#123: What do you want to see this year?

Something good...

issue #123: Jan. 22, 2025

All-sporters, it’s a slow time of the season isn’t it. Which is always true in January & February, but it seems extra true this year because the last couple of years have been filled with big wild announcements in the Jan/Feb time period.

It’s all starting to make things feel dull right now, isn’t it. With *just* training and sponsorship announcements to focus on.

Probably good for me overall, though, and it keeps today’s newsletter short and sweet(ish).

- Kelly

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And the next new NCAA sport is….

Not triathlon.

When it comes to the NCAA, not that many of you care but some of you care a LOT, and then when the rest of you do care you come in hot and hard, so I’ll try to keep this short: Last week, the NCAA approved women’s wrestling as the newest championship sport.

Wrestling only started down this pipeline in 2020 when it became an ‘emerging sport’, and now it’s jumped right over the other sports that have been working to get approval for longer (triathlon, stunt, etc). This is largely because wrestling was able to add 76 schools by last academic year (and had 17 more lined up for this school year), which is a lot. Why were they able to move so fast comparatively? Probably because the facilities already existed (men’s teams + not too much is needed), there already was a youth and high school pipeline (that’s massively growing), it’s a lot easier to get up and running.

Now the question is: Could triathlon still become a full NCAA sport?

Sure. Tri has to wait for another year now to get the recommendation and vote — but the bigger issue is that ‘emerging sports’ have ten years to hit the 40 schools mark (and show growth, range of location & athletes, sustainability); triathlon started down this road in 2014 and hit 40 schools like two years ago, but since then has kind of hovered up and down around the 40-school line.

The point being: It’s not doing terrible, there are varsity programs at plenty of schools, the depth and quality of the fields has grown and progressed, adjustments have been made and it’s definitely improving. But. It’s hard not to get the sense it’s not progressing fast enough and it just isn’t going to get there.

Some other things:

• My old primer on how college club & NCAA tri works

• A brief history of college triathlon

Photo: Shawn Forer/USAT

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How much did Lucy get paid? Speculate wildly!

Well, well, well. After revealing almost all the contracted athletes, the PTO then dragged out the announcement of the final two T100 racers: Jelle Geens and Lucy Charles-Barclay. And I think all of us immediately thought: Well, well, well, they got Lucy afterall, how did they do that.

Look, I have no inside info about how much T100 contracts were this year, but many athletes have said the guaranteed contracts payouts were smaller this year (with more money in race incentives instead) & it’s generally understood the PTO has an additional pool for athlete promos/appearances/PR/marketing. So. So. Let’s assume since she’s the most famous triathlete in the world, Lucy got paid more.

Honestly, I’m still a little surprised she took the contract. I thought she wanted to win Kona again, and I thought she might have taken away some lessons from this year about flying too close to the sun and getting injured. I don’t know what her inner motivations are for racing T100, maybe it just sounds like fun, and now here we are.

Regardless, this does have the cumulative effect of making the T100 women’s field a significantly bigger PR draw. Not that Jelle v. Marten v. Vince v. Hayden isn’t going to be incredibly exciting racing. It will be; it’ll be tight and fast and basically longer short-course dynamics. But ask my husband if he knows who any of those athletes are. He does not. He knows who Lucy is, and Taylor is, and Flora Duffy.

So if the goal is to go global and mainstream, then Lucy was probably a necessary pick-up. However much she cost.

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What do you want to see more of in 2025…

Triathlete ran a fun little story about what we want to see more and less of this upcoming season.

And it made me think: What would I like to see. So here’s a random list:

• Definitely some more innovation in tri races. It feels like running is leaving us behind these days, purely based on vibes. Let’s try some wacky things and weird things and fun things.

• I also feel like the forward-looking energy is missing. Less backwards retro regressive vibes, please.

• On that note, I’d like to see local races again, though. (Especially around here.) Just new and on-brand.

• Especially short-course in the U.S. Bring back short-course!

• At the pro level, I’d kinda like the calendar chaos to shake itself out, too. Everyone (except Kat) over-raced this year — can we just admit that now — and the schedules were too packed. Some of these series are not going to survive, can we just jump ahead to knowing which ones already.

What do you want to see in 2025?

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Mark your calendars

• Tauranga Half: Hannah Berry and Jack Moody topped a nearly all-New Zealander field (Fenella was the only non-New Zealander to race) this past weekend.

