Coming from a cycling background I think it's ridiculous that age groupers don't win prize money. In college I could at least depend on making gas money in a cat 3 (and eventually p12) crit. What do I get for winning a duathlon? Clif Bars.

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mikebikefit.com
Facebook: Cordova Bicycle Fitting
F.I.S.T Certified

$1,500 each now for 7th place...whats the purse breakdown for LP? Gotta be reaching 3rd place money soon

Okay, this is funny. I will throw a nickel in your cup when I see you.

#6 WTC. Silence of 45 million is revenue for 2014. Really? What's wrong with you? How's that silence?[/quote]
I don't understand your logic.

WTC makes $45 million in revenue, therefore it logically follows that "pros" should get a bigger purse.

Let me help you with the parts you are missing

1. Any evidence that the participation (or non-participation) of pros makes any difference to WTCs revenue numbers. Just because WTC makes money doesn't mean the "pros" are entitled to any of it.

2. Any evidence of "professionalism" among the pros. Panhandling and trolling messages boards for handouts is pretty weak. Most "professionals" who did stuff like this in attempt to shame their employer would find themselves fired. WTC is a private enterprise, they can accept or refuse entry from anyone and set whatever standards they want for pro entry. Hopefully tugging on Superman's cape doesn't backfire on you.

3. Golf pros. Compete in "pro" only event that spectators pay lots of money for tickets and sponsors pay lots of money for access to the event (hospitality areas) Ditto for tennis, autoracing, etc. Evidence that any person would pay $1 to watch "pros" race an IM race. I remember the year Lake Placid had no pro men's field (or at least no purse). I don't think anyone cared.

You are confused. Let me explain since the news probably wasn't disseminated on MySpace. Neither Dark Mark, Pay10Deep, nor myself are a professional triathletes. I'm not actually Andrew Starykowicz, and not a single professional triathlete is working with us on this publicity stunt.

But don't let the facts get in the way of your story if you feel passionately about it.

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Website
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No Pros no Kona coverage. No Kona coverage no television money and less exposure. Less exposure less people doing wtc events and less prestige for the Ironman (tm) brand. This is freshman level marketing here. Pros are not really racing triathlon, they are just participating in a wtc add campaign that covers a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike then a 26.2 mile run essentially for minimum wage in many cases.

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mikebikefit.com
Facebook: Cordova Bicycle Fitting
F.I.S.T Certified

The PGA has takes in between $1 billion and $2 billion a year and has assets of about $1 billion. So, by that standard there's a pretty good argument that either Ironman pros are overpaid or PGA players are underpaid.

1st: $5000
2nd: $2750
3rd: $1750
4th: $1250
5th: $1000
6th: $750

We have 12 more days.

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Internet User

I would love to see that!

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"the trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight." - Slowman

I feel that this guy tried and failed, but gave it a shot. What was his end game? Win Kona?

I hope that this pro finds a great job, that pays him a healthy salary, doing something they are equally passionate about. Being a pro doesn't last forever and it was going to happen anyway.

So long as they can look in the mirror and say "I gave it my best shot", then it's all good.

Ken

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"the trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight." - Slowman

Responding to no one in particular but a couple things triathletes often overlook

1. Lack of ability to organize a union, its been tried a few times just ZERO organization. Maybe Real Starky can put his efforts there. WTC ambassadors are a voice, but just that, they lack any real power on the athlete side

2. Labor Agreement: Remember when the NFL risked a strike cause the players wanted a hire cap, not to play 18 games, etc. No such agreement exists in triathlon or with the WTC

3. Value: Sorry simply put triathletes are valued much lower and until they are proven to be of more value nothing will change. You cannot just say they "deserve" more money because WTC has that money in their hands. It's like if I was a millionaire and paid my landscaper $15 per hour. That is what I value him at and since he keeps coming to work on my yard I see no reason to raise that price

4. I understand the whole idea of the publicity stunt, raise attention, etc. But no one outside of ST or twitter knows about this, the majority of triathletes in Lake Placid will either not care or not know what is going on.

5. General observation for professional triathletes: Those that know where the prize purses are, find their value outside of prize money, work, etc seem to not care about this or never really complain about the prize money. This is simply a general observation, some do, but for the most part many do not.

Donated.

I would love to see the TRS prize purse exceed the WTC purse and watch athletes hang out at the finish line waiting for some sucker to cross the line before them and take less money. That kind of behavior seems to have sent a message to WTC in the past (a la the time cut-off for payouts that got abolished after a blow-out winner would walk it in so that more folks could get paid).

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I tweet!

You are partially correct, but mostly horribly wrong.

Correct point, we all can't make a living doing what we love. Especially if you love swimming slow and not being able to sing the ABC's without your children shoving forks into their ears.

You wanted to be a pro musician? Neat... do you have the skills, talents and abilities to be a professional musician? Word on the street is that there is actually a lot of money in that profession, if you don't suck... shit even if you do suck (Creed anyone?). So, if you are a triathlete with the skills, talents and overall abilities to be a professional, how is it different than any other sport... suck as "soccer", baseball, basketball, etc...

