This thread is full of speculation and virtually no accurate facts. //

Well reading through this thread, most of what I see posted here has been speculation. Dont think anyone has said something is a "fact" here, just that someone said something on a podcast, or heard from an athlete..


The only thing that is bounced around a lot is that someone, or a few might be getting a $100k series fee. And that the top 16 women have signed contracts..Now I find that really surprising about the signings, I figure that is not correct. I can see 16 women signing, just not the top 16. And as to the $100k, I imagine if it is true, it is just for very few, and a sliding scale moving down the ranks..That is my speculation, maybe you could throw a fact or two out here to keep us on track?


Or at the very least just say which speculations are so far off the mark, that they will be laughable when all is known..

Hey,

Totally fair challenge.

The 100k mark is there or thereabout and there will be 20 contracts signed. So you are pretty safe!

When it's FINALLY all announced I think there is going to be full transparency, for once, of payments and earnings. It's based on a structure where the top 10 was set earlier in the year last year. The next 6 at the end of the year then 4 more who could be of any rank that would add value to the series. The drop off from 1-16th wasn't staggering and the remaining 4 was capped. The amount each of those are paid is set, so not up for individual negotiation. Some costs are covered but not all. Then there is prize money at each event, likely making up the smallest part of the earnings available. Then there is the series result prize money, hefty! On top of that the PTO will still haver a pan long distance triathlon ranking which will pay as per usual and advertised on their website. The points system will need some revisiting to ensure the PTO events still meet the highest tier.

Who is accepting and who isn't is confidential till its released at the end of the month.

Cheers

Mark

man, this sounds like a recipe for illness and injury to me. the PTO races we've seen so far have been balls-off championship fields, and racing 6/8 of those in a year with another world-class 70.3 (plus a qualifier?) and then kona . . . that's at least 1 ironman and 10 halfs, with a huge amount of travel to boot. if you start in may and race until kona, you're fitting those races into 6 months.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

With as many PTO races as they are projecting (6-8) and those PTO races getting top billing in terms of quality of field ranking (almost a self fullfilling process), racing a full PTO schedule would almost have to be an "all in" priority for most of those athletes unless they truly have the capability to win 1 of a handful of big money races (IM, 70.3 worlds)....So this upcoming year is going to be more important to score great PTO results than even this past year, because of the quality of points that will be with PTO events.....race selection is going to be very interesting. So the hell with being "forced" to race a full PTO schedule that we seem to be arguing the sematcs of a contract, you'd almost be crazy not to, especially those middle of pack finishing athletes.....Very few athletes imo will be able to race whatever schedule they want and get the end of season results they need to also make 2025 a good year as well.

(That seems to be the year when the PTO vs all other non-draft races sorta really takes a drastic PTO or IM in 2025 and beyond...assuming both series are still around). Very few athletes will be able to race only a small handful of PTO events, score well enough to then shift focus to IM WC event(s) and still stay ranked high enough to take advantage of the PTO "contract" (if you want that contract).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I agree with you that's going to be hard to focus on more than one thing, IRONMAN or PTO series. Both pay well though.

An athlete that performs well in the IRONMAN series and the IM WCs 70.3 WCs (likely necessary to perform well overall) should see an athlete still ranked high enough to get a spot in the 2025 PTO series should they choose to change. That is the only reason to pay attention to the annual ranking as for the better athletes the money from that forms a very small part of their potential earnings.


So I don't think athletes are forced to do the PTO series etc. I think you will see a varied approach to the year based on the athletes strengths and more so than ever before I think you will see athletes racing big events as "B" races, ie low expectations of performance but to fulfil a commitment.

The season realistically run from March to December, you can do a lot in that time.

man, this sounds like a recipe for illness and injury to me. the PTO races we've seen so far have been balls-off championship fields, and racing 6/8 of those in a year with another world-class 70.3 (plus a qualifier?) and then kona . . . that's at least 1 ironman and 10 halfs, with a huge amount of travel to boot.//

I think it is likely only a couple could do the schedule you put out here. More likely is folks will go mostly all in on one of the series, and then dabble in the other. I mean if you can win 3 PTO races, you probably will rank very high at the end of the year. Same of the Ironman series, win or nearly win the championships, then do a couple others, you will rank very high there too.


