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The swim is run by Red Licorice Events in Austin,TX and there is a choice of three distances which are swum in Lake Travis.Lance came in third in the 2.4 mile race in "48 high"..

www.redlicoriceevents.com

I'll let you do the rest of the investigating.

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There were some worries/rumors/questions from pro's after all this qualifying was announced, and here was basically WTC's response to all the questions regarding pro's having to race alot more while Lance may have just gotten a free slot:

"Wild Card entries will not be used to recover or add any specific athlete (including Alexander, Wellington and Armstrong) if they fail to qualify. We expect to drop Wild Cards once we are assured that the system works. Many athletes were concerned that this provision would be used to qualify Lance Armstrong or other similar athlete into the pro division."

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

WTC is not going to undermine it's legitimacy for Lance. They stated very clearly to their pros they are not going to do what you say they will. You think they are just going to say, "sorry guys we were just kidding"? You vastly underestimate WTC's ego -- they have no intention of cow-towing to Lance and his legion of fans who want to see him race up front. Call Ben, ask him yourself. He's going to tell you NFW. If Lance is in the AG field, he's going off in the AGs. If you think its going to go down differently, pass the smoke.

Wow...interesting. hadn't seen that before. When did they release that?

I have to say, it is extremely short-sighted of them.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I have to laugh at the claim of WTC worrying about being "legit". It's a for profit business where they routinely have random people race in their "world championships" that have no business being in it, and you think they are worried about being legit? I certainly think things will be very interesting IF Lance shows up at Kona (which I've stated before, I'll be more surprised if he actually showed up than if he actually won).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

That was released right after this whole qualifying thing went down (wanna say mid summer last year). Basically it seemed the pro's were most worried that they would have to race more WTC events and thus potentially make them more tired for Kona, while Lance was just going to "show up".

It may be short sighted of them, but I think it's also of the mindset, of what would happen if Lance actually showed up and won? How would the pro's be percieved then? So I think the pro's simply wanted a full level playing field (if Lance can qualify, so be it).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Yes, but what your suggesting is so far beyond anything they have ever done it's laughable. They just went through this whole re-org process to provide more legitimacy AND they told their pros they would not just opt Lance in. Lance is not their long term meal ticket. You think they are just going to sleep with some hot chick and expect that their wife won't care.

So Chrissie still has to qualify? Why don't past winners get a slot if they choose to race? Like the Masters golf winners get to play as long as they choose to.

No she wont have to qualify, all she has to do is make sure she gets her WTC events completed (just her validation IM distance races):
Automatic Qualifiers

• Past Kona champions will receive an invitation/exemption to enter the pro division in Kona for a period of five years after their last championship.
• Past champions will not be required to qualify in the KPR during this five-year period.
• Past champions entering as pros will be required to validate their entry by completing one full-distance Ironman race, excluding Kona, during the Qualifying Year.
• Automatic Qualifiers will be accepted into Kona in addition to the 80 pro slots. If, for example, a returning champion is ranked in the top 30 women, the 31st ranked woman will qualify for Kona.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Of course it's laughable because up until this year WTC simply has done whatever it wants because it's a for profit business. So until WTC actually stands up to Lance and puts him in the AG race, I'll be shocked if he is not at the front of that race. Somehow/someway through sponsor pressure, potential media advertising pressure, I think he'll be at the front (again, this is a big IF, he is even at the race).

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Except that's already what they told him and their pros. You don't seem to get it.

Why don't you name all the AGers they have let race pro in Kona?

I have no clue (assuming it's ever happened which is doubtful). Again, they can say all they want to, but until it's the day of the race and they put Lance in the AG race and lose the opportunity to have Lance at the front and not in some pack, I'll be very skeptical of all of this (again, assuming he even makes the start, which I'm guessing is more of an issue than anything).


BTW, I posted what WTC said in response to the "will Lance get a pass" worry that the pro's had. Yes, they've said he has to qualify if he wants to be a pro, but like I said due to potential sponsor pressure, potential media presence, I'll be very skeptical that WTC actually keeps Lance off the front start.

