1.) You have no idea what the prize money will *actually* be. None of us do. It's one of the big questions still outstanding.
2.) The term "world championship" has been litigated in the past between World Triathlon's former name (ITU) and IRONMAN. Twice, actually. IRONMAN won both times.
3.) Is it at all possible for you to tone down the dickishness by like three notches? I mean, just because you CAN go to eleven doesn't mean you should. It's fine to be critical of IM (Lord knows they earn it sometimes) but you don't need to do it by denigrating everything (and their participants).

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I doubt that the chosen 16 men and 16 women are going to be taken straight from the PTO Rankings at (whatever date). I'd have thought PTO would try to get country/regional spread too. Looking through the current top 25 in the PTO Rankings, I have difficulty identifying 10 to exclude. (Iden will surely want to be in the mix, though can't see how he or KB could contract to race multiple PTO races without detriment to their Olympic ambitions/performance.) I assume neither Duffy nor Frodeno will be in the 'PTO 16'. Interesting selection matrix: ranking, 100km capability (v 226), country and region mix, media presence, previous PTO content featuring/investment, - any others??
I deduce:
1) Any athlete outside top 3 in country is vulnerable to deselection, even if in top #20. Chevalier/Mignon/Chevrot: pick one. Angert/Funk: same. Fight for the Brits after LCB: Lawrence, EPB, Matthews, Lee, Byram, Langridge.
2) Sanders may get in as 'top (male) Canadian'.
3) The SOF of all non PTO races will drop (because none of the top #20 will races any , making it difficult for athletes to gain 'decent' points in 'Gold' and lower races.
4) Unless Knibb is racing (not much next year given Paris), LCB will have some lonely old races as there'll be no other fish in the contracted 16. I guess some wildcards (maybe drawn from WTCS weapons) might give her company in the water and then be dropped on the (TT) bike, but those are all focused on Paris till August.

Lol this is such an awesome post

🙏

Occasionally I get one right. :)

I'm interested to see how the NGBs support this, or if they'll continue to mostly mail it in on this front (as most of the NGBs are, well, beholden to Olympic interests over everything else).

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NGBs support pros (by selection) and amateurs/age banded (by qualification) who want to race middle/long distance races under WT or ETU (?other regional TUs) auspices so they have a mechanism.
I assume that athletes will not be mandated to wear national uniform for these events, but that's an outstanding issue. Significant sponsorship/partnership issue if pros are going to be stopped wearing their own trisuits. WT rules require that though, aiui. Might be finessed to just the 'grand final' (if any) and for amateurs the designated 'Championship' race.

I'm not saying there's no process here.

I'm saying that the *actual* support, and investment, from NGBs hasn't really been there for LD. And I think that's in part due to most of them being mandated (via bylaw, or by other mechanism) to focus on Olympic cycles (and, in turn, WTCS racing).

Taking USAT as an example, qualifying for LD worlds has very much been a "show up and you're probably getting a spot" scenario, as the races have been fairly small and not super well advertised. Is that something USAT is going to change as part of this?

For a point of reference, 544 age group athletes finished LD worlds this year. My guess is that WT/PTO would hope to at least double that number for 2024 based on these announcements.

And then will NGBs provide LD support for pro athletes that are racing this series? Or will they stay more focused on supporting WTCS / Olympic qualification? I have to assume that's part of the hope of having this under the WT umbrella.

There is still a lot to be answered. I am cautiously optimistic. But I've also been through the crash-burn cycle of a few of these attempts (including one very personally), so I approach with some skepticism as well.

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Reposting from the 2025 IM70.3WC thread)
Fair points. But I think the status of 70.3 world title will degenerate to Challenge Championship status, or to the status generally accorded to the WT/ITU long distance world championship in previous years.

If there are 6 PTO races next year, with a couple of others (eg Kona/Nice), that's enough racing for any sensible athlete. If they want to plonk around on bronze 70.3s instead, good luck. They will not be in the PTO 16 the following year.
I expect that the prize money profile will be adapted for 2024 with a lower (but not that much lower) prize purse, with less for the winner/podium so better for 4-10.

In addition, and making a big difference to those in the second half of a 20 strong field, I read (somewhere?) that PTO plan, as part of the contract, to fund hosting arrangements (and ?travel subsidy?), which will make each race a guaranteed 'net earner' with $5-2k 'prize money' for #11-#20.

And those on this PTO bandwagon will likely command a better rate for all their sponsorship/partnerships - assured income, plus bonuses if they get results.

