#86: Who will qualify for the Olympics?
A primer.
issue #86: May 8, 2024
All-sporters, I dusted off my time trial bike today — not metaphorically, literally; it was covered in dust, because I’ve only been riding my road bike this last year. We all now get to see, together, how quickly ultrarunning fitness translates to Ironman fitness.
For all the new people here. Welcome:
This is your free Wednesday newsletter on all things triathlon-ish. I aim for analysis, commentary, and what you need to know about our sports — not really swim tips or training zone advice. I am thinking about moving this to midday Wednesday, though, because my brain gets very tired on Tuesday nights.
Paying subscribers get an audio version for their convenience, which is back today (!), and a Sunday evening extra newsletter.
Book Club: I also announced the newest Book Club for this quarter — ‘All in Stride,’ the love and running story of two Kenyans who made their way to the U.S. There’s a 20% off discount for subscribers & we’ll have a Zoom Q&A with the author on June 19. And there’s an audiobook if you’d rather listen.
Lastly: We’re gathering up any and all beginner Qs for a series on Feisty Tri. What did you need to know before your first triathlon?
Now, the only news that matters this week…
- Kelly
Your quick guide to Olympic qualification
The big one we care about this weekend, at WTCS Yokohama: The final auto-Olympic qualifier for the U.S.
How the U.S. qualifies for Paris
The first American man & woman in the top three at Yokohama, who isn’t Taylor Knibb or Morgan Pearson, gets to go to Paris automatically. The final Olympic team spots will then be decided by a selection committee.
There are three total team spots for the U.S. women and (likely) two for the men. So there will be at least one and up to three athletes picked by the selection committee at the end of May and announced in early June.
That means the U.S. (and every other country) will consider both WTCS Yokohama this weekend and WTCS Cagliari in two weeks. Then the qualifying period ends. So these two races = important.
Who’s on the start line?
For the U.S.: Taylor Knibb (who already has her spot), Taylor Spivey, Summer Rappaport, Kirsten Kasper, and Gwen Jorgensen. One has to assume Spivey, as the best ranked, has the best shot here, but then I’d pick Summer and really anyone can podium on any day.
For the men: Kevin McDowell and Matt McElroy have the best chance. Morgan Pearson already has his spot.
But there are also a whole bunch of other athletes who will make the race interesting and who don’t care about the U.S. qualification: Kristian Blummenfelt and Flora Duffy are both making their returns to World Tri racing.
At WTCS Cagliari: For a lot of countries, this is then the major selection race. But for the U.S., the issue is that USAT swapped out Jorgensen in Cagliari and swapped in Katie Zaferes. I think this is simply because Jorgensen was the #5 athlete (not because it was personal) and that since Zaferes (who is #6 right now) has been improving post-pregnancy and has been in the mix a few times and beaten some of the other athletes, the selection committee wanted/needed to see at least one WTCS from her too in order to decide. But WTCS Abu Dhabi was canceled, which threw everything into chaos. So here we are now.
Other countries’ qualification
OK, so. I was going to make a short guide to the qualifying criteria for each country going into Yokohama & Cagliari, but it was nearly impossible to find all the specifics and I’ve been told conflicting details! Here are a few races within the race worth knowing about…
Australia: Auto qualify with a top 8 at Yokohama
France: The three who got their spots last year (Pierre Le Corre, Dorian Coninx, Cassandre Beaugrand) all have to confirm those spots with a top 6 at Yokohama or at Cagliari
Japan: Auto qualify with a top 8 at Yokohama
Great Britain: It’s not an auto situation, but the focus (especially for the other two women’s spots after Beth Potter) is on Cagliari
There are a few other countries where qualification requires multiple top 8s or top 10s, or top ranking, etc, across WTCS races. And then almost all of them come down to discretion. Which is eh.
A few other qualification notes: I recently became aware of the New Flag spots — which are designed to go, per region, per gender, to a country that doesn’t otherwise have an athlete. There are also two per gender Universality spots (which I think of as another way to diversify the fields and bring in new athletes).
I was excited then to hear Guam’s first pro triathlete looks poised to take one of the New Flag spots; I’ve been hoping it would work out for her since I chatted with her a little over two years ago.
WATCH YOKOHAMA: On TriathlonLive.tv - woman on Friday at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET & men at 8:45 p.m. PT/11:45 p.m. ET
Are there too many pro triathletes?
No. Chill out.
This debate seems to bubble up every so often. And right now it’s been simmering around the edges of the Ironman Pro Series — because some people feel like the reason the pro races were oversubscribed is because it got “too easy” to get a pro license. There’s also been a lot of talk about how this is uniquely an American male problem.
And yes, there are more new pros this year; I’m guessing because there was a bit of a backlog from the last few years and it’ll level out eventually. And, yes, USAT did add a new criteria for getting your elite license that’s a kinda points/scoring system (which I assume was added to compensate, during the pandemic, for the lack of races where people could meet the other requirements). But then Valencia 70.3 in Spain was super full of pro men, too — maybe the most pros ever — so it’s not really a U.S. specific issue then, is it.