So you pick one to focus on, go and cherry pick the other series, and just see how the season goes. For the true crossover athletes, I would sign the PTO contract and just see how the races go. I dont imagine you have to do all of them, so sort out which ones make the most sense, then fit in the Ironman series here and there. It will be a lot of racing and traveling, but not unheard of for a lot of the pros historically. I remember racing 24 times one year and Molina and Tinley more than that. Of course it was not optimal for performance, but it was the way to make the most money. And in the end, making money at what you love and enjoying it, well that should be the guiding mantra for most pros. And I say most, because they are more resilient that given credit for by many these days, but there are some that are fragile and have just so many bullets they can fire in a season...

I wonder how "specialzation" will play out in all of this especially as the PTO is a much shorter distance compared to the IM distance (which scores the most points in the IM series). It may not showcase exactly this upcoming year, but I can totally see there being a true divide between PTO vs IM. Which to IM's credit, has probaly saved a bunch of pro's careers this year by being able to be an "rival" of PTO.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I dont think the specialization is as big a deal as you might think. I mean from a draft legal olympic distance to ironman, yes it is pretty big. But as we have seen, even that is not unsurmountable. Knibb or Blu or Iden have all stepped up and done quite well in a very short amount of time. Now you might argue not optimal, but often optimal is hard to measure and race results really are the final arbiter. What those 3 all did at Kona and beyond was hard to argue with, and especially with knibb doing her very first race at that distance too.

But we are not talking about those two extremes, but more a slightly shorter than half distance, to the full. The training for those two mileage wise will not be that different. The differences will be in intensity and recovery. So it would not be that big of a stretch to see that a training bloc here and there towards each, would net a good result in either distance. I dont believe you have to go all in for either, and can race both during a season if spaced out apporiately. I mean half's and full's have been done all the time in the same months, going just a bit shorter is not really that big of a stretch for the really talented FOP pros..

But I do agree going from a long focus on full distance back to an ITU format takes a lot longer, and a bigger commitment. We are witnessing that too in real time. Its too bad Jason West didnt have more time and a longer runway to see how it could have played out. The new PTO contract will take all speculation on his side out of the equation for sure. Now we have Knibb and Blu to see how that goes, just have to put a realistic expectation on what will be successful in each case. For me, Blu doesnt have to win again to have been successful, and Knibb doesnt have to medal either. There is too much variance in one day results to assign such a high placing as to whether they came down successfully or not...

Well I would argue your using outlier examples to suggest that specialization isn't a thing and those athlete's success has been very shall we say limited now that the "longer" they race hybrid results. If we are saying success = podiums type of "success". So with how the PTO's distances are basically much more "higher intensity" focused training vs what IM distance training is, I think your certainly going to see less and less "hybrid" athletes being able to be successful racing both series. Again I think you can go "all in" on 1 series and still cherry pick the IM circuit, cus well there is still what 50 IM events in the world that are paying pro's (mamy many 70.3's). So I mean by default no one will ever have to pick and choose and never race another series event (I guess IM athletes won't be able to race PTO if they arne't of course chosen), but if your telling me an PTO athlete is going to win the PTO series and IM in the same year...I'll give you 100-1 odds of it happening. The 2 sports are going to slowly take off in seperating directions, that's inevitable. But again sure you can cherry pick 1-2 pro races on the IM circuit again if there is 50 races a year that pays pro's.

And again by the way of PTO's points structure essentially being an self fullfilling PTO is the "top races" points wise, at some point you will not be invited to the PTO series unless you basically go "all in" on it, unless you truly are one of the most exceptional athletes in our sport. So 90% of the athletes doing PTO are going to have to go "all in" in order to keep their "PTO contract", sure Blu or Knibb may be able to show up and podium at 2 races and screw the rest, but that's not the norm. The norm will be if you want the contract- you are going to have keep racing PTO races as they are the "best" events to score points. Thus it's basically already creating "specialization" for the majority of the athletes on the PTO circuit now.