At current ETU (European champs) and ITU ('World' champs) ou need to wear NGB suits. If that was a requirement at these races for AGers, it would put me off, but i certainly wouldn't put it past Brit Tri as an example, who like making athletes buy an enormously marked up cheap tri suit to race in at the AG champs....

Sam said in the podcast yesterday something along the lines of them basically ensuring every athlete racing at least covers expenses...or maybe even comes out net positive. Also, although the prize purse structure will change somewhat with the additional races, the PTO series will still be very significantly above anything else currently available.

I know that Sam Long in his post-race interview said that PTO was 'taking care' of his flight, his rental car and his healthcare. What that means no one knows but PTO realized the value of having Long at the US Open so they made sure that he could get there. That's a big positive for the top pros - "If you want to be here, we'll get you here."

they wont support it on the pro side , as i guess they will have nothing to do with it .
i guess the deal is pto gets world champ title status and spectators and some reduced costs for race set up ie has only to pay a day rate for officials but no travel expenses . world tri gets some money for the world title status and fed s get sales from age group uniforms.

no way would pto and pros start with fed rules.

on the age group side you would think that GB who makes good money from age group international races will pick it up fairly quickly most feds likely wont care much. emerging countries, Mexico and brazil also very likely to pick it up fairly quickly to make money from it.

.

one thing to point out the thread title has LD in it . according to world triathlon , LD race has to have a swim thats longer than 1,9 k longer than 90 k and longer than 21 2 k so its an MD as only the swim qualifies as long distance .

Have changed it for you. But I suspect that the MOU between WT and PTO will include a requirement for WT to amend that rule and call anything over 99km (and >1.9km, >79km, >17km) as long distance, delete 'MD' as a category and thus abolish the MD/LD differentiation.

 

Never quite understood the sliding payout scale in a sport without great prize money. I know $100k is a nice, round, number but with $600k total the average is $20k/person in a 30 person race. $100k-$50k-$35k-$15k-$10k seems too big of a gap to me currently.

Anyways, I like spreading the $$$ around with a smaller (20 person) field but this format only helps the pros already making a living in the sport. I like PTO & what they've been doing. What if IM/Challenge cut back on pro races/prize money? What happens if races dry up for the pros finishing > 10th at competitive races?

I like the season long series narrative. If they're doing that it might make sense to invite the same 20 people each year and have some sort of relegation system. It might make sense to have pro fields with these age group races with small prize purses like IM/Challenge & have a points system that allows athletes to move up to the main PTO races. I feel like a little more thought should be given to those outside of the top-20.

Don't know about other countries but here, the federations are govt funded for Olympic sport. I don't see the funding for long course as it isn't an Olympic event. Can't see much changing.

Not clear where "here" is (assume UK) but suggesting national federations' sole mission (and thus funding) is solely for the Olympics is simplistic (wrong).
Elite athletes 'selected' by BriTri (for example) to race in ETU or WT MD or LD champs get no funding sfaik: maybe they get a 'free trisuit and clothing, but that's it.
The support that's needed is a governance function: for the pros, endorsing them as worthy GBR reps for the target competition. And that works now: as you say "can't see much changing" (UK).

I took that to man the 5th place prize money covered those things. I think it was 10k

What does it mean for PTO to take care of his health care? Is that only for that weekend in case he got hurt?

I heard him say his hospital bill for the baby being delivered. I could be wrong though

I heard him say his hospital bill for the baby being delivered. I could be wrong though //

My guess is that the PTO just has health insurance available for many of their members. Probably paying for many at some level, others maybe just being able to get it. How it works here in the US, group plans are usually a lot cheaper than one offs, and employers often pay some if not all of the costs. Dont think this was them paying a single bill he had, doesn't make sense...

Here are his comments, he is definitely discussing how he was spending his winnings.

There’s no PTO health care plan. He said his race winnings covered his travel expenses, hospital baby delivery bill and his car that he just totaled.

There’s no PTO health care plan. He said his race winnings will covered his travel expenses, hospital baby delivery bill and his car that he just totaled.//

Well kind of I suppose. I'm sure sam has health insurance from somewhere, just like he has car insurance. So his winnings pay those two insurance bills, and thus in a round about way, pays for those two expenses. I highly doubt be has neither of those policies, you have to be pretty rich to prove you can handle your own expenses here in the US...


Guessing that his car and baby cost 10 times more than he won this week, my costs were 150 times what he won...

Last year I wanted to race the pro WT LD champs (after finishing 9h in Roth) and the swiss federation suggested I rather race AG and buy+wear their short distance suit for it, since it was easier than making a pro long distance registration process, which they had no experience with...

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