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This is interesting, I hope they will make it up next time. I'm sure they can do it better!

Leanda Cave also had food poisoning this week and wound up with a DNF.

I just told my spouse that there were only 35 women entrants to the men's 50. She was livid.

This is yet another reason for equality. Any dropouts affect the race so much more with a small field.

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'It never gets easier, you just get crazier.'

Any dropouts affect the race so much more with a small field
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I'm not bagging on the equality thing (in fact, IMO, they should probably cut the mens field and pay everyone a lot deeper at a WC race, but that's a different topic). I'm questioning the quote above... How would adding 12-15 more womens at the back end of the field affect the front of the race? Especially with the depth of the field dropping off as quickly as it does on the womens side? The 10th place woman was 30 minutes back. The 25th woman was more than an hour behind. What do you think would have happened if the 35th-50th got added?

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

What do you think would have happened if the 35th-50th got added? //

Well what if it was an athlete like Lucy Charles? Keep in mind that just because you barley make it in does not mean you are not podium material. This is a whole season of racing reflected, suppose someone at the top is injured or has a few bad races, but sneaks in at 50th place? A lot of the top point getters are just people that do a ton of high point races, often burning out before Kona. Other people might have the strategy of just getting enough points so that they can have a fresh Kona. As long as you are on the start line doesn't really matter if you had the most or least points getting in.


Look at some of the new guys on the mens side now coming up like Nilsson or even the guy that got 3rd overall. They are making huge jumps in a year or two, people like this often come out of the bottom of the points getters.

+1 to Monty's post - this is how an expanded woman's field helps. It is not adding more women who are 30 minutes off the lead, but adding women who depending on the day could podium. One woman who just barely made it this year, Haley Chura, finished 18th, but, she was in 3rd out of the swim and held for half the bike race. That is not the whole race, but she pushed Ryf and others for the first 1/3rd of the race. Not as important as the last 2/3rds of the race, but no one was pushing Ryf then except herself. More women in the race means more dark horse/up and comers who could have a great day and could podium or could push the race. The odds of this happening go down as you go deeper in the field, but especially as the women's side develops, a deeper field will help new stars emerge.

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2018 Races: IM Santa Rosa, Vineman Monte Rio, Lake Tahoe 70.3

Monty can you fix your bold key?