+ 4 wildcards) qualify and commit to the races? (I was under the impression it was a contract, but it sounds like it’ll be more via rankings and will not be a closed system—but if the rankings are determined via heavier-weighted PTO races, then: How will that not simply become circular? When will the cut-off dates be? How will they be able to build a narrative without confirmed athletes upfront at the start of the season?)
One of the challenges for the PTO right now is last-minute DNFs and not having all the big athletes at all the big races. One of the reasons that happens is because the PTO doesn’t cover travel or expenses (but does ask a lot of the athletes, and pays a lot, sure), so if an athletes thinks they don’t have a chance of top 5, they often pull out. Will the PTO now cover expenses and travel, will they pay appearance fees, what will be covered? How will they fix this issue?
I know the idea is that we’ll be able to track the same athletes all season and create a storyline, but will spectators buy into that? Will it become too repetitive? (No opinion, just a question we won’t be able to answer until we see the answer.)
If the world championship is awarded via points for the series and has prize money at its culmination, how will that be different from and fit in with the current PTO rankings system and year-end bonus money? I don’t see any way those continue to both exist, right? (The year-end bonus money sorta doesn’t make business sense, does it?, because they’re paying out for athletes not doing their races.)
What does the World Tri designation really mean? If World Tri is keeping its Long Distance World Championship, and if Ironman has won (via court) the right to be the official long-course world championship, then this is another world championship at another distance?
Yes, I also would like to do a 100K age-group race, sounds like fun, but the PTO has already had a couple of those—and they weren’t super popular. So, will this attract age-groupers now? It seems like it should, people seem excited.

Obviously, the big fundamental, underlying question is how do the economics here work out. The reality is cities don’t want to host races anymore—the finances don’t really make sense and the triathlon business model is fundamentally changing in front of our eyes—and so clearly World Tri is hoping the PTO will help with that. I hope it works out. It could work out; it seems like it’s generated a lot of excitement. But, listening to a lot of the athletes, it’s going to be all in the details and in how the PTO ultimately makes money. Plus, I hope the TBA’d cities are cool.

Rest of the results

Ironman Mont-Tremblant: Big kudos to Rachel Zilinskas, who won her first pro race ever in her first race back this year—after getting injured right before what was going to be her first pro Kona last year. Guess she’ll finally get her chance at this big island this October! (And, always happy to see Meredith Kessler in second there.)
Ironman Sweden: The other final qualifier for Kona, taken by Lisa Norden.
Ireland 70.3: OK, it was won by Kyle Smith in a shortened swim, but we have to talk about the big issue: two age-group athletes died in the swim and a lot of questions are being raised about the safety of the swim. As far as I understand it: There were some concerns about safety and storms and debris, the race was postponed and the swim was shortened. Triathlon Ireland is claiming they didn’t sanction the event—but it’s unclear what that even means. (ie. USAT doesn’t pull sanctioning the morning of a race, typically??) And now, Ironman is saying they didn’t hear from TI until after the swim was already underway, and athletes are noting that if it wasn’t sanctioned because of safety, then why did officials stay on site and continue with the race? It’s all a bit of a mess.

As always: All the rest of the detailed results are on our Results page.

Coming up!

SLT London: Up this weekend, with a number of the big short-course stars.
- WATCH: On Super League, starting at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET on Sunday
And…

The first World Championship of silly season

It’s the 70.3 Worlds in Lahti this weekend—with some of the athletes from Paris, some from Singapore, some (OK, really just Kristian Blummenfelt) doing all three.

Our picks: I don’t see how Taylor Knibb doesn’t win? But, the women’s race is stacked. Daniela Ryf back at 70.3 Worlds, and you don’t ever count out Daniela. A whole bunch of mid-distance specialists: Holly Lawrence, Paula Findlay, Ellie Salthouse, Emma Pallant-Browne, Tamara Jewett, Imogen Simmonds. And then some people who are stacking this with Kona: Kat Matthews.

On the men’s side: We’re really all just watching to see 1. What the hell happens to Krisitian in race #3 of 3? and 2. Root for Gustav Iden to finally get some kind of win for the year. And, of course, you can’t count out Ben Kanute, Jason West, Sam Long, Pierre Le Corre.

And, I love this fun letter of “advice” from Leanda Cave to Taylor Knibb. The amount of people who want to give Taylor advice lately is…high.

WATCH: Live on Outside Watch (replays only for members) - women at 9 p.m. PT Friday/midnight ET, men the next day

The -ish

Our list of things to know around our sports is super short this week, because we had so much other big news to cover.

The final Kona women’s qualifying list is out—and, yes, Taylor Knibb is on it right now (via her auto-qualifying from winning 70.3 Worlds last year); no, we don’t know what her final decision is going to be. (Triathlete)
The Track & Field World Championship is currently happening, and it’s been all kinds of drama: a fall in the final steps of the 4x400 mixed relay, another fall (!) in the women’s 10,000m, Noah Lyles & Sha’Carri Richardson in the 100m. So much drama. Citius has daily recaps and interviews. (NBC/Instagram/Citius/Youtube)
Even though Nikki Hiltz didn’t make the final, they still feel like they’re winning. (New York Times)
How did the world championships end up in Budapest anyway? (Associated Press)
SBT Gravel was the final big bike race on dirt over a series of big ones in a row, and Lachlan Morton (and a couple others) did the whole damn thing: Leadville 100 mtb last week, Breck Epic stage race all week, SBT Gravel this weekend. A lot.
Sunderland is now claiming norovirus was the cause of all the athletes getting sick after that race, and suggesting that they probably gave it to each other. (BBC)
Ironman Canada, in Penticton, is canceled this upcoming weekend, because of the ongoing wildfires in the region. (Here, in the Bay Area, we had wildfire smoke *and* the edge of a hurricane on Monday. So, fun end times.) (Penticton Western News)
Kyle Brown, who shared his story with ALS with the Ironman community, passed away. (Youtube/Instagram)
A new study highlighted the diversity and equity challenges in trail and ultra running. (TrailRunner)
UTMB is this weekend! (TrailRunner)
One Water—the craziest race you’ve never heard of—is underway. (Triathlonish/OneWater)
I keep wanting to do one of these Take the Bridge races, but you have to be cool enough to know where and when they are, and to date I have not been cool enough. (Outside)

One last thing

Not to be super depressing or anything, but.