It's again WTCS 2.0 type of series. Guess what a handful of those athletes can podium at WTCS and 70.3 races. But the majority of them are all in one circuit or the other. So as I said, thank god IM has stepped up and is allowing the truly "long course" athletes a pro big money circuit, the ones who truly can't drop down and handle the PTO specific demands still have a sport to make a living at.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Agree
"I can see 16 women signing, just not the top 16." Which of the top 16 do you (@monty) doubt will have signed a PTO contract? Ryf?
https://stats.protriathletes.org/rankings/women
I'm going to speculate that Byram (PTO#25) will have been offered a contract after her Milwaukee heroics (and as a BMCProTri team 'rep'). I also saw Sala (PTO #27) featured in the latest PTO reel so [/speculation] I reckon she might be one of the lower ranked invitees (and tick the 'Spanish rep' box). Lawrence (currently #22) was PTO #10 in August so she'll be 'in'. I hope PTO offer Iden and Neumann (Oz rep) contracts.
How many of the IM capable ladies on that top #20 list will choose NOT to qualify/validate for (and subsequently race) Nice?
Racing Nice is a sine qua non if an athlete aspires to be at the sharp end of the IM Series, come Taupo.
Speculations:
Knibb (who will prioritise Paris: trying to race WTCS, a PTO race and two 70.3s (for validation) and prep for the Olympics would be just barking).
Sodaro (too fragile, two DNFs in 2023, but good results at most of her PTO races)
LCB (sure I recollect a 'unsure about Nice' vibe last October) and also injury prone
Maybe Lee and Pierré (both already IMWCQ) will choose a season of PTO rather than stepping up.
https://www.trirating.com/nice-kona-2024/

All four (not Knibb obv) could compete in Roth.
"at the very least just say which speculations are so far off the Mark, that they will be laughable" The 'Facts' man avoided answering that, merely confirming the widely shared/asserted '16 top WPros' and 'circa $100k'. So which speculations are 'spectacularly' wide of the mark?

Well I would argue your using outlier examples to suggest that specialization isn't a thing //

First of all, those examples I used were from ITU to Ironman. Secondly I did not say specialization is not a thing either, just that from the 100k distance to half's and fulls is not as pronounced as you seem to think. That is why I said prescribed training blocs before switching distances should overcome most of the differences in race distances. PTO is not ITU or even near it in many regards. That is why folks like Jason, Sam Long, Gentle, etc. can still do well in PTO in spite of obvious weakness in one of the sports. You dont get to have that type of weakness in ITU racing. So besides those 3 examples crossing over the most extreme, there are many more that will be able to make that switch from 100k to Ironman.


Now of course many who can will not, but I think we will see lots of crossover in the coming season, perhaps more than 30% to 40% of the PTO pros. And not sure where you got I said someone can win both series, think you just made that up. No one is that dominant in our sport at the moment, but not out of the question too think someone eventually could do that. I think if it weren't an olympic year, Knibb is the sort of athlete who could win both. Anne Hang could also, but probably in different seasons. Same goes for Blu, without ITU he could do it, certainly in different seasons.

Quick one, @Monty: which discipline is Gentle's "obvious weakness"?
And more generally, half the ITU (WCTS 60) athletes have an "obvious weakness" they're (relatively) rubbish runners. So you DO get "that type of weakness" in ITU but the 'blow dry' after a fish swim means they can finish well (enough) up. And only those SC athletes who are stronger cyclists AND decent runners will find the transition to 100km straightforward. You'll find examples in the top 30 of the WTCS rankings (mostly, it has to be said, men).
It's noticeable that very few WPros have managed the migration to long course these last few years: Gentle and Knibb stand out, and lower down Riveros, and we've seen Learmonth, Stimpson, dip their toes. Any others, or is this a function of the 3 year Olympic cycle?
Which women currently racing WTCS do you think might make a go of 100km and 70.3s in 2025? Offer them a PTO race wildcard in one of the later PTO races. And see how they enjoy staying aero on TT bars and running off it.

PTO is not ITU or even near it in many regards.

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This is where we will disagree on and imo the PTO racing demands will only get more specific the more the "PTO distance" becomes a real legit racing series. It's far closer to ITU style of demands than IM imo. Especially as the racing numbers are shrunk and being an "in betweener" type of athlete is really going to struggle in this format.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Quick one, @Monty: which discipline is Gentle's "obvious weakness"? //

She would get shelled in the swim in a big ITU race and never see the front pack at T2. Thus her run would be irrelevant.

It's far closer to ITU style of demands than IM imo//

So Sam long would do better in ITU than Ironman racing, interesting....