But here’s the thing anyway: The problem isn’t too many pros; just use a ranking or invitational or limited spots system for the races that are the top-level, and cap them at 50-60 men + 50-60 women. Done.
While there’s certainly a point where too many athletes can impact the rest of the race, most of the time more athletes means more competition, more of a field, more upsets, you need more athletes for depth and for the winners to beat. In fact, in most long-course races, too few pros is more of an issue.
And if you didn’t let elite age-groupers upgrade then what happens? They just stay as semi-pro sponsored age-groupers. And that’s probably worse for the sport. It’s better to have more pros and create more tiers and development pathways and different races for different athletes, then to keep athletes sandbagging in the age-group fields.
You also can’t go around telling some of the smaller countries that their pros aren’t good enough — that doesn’t create development pathways, it doesn’t encourage the growth of the sport, it doesn’t diversify the future. It just creates a field full of Germans and Brits. Ironman certainly can’t be in the business of deciding who is “good enough,” and World Tri has to treat all countries equally.
And, as a general rule, most of the time, women don’t upgrade, they worry they’re not good enough, so they stay in the age-group field, which then makes other women think they’re not good enough either. See where I’m going.
There are a few hundred pro triathletes in the U.S. across short- and long-course. The PTO has ~450 women and ~960 men in their database of pro rankings. The WTA Tour has a little over 1,100 female tennis players and the ATP Tour has about 1,800 men. So maybe we have a fine amount of pro triathletes, and that’s not an actual problem. Maybe there just need to be more races and more tiers and more pathways for them.
Best of the rest
St. George 70.3: Sam Long is now the #1 ranked athlete in the world. Good for him. And Paula Findlay continues to be one of the best mid-distance athletes in the world. Also good for her. Even if there weren’t a lot of surprises behind those two winners.
Though this mid-ride chain fix was pretty sick. And I think Jackson Laundry working his way into 4th (almost 3rd) after losing a wireless shifter blip is very impressive.
IM Australia: Sam Appleton went sub-8. And Regan Hollioake won her first Ironman in her first year as a pro.
The results and how to watch page are updated if you want more details.
The -ish
The rest of the news you should know about from our sports this week.
The PTO announced the men’s & women’s start lists for the contracted athletes for T100 - San Francisco in a month. But they haven’t announced the wildcards yet (other than a rumor that Youri Keulen is getting some kind of contract). And, interestingly, the start lists on World Triathlon now just list all the contracted athletes — even the ones we know aren’t going to be in San Francisco. So. (Instagram/World Triathlon)
Tim O’Donnell is kinda retiring, but doing XTERRA. (Instagram/Endurance Sportswire)
We talked on the podcast about the AG draft packs at IM Texas. (We also talked about training around alligators in Florida — and then I saw this bike ride through a swamp and decided there is a zero percent chance I will ever venture off-road in Florida.) (Feisty Tri/Instagram)
Ironman is upping its “experiences” this year. I think we all expected that. (Instagram)
Six triathlons on six continents in six days. (Instagram)
Marianne Vos & Mathieu van der Poel were the top earners of the Spring Classics — but they earned very different amounts. (Bicycling)
And Demi Vollering won the women’s Vuelta this weekend, but I think my favorite story was about this cyclist who quit her job in venture capital. (Wall Street Journal)
Almost as good as this story about the 45-year-old rookie pro soccer player. (Wall Street Journal)
The Traka is a thing people get very into in Europe. It’s a big gravel race. There’s a 360K and a 200K, and Alistair Brownlee did the 200K. (CyclingNews/Instagram)
The U.S. won four of the five relays at the World Relay meet — and got DQ’d in the 5th (the men’s 4x400m). (Instagram)
EmKay Sullivan turned down her golden ticket to Western States, which, like, I get. (Outside RUN)
Did you know astronauts have to run while they’re in space? And short steep sprints might help them with bone density. (Outside RUN/Runner’s World)
The sports streaming world is hard to follow right now — some places are cutting live sports or changing their offerings; lots of places want to add sports because they’re cheap; who gets which offerings? There’s a new rebundling happening everywhere. (Front Office Sports)
Olympic champ Jakob Ingebrigsten’s dad has been charged with abusing one of his children. No wonder that guy has some issues. (Associated Press/Reuters)
The whole Chinese swimming doping story is wild—but also I dunno if WADA would clear the athletes if they weren’t actually probably clean? Like I don’t know if I believe that many people could be involved in covered up. It takes too much organization. But maybe. (New York Times)
Then again. The IOC Olympic Refugee Team was announced and two of the athletes have already been suspended for doping. Much less inspiring that way. (SwimSwam)
One last thing
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If I had read this more thoroughly I would've known before our podcast conversation that Yokohama starts when I am back home from date night 😂