#143: Roth, crowds, qualification, and a thought
What would we do with the Race Ranger data being public anyway?
issue #143: July 9, 2025
Three years ago, I raced Challenge Roth. I had decided to do it as part of coverage for Triathlete and then by the time the race rolled around I was pretty sure I was going to quit my job. But I thought, I dunno, doing an iron-distance race would help me decide?? And when I got to Solarer Berg and the crowds were screaming about how amazing I was, I started to cry. “I *am* amazing.” I took three more solo vacation days in Munich (which was an odd choice), but I think the quitting decision was probably done at that point.
It’s a weird summer right now. Things are bad here, in the U.S., in California, in Texas. Really bad. They’re going to get worse. Just factually. If they aren’t bad for you yet, personally, on an individual level, they will be. Sorry. And there’s only so many times you can look for the helpers and see the positives. So, I’m glad people had fun in Roth and at races and life goes on. But it’s a weird summer and not in a good way.
- Kelly
A record-less Roth
For the first time in a few years, there were no world records set in Roth. But aren’t you really there for the vibes anyway.
For the first time ever, Roth was non-wetsuit. (Crazy, because the water is plenty warm already during all the other years when they manage to drag the thermometer around to find a cold spot.) That has to have had an effect on times. I would argue Race Ranger data also had an effect; the whole spectacle thing about releasing the pro data had to have athletes hesitate just a little bit before pushing the edges of the draft zone. Even if just subconsciously. Mostly, though, probably the fields were slightly down from the last few years, and that had an effect on the final times.
Not that it matters much. Laura Philipp and Sam Laidlow still won. Grace Thek took second in her first iron-distance. Vincent Luis took fourth in his debut. Matt Hanson ran a 2:28:03. Good for them.
Sid still had a massive sendoff. People cried.
And we still didn’t get that pro athlete Race Ranger data released, despite the staged — it was staged, right? — announcement during the pro meeting. Turns out they maybe hadn’t thought through the obvious answers to the question ‘why wouldn’t you release the data.’ For example: What do you do about the inevitable internet pile-on to the worst offenders, without context? Do you retract names, some or all? Did every pro agree, are there privacy issues, was it in their contract? Maybe Roth will release it eventually, maybe not, I’m not actually super worked up about it either way, I just think it’s funny.
Two more questions people on the internets had:
Why did the winners at Challenge Roth have a higher PTO score in the rankings than those from Ironman Frankfurt? Because Roth is a “platinum” race in the PTO scoring system, and Frankfurt was only a “gold” race — per an agreement reached with the PTO about the points system.
Why was the Ironman CEO at Roth? Because these guys go to lots of these events. That’s part of the job. I saw Michael d’Hulst (the Supertri head) at the Olympic test event; I see Sam Renouf (the PTO head) at almost everything. The UTMB owner was at Western States last week. In the VIP room at Nice I picked up a left-behind nametag from a sheikh from one of the major Middle East funds. That’s how this work. And to Scott DeRue’s credit, he’s also been on a ‘getting to understand triathlon’ tour for the last year. Now why did you hear about this one? Because they wanted you to. For the Slowtwitchers, who think they figured out some massive conspiracy because investor Jesse Du Bey was also there, I’d like to point out: The only reason you know this is because of a photo Scott posted to HIS OWN INSTAGRAM. Like, I don’t think he’s the most forward-thinking businessman in the world, but he’s not an idiot. If he didn’t want you to know he was in Roth, he wouldn’t have posted it to social media. He wants you to know he was there. Duh.
This week’s thought about Kona (qualification)
And now that triathletes have gotten out their calculators and started being triathletes about the new Ironman world champs qualification system, a few people have messaged me shocked (SHOCKED!) to realize that a few more women than men would have qualified at IM Texas last year under this system and IM Wisconsin would have ~43% women’s spots.
Can you believe it?!
Yes, I can. We told you that would happen. Bianca’s analysis showed that would happen. So did others’ analysis. That was part of the whole point about how participation-based qualification sucked balls for American women.
And, also, no, this is not shocking. Or wild. This is a direct result of Title IX and a larger cohort of competitive women in N. America. It’s not that they’re automatically the best on an individual case-by-case basis — that’d probably be German or British women — but there’s a lot of them and they’re competitive enough, so they will fill out a performance-based algorithm. That also combines with a larger quantity of OK guys in the U.S. who sign up for triathlon in bigger numbers, in line with the attitude of mass marathon completion here. There’s a reason N. American women were so pissed about “proportionality.” They were being doubly penalized.
We told you that.
Here’s the thing: I know mostly everyone was very excited about how much better this system is, and it is better to award world championship spots by performance than by participation. And it will result in about ~7% more women in Kona and a few dozen more older athletes, and a few fewer 40-something men. But. It’s not going result in that many differences in the end (others agree) because if you accept the premise of how it’s constructed then they mostly got it right before and they’ll mostly get it right now.
The thing is the system is still fundamentally based on two sets of assumptions: 1. that an amateur semi-pro world championship for prime-of-life ages isn’t a little bit absurd, and 2. that the women don’t inherently deserve their own world championship race and stage and pool of slots because they are their own race.
And, I simply, on a basic level, don’t accept those assumptions. *shrug emoji*
I get the sense I’m supposed to be on board by now (like, why am I still talking about women, that’s so three years ago), or that some people believe if it’s just explained at me more then I’ll understand why they’re right. But if, on a basic level, we don’t hold the same set of values, then what is there to say? There’s no amount of times you can call inequality “equal opportunity” where I’ll stop thinking it’s bullshit. It’s not like 23 is the magic number where I’ll suddenly change my value structure and system of beliefs.