• WTCS Abu Dhabi: Start lists are out for the first WTCS of the year (women’s & men’s) on Feb. 15-16. And while there are some big names (and a couple of athletes trying to get a WTCS out of the way before T100 starts), there’s also very much a question of just how many short-course athletes are gonna focus on short-course this year? I think the answer might be: not many. A lot of the big names are all trying different things this season (cycling races, XTERRA, mid-distance or long-course, or something outside of sport entirely). This might end up being a bit of an off-year.

• Supertri E World Champs: Officially set for April 5 in London.

• And, if you missed it before, the IM Pro Series broadcast schedule.

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The -ish

Stuff from around our sports worth knowing about this week.

• Race Ranger will be testing out their draft-detection technology on age-groupers at Challenge Wanaka. I asked them how many athletes that was (because there are only so many Race Ranger units in existence + the degree of technological challenges will change depending on the number of athletes/loops/density) and it’s apparently ~300 age-groupers in NZ. Which is a good start to work out some kinks and experiment with a potentially tiered model for amateurs. (Challenge)

• Morgan Pearson ran a 1:01:01 half-marathon in Houston this weekend — which is quite fast for a triathlete, but it sounds like (with his new Hoka deal) Morgan wants to be a triathlete *and* a runner. (Instagram)

• There were some American records in Houston, too: Weini Kelati broke her own record in 1:06:09 and Conner Mantz broke Ryan Hall’s AR with a 59:17. Erika Kemp also ran 11 minutes faster in the marathon than she ever had before to kinda break through and make the fastest marathon by an American-born Black woman quite a lot faster (2:22:56). (Runner’s World/Fast Women)

• Did you know Ironman CEO Scott DeRue is preparing to finish his 7th of the 7 summits (according to his IG stories) because the least-climbed, Carstensz Pyramid, has reopened. (Climbing the Seven Summits)

• Rico Bogen got married over the holidays, too. And Sophie Coldwell is having a baby. Just to catch you up on the off-season goss’ you might have missed. (Instagram)

• Brit Tri has implemented a pregnancy deferral policy for its age-group teams (ie. if you qualify to represent the UK at worlds, you can then defer if you get pregnant). Which it says is a first for a national governing body. (Brit Tri)

• Vince Luis wants to win Kona in the next three years. Holly Lawrence is aiming for Kona this year. And Jonny Brownlee might try IM Leeds, too. (Tri247/Instagram)

• Rudy Von Berg is another one of the long-course guys focused on Ironman. Which is quite a lot of them. Like maybe all? (Instagram)

• The UCI is testing out a bunch of new safety regulations and rules — which have had mixed reactions and which includes a kind of yellow card system (?). (Escape Collective/Cycling Up To Date)

• A Swiss doctor and triathlete was fined and suspended for 14 years for doping. He was found to have taken EPO, testosterone, and growth hormones himself (as an athlete) and likely to have administered to an elite athlete as well — but no names were named. So triathletes are not thrilled. (Swiss Sport Integrity/Slowtwitch)

• We mentioned it before, but: Olympic medals are deteriorating and Louis Vuitton, who made them, is not doing much about it. (USA Today/New York Times)

• One of the things that was super noticeable this summer during the Olympics in Paris was how the city had been totally updated for bike commuting. What can we learn. (Momentum Mag)

• Human robots are running as pacers, etc, in races in China. (Marathon Handbook)

• The intense smoke from the L.A. fires will ultimately lead to thousands more early deaths. Why? Because you’re basically breathing in a burned up car and house and gas pipes, etc. (Fast Company)

• Someone asked about how to donate triathlon stuff to all the L.A. athletes who are now trying to navigate their lives and an upcoming season, and I’ve seen a few posts come through triathlon Facebook groups — but going to see if there’s a way to send them all to one group. And there’s a Coeur benefit ride coming up. (Coeur)

• A couple of hikers shared some video as they were fleeing the L.A. fires — and then they got blamed for starting the fire (which didn’t seem true at the time and seems less true now). And doesn’t having the internet come after you as your whole city gets set on fire seem like the most 2025 thing ever. (Backpacker/Los Angeles Times)

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One last thing

The saying that you never regret going for a run is dumb. There are many many runs I regret.