Edit: That's why I said, it's really not going to matter how Lance is classified. I think somehow someway Lance is put at the front of this race to start.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I rode over to Mansfield Dam this morning as our group ride goes right past where they were doing the swim. I have a friend who did the 1.2 mile swim and went to check out the race. I did indeed see Lance, Cotter, and James Bonney come out of the water. Here are the official results. 49 minutes for Lance - not too bad. Not sure if the course is short or not, but they were in wetsuits. I did the 5K swim there last spring and was told that their course measurements are legit.

1. James Bonney 00:48:50 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open F)
2. James Cotler 00:49:02 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
3. Lance Armstrong 00:49:12 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
4. Robert Alford 01:01:21 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
5. Greorge Scmite 01:01:50 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
6. Brian Buraas 01:06:20 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
7. Travis Rimel 01:06:30 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)
8. Tom Fornoff 01:06:48 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open F)
9. Michael Clark 01:06:50 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open F)
10. Joshua Badgett 01:07:07 ( 2.4 Mile Swim Open M)

In response to : You think they are just going to sleep with some hot chick and expect that their wife won't care.

Man I do not think you could count how many guys are paying alimony for exactly that thought.

I never said he could qualify as a pro. I still think that they may (not will, may) find a way to let him start with the tro pros. Didn't they say, in black and white, that they would let people who paid extra get in (the passport club). They changed their mind on that, so they could change on LA.

Styrrell

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Styrrell

Yawn. Excuses, excuses. Like I said before, he will not do Kona - his run will not be good enough and he will back out, or he will get injured trying. Most likely the rest of his year will be devoted to staying out of prison. I think it's 50/50 he avoids it, but if I had to bet I will go with prison time. We'll see in a year, won't we. Until then, you all can continue to be impressed with what he hasn't done yet...

I'll bet you are one step away from getting banned from this forum for that dumb-ass post.

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**All of these words finding themselves together were greatly astonished and delighted for assuredly, they had never met before**

Why is it there always seems to be someone who decides to post something juvenile, adds nothing and intends to just piss on everything including themselves...{heavy sigh}

Jan, is this you?

What did he say that was ban-able? Surely he's allowed to have an opinion as to whether a person will be able to train properly for Kona - particularly someone who has had injury trouble when bumping up the running.

And unless you have been living under a rock, if things don't fall his way this year, Lance is in trouble. There are still fanboys who love him, but he's not the Mr Popular he once was. Partiucularly with the press - many of which have abandoned him like rats off a ship.

I was at that OWS and not to take anything away from Lance but the course was not well organized and there was a turn that a lot of people missed and it cut almost 600M off the course. When I first heard his finish time I wondered if that was the case. Look at the results that were posted above. I was 9th overall and swam with a pack of about 4 and we all made that little 600M turn. Look at the difference in times from the top 3 to the rest. There is like 12-13 minutes difference. Maybe they were super fast but another factor was wind. The wind on the lake was 20 MPH into our faces for half the race. I just don't see the times being that fast in those conditions.

Either way I was surprised to see that he was that fast in the water. Look at IM results for Kona and over the last few years only 1 or 2 people went under 50 minutes.

I suggest that you look at the Ironman swim pedigree of James Bonney who Lance was swimming with to see if the swim time was legit before you start suggesting that he may have cut the course short.

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You make it sound like I am accusing them of cheating. I am not suggesting that. I just know the course was not well marked and the race was disorganized. They put the bouys in 10 minutes before the start and told everyone the course route probably 2 minutes before the gun went off. I have talked to several friends that did not know about the turn and cut the course too. I don't really care if they did or not. I get nothing out of it. It was more like a training swim than anything else. No prizes. Not even a T-Shirt. Plus I will never be as fast as any of those guys even if I had a rocket strapped to my back. I just wanted to point out some of the discrepencies that I saw because I was there.

No,you made it sound like they MAY have missed a little loop because you were surprised that they could swim that fast in those conditions.

James Bonney has swum sub 50min multiple times in Ironmans and the guy who finished ten seconds in front of Lance is a Kiwi pro who won the Steelhead IM70.3 race last year (his name is actually James Cotter, not Cotler).Based on how well Lance hung with those two guys it is pretty safe to say that Lance could in fact hang with the main pack of pros in any Ironman race in Nth America.

I'll let the ST pro's pitch in to see if they agree or not.

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