#82: Races, news, juicy tidbits
#82: Races, news, juicy tidbits
You hear it here first.
issue #82: April 10, 2024
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All-sporters, I started running this 50K on Saturday before the gun went off for Oceanside 70.3 and I was still running when it finished — so I caught the replay later.
I’m officially under three weeks out to my big 100K race (and have finalized all my nutrition and gear details with the Precision crew), and am also very ready to be done running and to get back to regular triathlon training, but first: I’m headed to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Media Summit this weekend for a few days. If you have any questions for athletes, let me know.
Right now, I’m also fully covered in poison oak, so I have nothing else interesting to say. Onto: your regular news, races, a voiceover of this post for paying subscribers, and the monthly(ish) roundup of gear and training news that went out this past weekend.
- Kelly
Oceanside: An exercise in making people care about what you tell them to care about
It’s a simple fact of media and math that if you promote a thing and cover a thing and put money behind a thing and hype a thing, then people will care about that thing. (I wrote about this a little bit in regards to basketball this past weekend.) And, I think Ironman has finally learned this lesson: They have a huge stable of pros/influencers and a deep portfolio of long-standing events. It’s an opportunity. Giving those athletes photos — every pro at Oceanside had the chance to get headshots taken and were given race photos for social — and promoting those athletes and hyping their races creates buzz. Buzz creates interest. Interest creates a market. That market then signs up for your product. It’s mathing.
The race
Taylor Knibb is just so damn good at 70.3s, right? I know she’s all in on the Olympics now, but when she eventually decides to fully focus on the mid-distance she’s going to be the Caitlin Clark of triathlon and it’s going to push everyone to rise to that level too.
Taylor won by almost 11 minutes in Oceanside. She didn’t quite get the bike course record — but all reports are it was exceptionally windy and slow conditions. She probably won’t do another 70.3 until the World Championship (because she’s all about Paris now and then T100s). Emma Pallant-Browne came back from that heat-induced hospital visit at T100 Miami and a bike crash last week (and a temporary DQ - more in a sec) to run into second. And even though both her and Paula Findlay, in third, looked like they were going to cry at the finish, I think they both had solid races.
I’m also all for Lionel Sanders taking the men’s race. Like, good for Lionel. It looked like (*whisper*) his swim has improved and he made the possibly mature decision to forgo a T100 contract to focus on Kona this year. (EDIT/UPDATE: Lionel is apparently not committed to the full five races to score for the Pro Series.) He’s also completely changed his incredibly identifiable run form — which is very confusing if you’re watching. And, in fact, we’re starting to get legend/myth-making/storyline status with the rivalry between Sanders, Sam Long (in 2nd) and Jackson Laundry (in 3rd). And those kinds of things are always good. (See above, re: making people care)
The DQs
OK, so every year someone gets DQ’d here. There’s a steep short downhill section on the military base, where an athlete crashed and died back in 2001 and since then the base has required a speed limit on that section as part of the permit. It’s an automatic DQ — ie. you cross a timing mat at the top and one at the bottom, and if you clock it in less time than is possible under the speed limit, then you’re automatically DQ’d in the computer. There’s never been any wiggle room.
So I was surprised that Emma Pallant-Browne and Braden Currie were both able to get their DQs overturned. Evidently, Emma filed an appeal, downloaded her computer file, and was able to show her computer said she never went over 35mph. (The speed limit is 35mph for the pros, 25mph for the AGers.) And, they gave it to her. I actually think that’s really cool of the refs, to be understanding, but I can *not* imagine that policy applies to non-pros.
The IM Pro Series points
Speaking of pros. This was the first of the IM Pro Series races and it literally took me until Sunday afternoon, when a friend was texting me about the problems with the points system, to understand the slogan: Every second counts.
In the points system, a 70.3 win is worth 2,500 points and a full is worth 5,000 points. Every second you’re behind the winner loses you one point (until the points hit zero). See: every second counts. Get it? Uh huh.
What’s the problem with that? As Tim points out: Taylor Knibb is the problem with that. Because she was so dominant, all the women behind her earned significantly fewer points. 14th place earned zero points. You know what 14th place earned on the men’s side? 1,700 points.
Sure, the women could all just be faster, but they also don’t have control over how other athletes do. So why does the same performance from you earn wildly different points at different races depending on who wins? In some ways, it’s part of Ironman’s whole ethos of this series to act as if all athletes are equal and all races are equal — but we all know that’s not entirely true, right.
ONE QUICK UPDATE: Last week, I wrote extensively about the effects of the Pro Series being highly impacted and Ironman needing to close registration deadlines abruptly ahead of schedule. We went deep with some updates on the podcast — but, in short:
1. Ironman has now instituted a system by which pros can see which races are about to be full and which will close ahead of the original deadline (so you better be checking that schedule because Chattanooga closed (!) last week).
2. To date, only IM Texas has had a few big name athletes (like Alistair Brownlee) who went to register before the original deadline but were told ‘too bad, it’s full.’ Ironman says that means Texas is an anomaly; I say it’s too early to call it that because we haven’t seen what’ll happen with the races that have now closed early (St. George, Mallorca, Chattanooga).
3. This does appear to be a uniquely American/U.S. issue. It does appear that for whatever reason (I have a couple theories, we can discuss in future issues) U.S. men are now taking their elite licenses at absurdly higher rates than they were before.