Oh yeah, you have motivated me to donate. Thanks twatwaffle.

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LAPT Cycling - - - - TriWI Tri Team

WTC will have champion caliber races with larger pro prize purses next year. It will read a good story. But their pro prize purse bucket will remain flat I suspect. Instead of $XXXXXX across 50 races it will be same across 20. Andrew CEO hinted at that with Babbitt on Competitor radio.

This is a great stunt & i like it. Good start to get a louder voice. I mean to stir up shit to create change one has to stir some shit!

Still dumbfounded 7th at LP is not racing Challenge events for real pay.....but that's just me I guess.

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@rhyspencer

If I was a sponsor for that athlete I would drop them in a heartbeat that is not good brand representation. Sacrificing performance for a few bucks shows a lot. I know a point is trying to be made, but that is NOT the way to do it.

Well, it still would be publicity, and unless that sponsor was in fact IM, i bet that you would be wrong.

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LAPT Cycling - - - - TriWI Tri Team

I remember earlier this year when Specialized had publicity "bad" way, all the ST hate on them shows maybe that I am not wrong on this. Who do you want representing your brand, someone that stands at the finish line waiting to cross to collect a few hundred more dollars or someone that really puts its all on the line?

Yes, it would look bad if it were just over a couple of hundred dollars... but the principle is much bigger than that.

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LAPT Cycling - - - - TriWI Tri Team

There's not exactly a fine line between a sponsored athlete garnering publicity by assisting his competitors, and a sponsor company garnering publicity by invading its much smaller competitors with a legal army. People tend to look much more favorably upon the former than they do the latter.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

This sums it up. If the pros didn't race Kona the media and triathlon industry coverage would disappear. No one gives a shit about watching a bunch of the non-best athletes in the sport race in Hawaii. If the pros weren't racing Kona, the void of a championship quality field would be filled very quickly by some other organization and the focus of the triathlon world would immediately shift there. The pros aren't what drives AG'ers to races it's the massive spectacle that they want to be apart of that drives them there and that spectacle is driven by the triathlon industry. The industry that is going to follow wherever the pros go. Kona would be nothing without the pro field and WTC would be begging them to come back if they all walked away and took their participation elsewhere.

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Twitter
Instagram

I would like to learn more about the high altitude training straw that you are offering with a $50 donation. Was it manufactured in a facility that also processes wheat?

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

Twatwaffle - I like that. Thanks for my new word of the day!

Yeah, the Big-S scandal is not really relevant. Standing at the finish line to make a statement about the state of the pro prize purse payout doesn't seem all that objectionable to me. If you have a reasonable margin over the next competitor, be it 1 minute or 5 minutes and you camp out at the finish line to take advantage of a larger prize purse available to a lower-placing finisher, I don't see that as being greedy. Expecting to be compensated for work you've done is not unreasonable. If some aspect of the payment system is unfair, or unreasonable and you're not in a position to negotiate it, sometimes a bit of "civil disobedience" is in order. We saw it happen in 2010 at 70.3 Boulder, when Dibens waited 5 min within feet of the finish line so that others could get paid. The difference there is that she waited so that others could get more, whereas someone waiting on the 7th place line would be seeking more money for themselves, but the principle is still there.

Pro triathletes are not in a position to negotiate for themselves with WTC. They're not organized, they don't all want the same things (some pros were actually in favor of the time rule for prize purses). To even get a discussion started would require the kind of shenanigans that TRS, DarkMark, and Pay10Deep are undertaking, and the value of their work would be amplified by a higher-finishing pro eschewing the WTC prize purse in favor of a potentially larger TRS purse.

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously for something that got started by a parody account, but there's a very real aspect to all this. To amateurs it's just a stunt, but I can't imagine there are too many pros that would turn down cold hard cash when they otherwise would have gotten nothing except a pat on the back.

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I tweet!

There are a lot of IFS here . .If pros didnt race Kona, IF the pros didnt do this or that . .well they DO. thats the problem with these fools. They complain about KONA and the prize purses but they come right back to it despite that.

Do you really think WTC makes that much money from the KONA broadcast? belive me its peanuts. a 4:30 PM saturday broadcast? not exactly prime time.

do you really think that pros influence which AG'rs races where? how is that even possible if pros gnerally sign up a few months to even a few weeks before a WTC event and AG'ers sign up well over a year ahead of time with no info on what pros will be racing.

I think its safe to assume the bucket lister 15 hour finisher that pays for the VIP package, buys $500 of paraphrenali at the expo, etc could care less about pros . .all they want is the Tshirt and the bragging rights on facebook. pros or not dont have anything to do with where the REAL money comes from which is the 2500+ AG'ers to each event that just want the WTC "ironman experiance"

Hey! I'm a recovering parody account. Just earned my 4 month chip, as I haven't done actual Starykowicz parody in that many months. I've evolved.

Otherwise, I agree 100% with everything you said. Class move by Dibens. Didn't know about that.

Carry on.

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