#110: Your Official Kona Vibe Inspector
Reporting for duty.
issue #110: Oct. 23, 2024
All-sporters, as you read this I’m throwing stuff in a suitcase and heading to the airport for my whirlwhind Kona tour. Why not send a five-month pregnant woman to the all-dude Men’s Kona to do a vibe check! It just makes sense. (I’m sure there are people who have opinions about this, but my levels of DGAF are even higher than usual, so.)
I’m opening up today’s voiceover and comments to everyone too, so that you can all share your Podium Picks in the comments below for our yearly ‘Pick Your Podium’ contest. Who do you think will win?👇
If you’re in Kona, I’ll also be at Kona Heaven Coffee (which I much prefer to Lava Java) on Thursday from 9-10a.m.-ish — basically from after the Underpants Run until whenever I need to go pick up my credentials. Come say hi!
And I’ll send out my usual from-the-ground special edition on Sunday — with all the ‘goss. Of course. Because that’s what you’re here for.
- Kelly
Triathlon’s generational fandom
Last week, I was listening to this conference on the future of women’s sports and business and someone made the point — which I’d never really thought about before, but which made sense as soon as she said it — that long-existing mainstream sports benefit from generational fandom. From the idea that you grew up watching a specific team, that you always go to xx games because you did as a kid and one day you’ll take your kids, even the notion that the Super Bowl is always an event and a party with friends. When a thing becomes big enough that it perpetuates itself. How do you create that?
She was talking about women’s teams and leagues specifically, and the built-in head start the NFL or the NBA has, but it applies to endurance sports and our sports too: How do you create generational triathlon fandom? We’re getting to the very very end of that first triathlon generation, so how do you extend this into the next?
I don’t think the answer is only Kona. Or, rather, I don’t think the answer can only be Kona. I’m not sure that particular dream extends forever into future generations or that an entire sport can be built on top of it.
I talked about this on the podcast last week, but if you listen to a lot (!) of triathletes you’ll notice that the Kona Dream tends to resonate less with women and younger athletes and athletes from other countries; they tend to be a little less Kona committed and more open to other things. That Kona generational fandom just wasn’t originally designed for them, they weren’t fed the same images and stories, so they haven’t spent their whole lives imagining themselves into that picture. Sure, plenty of them still want to try it out at least once, to see what Kona’s all about — but I don’t think it’s an accident that the hardest core ‘Kona or nothing’ demographic tends to be 45- to 60-year-old men. They were hand fed The Dream.
So, do you double down on those guys, what happens after they die? Or do you try to build a new fandom for future generations?
The race
Of course, I am, however, still super curious what Men’s Kona is going to be like. Yes, I was at Men’s Nice last year too, but (as we’ve discussed extensively) Nice is a 1-million-person city and triathletes can get swallowed up in that. It’s not a Kona or Roth or even a Placid, where it’s so small that the triathletes automatically dictate the culture and feel of the week. And, anyway, European Ironmans are already like 70-80% men, so Men’s Nice basically just felt like a championship European Ironman.
But, Kona? Kona is gonna be…something. The question is: What?
Who will win?
My picks: Probably Kristian Blummenfelt or Magnus Ditlev. Though sentimental favorite is, of course, Gustav Iden. General consensus is, either way, it’s going to be “a new Iron War” (because we are required to always call close races that) between the big five or six: Kristian, Gustav, Magnus, Sam Laidlow, Patrick Lange, and Rudy von Berg. In some order. Your guess is as good as theirs.
Share your podium picks in the comments 👇 for our annual super formal, super intense Pick Your Podium contest in which you win random stuff from my house.
As always, lots of media outlets have plenty of Kona Race Week details and previews. And since there’s even more hype coverage of Men’s Kona because *gestures at everything* I’m going to leave them to it:
TriRating has his whole Kona Rating Report (with fun facts - including that there will be 20 Kona rookies)
Triathlete has their Kona Hub — with lots of Breakfasts with Bobs, bike galleries (my favorite is the one that includes a Gustav video), and an overview of predictions
Pro Tri News is doing a daily pod/vlog from the island
And then, I actually think Ironman’s social team has been churning out some of the funniest clips: The general consensus from the pros seems to be that no one can decide if The Norwegians’ new TT positions were just designed to mess with other pros or not. (In our poll last week, 48% of you thought it was purely a troll move and 39% of us thought it was probably both for science *and* also a troll move.)
Plus, in case you SOMEHOW MISSED IT: Even though I have never once seen dolphins while swimming in Kona, they were there during this weekend’s practice swim!
WATCH: Actual race starts at 6:20 a.m. Hawaii/12:20 p.m. ET on Saturday on Outside Watch in N. America (yes, I believe again that will be your only option here in the U.S.) and on Youtube globally or proseries.ironman.com
And in the world of World Tri…
Once we get past the fact that the sport’s annual big meeting is called The World Triathlon Congress, there’s actually a bunch of stuff that happens at this Congress in addition to the world championships and finals races.
A new president was elected (just the third president ever of World Tri), who was the secretary general before and is now the president, so.
But, there was a bunch of election drama: letters and complaints submitted about intimidation and vote bullying, and then those candidates who submitted the complaints sorta quietly disappeared. All very old-school IOC stuff. (The second link also has videos from the four final remaining candidates, if you’re curious.)
I don’t have a ton of opinions about the drama other than that most governing bodies kinda operate this way, but it did then lead me to read a bunch of the Congress agenda packet to find out what all the officials were supposed to talk about and vote on. And my top-level takeaway from the 216 pages: More money needs to come in the door soon, and World Tri needs to figure out its broadcast situation. You can read the whole audit and financial docs in there, too.
Also shoutout to Sara for winning an Award of Excellence from the Congress!