4. I also do think (and this is semi-an-educated-guess) that Ironman may ultimately develop a ranking and entry system like what I suggested last week.
How to watch, results, everything you want to know
I got kinda tired of having to keep explaining the T100 and the Ironman Pro Series — and I am aware that a lot of outlets are SEOing the shit out of ‘How to Watch the Ironman Pro Series.’ So I’ve updated a few things for your convenience. Bookmark:
Results & How to Watch: This now has the most recent results + your quick bullet-point explanation of the big races series + how to watch all the key races. Every week, this will also have listed the races coming up this weekend (times, start lists, links to watch).
Your Big Calendar of Triathlon Races: For our paying subscribers, this is a curated list of the biggest races to know about this year so you can keep track — and it has links to how to watch.
What’s coming up this weekend?
The E Tri World Champs on April 13 — with Beth Potter, Cassandre Beaugrand, Katie Zaferes, and Jonny Brownlee.
And of course, T100 Singapore.
Presented by Precision Fuel & Hydration. Get 15% off your first order here.
Next up: The next T100 (maybe?) in Singapore
I went on Ironwomen to do a detailed T100 preview (episode comes out tomorrow). My short summary: It’s going to be all about the heat and who manages the heat.
Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures: Let’s talk for a second about WBGT. It is the official metric that combines both heat index and humidity to give you an overall measure of how bad it actually is out, and how unsafe for people. Governing bodies — including World Triathlon — use WBGT as an indicator of whether or not course modifications are necessary for safety. See: World Tri’s rules here.
This matters because the T100 races are officially World Triathlon races. And World Tri has WBGT rules. And all of Southeast Asia is currently undergoing a massive wild heat wave that has closed thousands of schools and has scientists worried that, like, the ocean is so hot it’s going to kill coral. So, it’s bad.
Will T100 Singapore be canceled? It seems highly unlikely to me (at least for the pros, I dunno for AGers). But it certainly is possible they’ll have to modify it in some way. And it’s definitely likely that it’s going to be an absolute death attrition race.
In that kinda race, I feel like you gotta bet on Ashleigh Gentle — I mean this is her bread and butter. My podium picks are: Ashleigh, Chelsea Sodaro, Imogen Simmonds (because she’s been training in Thailand), and then Lucy Charles-Barclay and India Lee. On the men’s side it’s a harder choice for me: Magnus Ditlev has some weaknesses in the later afternoon heat, but he looked good at Miami and won there and is probably the favorite. And then I’m going with Ben Kanute, Daniel Baekkegard, and Jason West.
Start lists here.
WATCH:
Women @ 11 p.m. PT on Friday/2 a.m ET on Saturday
Men @ midnight Saturday PT/3 a.m. ET on Sunday
Watch on: T100 Youtube, PTO+, Eurosport (on Max in the US), Outside Watch
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
It’s also Collegiate Club Nationals weekend! I know, I know, I know, NCAA is coming. BUT. Club Nationals is still the big one. These days there’s a draft-legal, a mixed relay, and the big non-drafting Olympic race over the two days. I’m, of course, 1000% rooting for Cal (since we only managed to finally win the overall after I graduated)—but full preview and predictions here. (Wave1)
Another thing with a lot of opinions and a lot of misinformation: Getting the Seine clean and ready for the Paris Olympics. I’m going to go ahead and call it: There is a ZERO percent chance the swim doesn’t happen at the Olympics, but it sure does add something to talk about. (Wall Street Journal/Triathlete)
Paris-Roubaix: Lotte Kopecky won in an excellent-ly timed sprint. A spectator tried to get Mathieu van der Poel to crash and will face charges. You can see all the pics and the tech. And the goats. (Instagram/Bicycling/Escape Collective/Cycling Weekly)
Fortunately, there were no bad crashes at Paris-Roubaix — but there was an absolutely horrific crash at the Tour of the Basque Country. (Velo)
Luisa Baptista is in recovery from being hit by a motorcycle (that fled the scene) at the end of December. (Instagram)
This guy became the first person to run the length of Africa, in 352 days. (The Guardian)
Three years ago, a triathlon teammate of mine was killed by her ex-boyfriend. Her best friend was then determined to finish a goal of their’s: to bike a 500-mile ultra. This week, they released a documentary about the effort. It’s lovely. (San Diego Union-Tribune/Youtube)
Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel will be doing the 50K at Canyons as her ultra debut. (Freetrail)
Probably niche (and that says a lot for this newsletter) but: This brand new Chicago River swim looks cool. (Chicago River Swim)
The MTA wanted the New York Marathon to pay $750,000/year in place of missing bridge tolls. But the Governor says no. (New York Times/AP)
I found this behind-the-scenes of how and why the Dartmouth men’s basketball ended up voting to unionize fascinating. And, while I do believe that this needs to happen and college football needs to become professionalized, I’m not sure about this Super League group that’s going to decide all things college football. ICYMI: We did talk to an expert about what’s happening, in an overview sense, with the NCAA and NIL. (Wall Street Journal/The Athletic/Triathlonish)
PinkBike did a state of the sport survey on mountain biking and cycling. (PinkBike)
If you are able to, you should participate in this first-of-its-kind global study on triathlete training load. They’re looking for more athletes who can share their TrainingPeaks data in order to analyze training patterns and load management. (Deakin University)
One last thing
I swear Kristian’s content is getting wilder. But at least he’s having fun with it.
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