Except no where in my post did I say specific athletes. The PTO distance is far closer to the training demand requirements for olympic distance racing than IM training is. All these athletes are *generally* training the same over times. The differences will be volume sport specific and obviously intensity load specific. Because of that I think you are going to see the "PTO distance" become a real viable entity in professional ranks and eventually yes I think it will become "specialized" (breaking news- there is already specialization in itu and IM training so to think this won’t go that way, again cool to think it won’t, nothing in our sport suggests it won’t) of course takes years of development just like I'm sure in the early days of "ITU" pro's were racing all distances at any time. Like no shit there is no specializaiton in the PTO yet, but I can totally see it becoming a very viable option for as long as it's around. And the more it's around the more it will imo become specialized as this is far more of a "hybrid" distance than a true IM training style difference. So that your not going to be able to just jump back and forth between race distances of PTO distance and IM over a very short period (IE racing back to back weekends or 2 races in a 3 week period, etc it'll be when they take a mini break from the series imo). That of course will take time and ultimately will be decided by if the public even cares to watch the pto series because if they don't- this whole topic is extinct anyways.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

but to be fair pto is asking for this with missed time lines they set themselves. while ironman came up with a simple plan straight away.

a) i didn't put that schedule out there, you did.

b) obviously racing 8 PTO events and then kona + 70.3 worlds plus all associated qualifiers would be easy for a guy like you, i'm more worried about putzes like anne haug or magnus ditlev.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I heard that some athletes already opted out for the 1st one (March 9 - venue not confirmed yet but most likely around the WT race in Abu Dhabi).

And it's still not sure if they can really set up 6 races.

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They just need to find four more race production companies to put together a race weekend and you have your series. It wouldn't surprise me if they have already done so and are just working out "the details" before they are confirmed and announced.

That's a lot to ask if you ask me.

Past has shown that they haven't been successful. Dallas and Edmonton were a disaster so far and not what they are aiming for in the future.

That's why PTO said they wanna cooperate with existing race venues and run the pro show the same weekend.

The only race that was kind of "working" was Ibiza but still earned lots of critics for the bike course.

my sort left-field idea was that maybe back when they were trying to their "open" model off the ground, maybe PTO could have bought/partnered with a few classic races - one in each region? - and named them their opens. so now 'escape from alcatraz' is your US open, and noosa is the aussie open, and phuket is the asian open, and . . . i dunno, roth is the european open? something like that?

take existing properties that are tv-friendly, have lots of local support, and keep them as "classics" that also feature extra-large prize purses and ranking points.

might've been easier than trying to building up events from scratch.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

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Both the Milwaukee and Singapore races were a success from all reports,certainly from this viewers perspective. There are plenty of race directors out there around the world who could easily follow MetaSports' lead in Singapore and host a PTO event. They could host one on the Gold Coast in Oz without much trouble at all by hooking up with The Event Crew and their big race series. In many regions around the world it only takes connections and money to get stuff done and that open up a hell of a lot of "destination" venues around the world.

Schedule in Abu Dhabi looks a challenge to shoehorn in two 185/215 minute races. The MTR is scheduled for 1230-1400, and that won't change.
Northern hemisphere possibilities (which roughly fit) are southern Florida, Gulf ie Dubai, or Morocco/Marrakesh. Last they were setting up for the Collins Cup, I believe (which never happened). Dubai is a proven venue: 70.3 there is normally in March but didn't happen this year. Clash Miami is already scheduled for 8/9/10 March.
I can quite believe that the PTO have yet dotted all the eyes and crossed the tees for all the >6 races. But the early ones (March: venue to be disclosed (was discussed/speculated here before Christmas; see above) and April: Singapore) are sorted. The nitty gritty is the PTO requiring a stand-alone slot for their two races (M&W).
Ten minute puff:

Ya, I would have thought even without the USAT nationals, they could have gotten a local race director in Milwaukee to pull something off there with a local race attached as well. Bouncing around loses so much consistency. Year one small, year two, bigger, year three bigger yet. Starting over at year one every year they are losing that growth opportunity. It's a trap to assume they can only go where the crowds are. MAKE THE CROWDS with a multi year investment. That's what they are paid to do and allegedly that's what they are charging advertising claiming they can do. 100% growth or greater in participants year over year for the first few years is very possible at the startup stage. Especially with the kind of promotional capabilities they have. Give a local RD a budget, let them make the most of it and trust them to bring in the crowds.