Sara also says she asked ChatGPT if there are any other sports where they use an age-graded or algorithm system to qualify to a world championship, and ChatGPT told her that’s not how sports work and qualification has to be head-to-head, and that the only exception was Ironman. And I took her word for it, because I also don’t believe in using AI.
From the races
Jonkoping (pronounced Yen-che-ping, for real) 70.3: The controversy of the week. Lena Meissner and Caroline Pohle sprinted for the finish at the European 70.3 Champs — and, IMO, they just sorta ran into each other and stumbled as they came up the ramp to the line. Lena was originally declared the winner, but after a protest was filed she was relegated to second for “blocking.” And I didn’t know blocking was a penalty one could get on the run in Ironman. I also think, through no fault of Caro’s, that most people are kinda like: Eh, it was messy on both sides.
Which has now raised the question: Has there ever been a tie in an Ironman brand race? Not that I’m aware of…
Lots of people have also been complaining about how all these officiating issues lately are what’s stopping us from being a ‘real’ sport. To which I say: Are you kidding? Have you watched ‘real’ sports lately? Half of the point is to argue about refs’ calls.
Results: Challenge Roth, Sweden 70.3, World Triathlon - Tizzy World Cup
Mark your calendars
WTCS Hamburg & the Mixed Relay World Championships: We’re back on the WTCS circuit with a banger. Cassandre Beaugrand, Beth Potter, Gwen back where she won 10 years ago, Dorian Coninx. Start lists here.
WATCH: On Triathlonlive.tv — men’s race on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. ET/7:30 a.m. PT and the women follow at 12:40 p.m. ET/9:40 a.m. PT. And the relay world champs are on Sunday at 7:50 a.m. ET/4:50 a.m. PT
Swansea 70.3: The next in the IM Pro Series. Kat is probably going to take the series lead after this, right? Start lists here.
WATCH: On Outside Watch in N. American and on Ironman Youtube, DAZN, proseries.ironman.com globally — Sunday at 1:15 a.m. ET/Saturday 10:15 p.m. PT
IM Vitoria: Women’s pro only; shaped up to be an interesting start list with Anne Haug finally back, Julie Derron making her full-distance debut, and Marjolaine Pierre looking for a Kona spot
The start list for IM Lake Placid was also released (yeah Sarah True quietly sneaking on there), and if you look at the pro schedule and who still needs to validate (Sam Laidlow, Chelsea Sodaro) then the last options are going to be Kalmar for Chelsea and either Sam’s already on the Leeds start list in two weeks or he’ll have to do Copenhagen in August…
The -ish
Some of the things worth knowing about this week in our sports — or that I just think are interesting.
Buried in the spectacle about the Race Ranger data eventually being released was an announcement that Race Ranger is also trialing an app for officials, which can be used to notify other officials and commentators when a penalty has been given. Ultimately, the goal is for live data to be shared on the app, too. (World Triathlon)
Forgot to mention last week that the PTO’s T100 Vegas was canceled. Sorry, “postponed” to not this year. (Endurance Sportswire)
The Saudi Public Investment Fund’s sports arm is also rumored to be looking to invest $20 million in the PTO. The PTO last raised $10 million in March. So, just a reminder, as best I can keep track: If the Saudi money comes through, that’ll be ~$90-100 million that people have given them since 2020. Which is a lot of money. (Sportcal)
Grand Slam Track reportedly owes athletes $13 million in payments. Which is also a lot, but made me laugh because, well, they said they wanted to model their league off the PTO. (Front Office Sports)
Supertri will be available on HBO Max. And they’ve been putting out these announcements about the Supertri teams for this year’s season, which have mostly been boring announcements, but this one about the Podium Racing team included some weird dishy quotes about Tim Don changing teams. (Supertri)
USATF is suing a former board chair and also struggling financially. (The Sports Examiner)
I just learned there’s an XTERRA Trail Running World Champs. (XTERRA)
It’s Tour de France Hommes time and the only cycling coverage I absolutely love is: The secret pro. I also love Ashley Gruber’s photos from the ground, and if you want to go deep on coverage I stick with Escape Collective’s because they do fun things like ‘the fake news of the day.’ (Escape Collective/Instagram)
Marianne Vos untied and changed her shoes while in the middle of a Giro stage. (Instagram)
Maya Kingma is riding in the Women’s Giro with the EF Education team — which is interesting. (Instagram)
Katie Zaferes had her kid. (Instagram)
Steph Clutterbuck was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. (Instagram)
Chelsea Sodaro is hosting a charity weekend of riding and wine and learning from high-performance guests as a fundraiser for For All Mothers (which used to be &Mother), which is cool and it’ll be a nice event & location. (Chelsea Sodaro/For All Mothers)
Brad swears he’s starting a weekly newsletter, so that we’ll have one more person making mean jokes about triathlon. (Zone 2sletter)
If you missed the world records at the Pre Classic, Beatrice Chebet became the first woman to go sub-14 in the 5,000m on the track and Faith Kipyegon ran a 3:48 1500m (confirming that crowds and competition are more performance enhancing than Nike science labs). And the men’s 1500m was, well, exciting. (CitiusMag/Youtube/Twitter)
Did you know there’s a “geek’s only” page of the Western States website with a lot of numbers and data. (WSER)
Paris opened up the Seine to public swimming and then closed it a day later. (The Gaurdian/The Hill)
And your hilarious headline of the week: “Boyfriend continues competing in Hyrox event as paramedics treat his passed out girlfriend.” (New York Post)
One last thing
If you want to add to your list of things to be terrified of: Slipping at the top of a cliff as you start to dive off.