The races
And then there were the actual races…
I know tri sometimes in the U.S. is too long-course-focused, but you all are missing out. The Championship Finals races were super dramatic:
Women: Cassandre Beaugrand went off course on the swim, but despite a DQ appeal from Brit Tri (which wasn’t upheld) she still won, won the overall world championship title, and closed out a flawless season
Men: And then it was closer (much closer) in the men’s race, truly looked like the overall series world championship win was in jeopardy for Alex Yee with a breakaway sticking into T2 that he wasn’t in — but then he was able to run his way into third and the overall series championship
Good summers for both of them, wouldn’t you say.
Plus, it ended up being a final emotion race for: Vincent Luis and Vicky Holland
Rest of the races
T100 Vegas: Oh, Taylor, Taylor, Knibb is unstoppable right? My favorite part was when they asked Julie Derron and Flora Duffy after the race what it would take to beat Knibb and Flora just laughed. And then, the Belgian duel in the men’s race was something: We’re all going to have to learn how to pronounce Jelle Geens now aren’t we. I’m guessing he and Derron may get a spot to the Grand Final?!
OK, we also all agree Chelsea Sodaro did an excellent job with commentary, right? I wandered in and out (watch the coverage, run, errands, watch, work, nap, watch), but part of me thought we shouldn’t all be so surprised: She is smart and pretty funny and a student of the sport.
ProTriNews also caught up with the PTO’s CEO Sam Renouf in Vegas, which I think requires some reading between the lines of what he says but still.
World Tri World Championships: A whole bunch of para world titles were also decided but my top picks are Grace Norman still hasn’t lost in forever (!), Kendall Gretsch topped Lauren Parker this time, people thought Susana Rodriguez was gonna get beat this year but they were wrong, and Alexis Hanquinquant has apparently won seven world titles! And the first-ever mixed para relay world championship (which mixes up categories) was/is wild.
Results: T100 Vegas and T100 rankings, World Triathlon Juniors & U23 and Para World Championships, Portugal 70.3, and Challenge Mallorca
The -ish
Stuff from around our sports worth knowing about this week.
There were also two deaths in the age-group race at the World Champs and an investigation is underway. (Triathlete)
Claire Michel and Georgia Taylor-Brown are moving to mid-distance — Claire for good and Georgia TB for temporary. (Instagram/Tri247)
The Commonwealth Games have trimmed down to ten sports and triathlon isn’t one of them. But is the Commonwealth even really a thing anymore? (220 Triathlon)
I just learned about this UK-based Triathlon Industry Association and one-day industry conference in December, though I think it’s pretty UK-focused. (Triathlon Industry Association)
Ironman is officially reporting it sold-out all its European races this year. Though I still don’t know how that compares to how many European races it had pre-pandemic. (Endurance Sportswire/Triathlonish)
And the Ironman CEO did his first 70.3. (Instagram)
There are new pro qualifying rules for the 2025 Ironman World Championships — basically getting rid of the five-year winner’s exemption and eliminating validation for the previous year’s champ. They also got rid of the automatic spot for the 70.3 world champ and for the whole previous year’s podium finishers, which I think is counter-productive to making the race more exciting. But I do also think, if we’re reading between the lines, that they may move (back?) to a qualification system/series. (Ironman)
The Ironman pro membership now costs $1500 for 2025, too.
USAT is holding its current election until Nov. 8. Just like the national election, but less anxiety-inducing. (USAT)
Just because everyone is all about all things The Norwegians, they have a second Youtube episode out. (Youtube)
And, yes, the Norwegian coach is going to head up a cycling team now, too. (Triathlon Canada)
And, and, Brad’s book on The Norwegian Method (out now) was going to be our next quarterly Book Club pick if Brad would just choose a Book Club date. (Amazon)
CJ Albertson took 7th place at the Chicago Marathon. He’s also set to run the New York Marathon in two weeks. And, in between, he ran 22 miles in 1:51 at Woodward Park (which is the state XC championship course for California, so it’s not exactly flat). In case everyone thought the Norwegians were the only ones who do crazy things. (Strava)
This guy, Matthieu Bonne, set the seven-day cycling record (2,249.19 miles). And then the longest non-stop ocean swim (81.3 miles). And then the six-day running record (650.1 miles). Not all at once, but still. (Outside Run)
Emma Coburn surprised everyone with a surrogate baby. (Instagram)
Gretchen Walsh broke the 100m IM swim world record (55.98 seconds) at a random NCAA dual meet. So that’s fun. (Forbes)
And, sure, yeah, I know lots of people have their doubts about the new women’s marathon world record — but the amount of doubt has reached new levels of ridiculous-ness, and some amount of me is tired of hearing men explain why it’s just not possible a woman could run that fast. I also feel like that’s been said a lot of times before throughout history and not turned out to be true. So I appreciated the level of detail and rationality Alex Hutchinson brought to the question. (Athletics Kenya/Nobody Asked Us/Outside Run)
With the NFL Players Association calling for media to get out of lockerrooms, I feel like it needs to be said: Why does anyone other than athletes ever need to be in lockerrooms? We all get interviews done in triathlon all the time without having to see triathletes naked. (The Athletic)
I also know the college football ‘Super League’ is just a proposal, but the part of it I think is hilarious is the part where the 72 teams are divided into groups by geographic regions—sorta like, wait for it, conferences! (The Athletic)
And this super detailed data breakdown of NIL deals and contracts is a little over-the-top at the start but has lots of good stats about who exactly the money is going to (men’s football and basketball players) and where it’s coming from (collectives paying essentially unregulated salaries). Just spin football off as its own separate thing already!(Washington Post)
One last thing
And just because.
I’ll go RVB, Laidlow, and Kristian Blu. For no particular reason.
Ditlev
Blu
Lange