Screwed up?

He's an Olympic gold medallist, 70.3 and IM world champion, all within a couple of years.

Afaik according to his coach this may be his last year in triathlon as he's going to do other sports.

He did everything right if that's the case. Won it all in a short space of time and left the LC world looking like lemons.

Only here could one suggest he's "screwed up". Bonkers.

He doesn't need to prove anything to anybody, like some other racers fighting for Olympic qualification. A lot depends whether somebody has been trying to peak for Yokohama / Cagliari. Yokohama could've easily been a mid-build test out / dry run for KB, like Cagliari might be for some others.

KB is my main pick for Paris gold medal. Here's why:
- he's improved back his swimming to be in the front pack or very close to it (tick)
- he's always been a strong cyclist (tick)
- he's improved back or exceeded his previous VO2max, and it doesn't matter if it's 104 or 90 ml/kg/min (something Olaf sacrificed in KB and Gustav for the sake of economics, to perform on full IM-distance level), which has a direct impact on his run (tick)
- he didn't need to have spectacular results prior to Tokyo
- he & his coach know exactly how the pathway to Paris needs to look, by more-or-less copying what they did in 2021

Kristian is an excellent athlete, but he's overhyped.

People forget how close short course races are at the top level. There's not that much difference in fitness between Kristian the Olympic champion and Kristian the top 10 WTCS finisher.

Oh, and the videos about triple digit VO2max and stuffing sensors up his bum are a pure hype factory. Blu is a master troll.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Big Blu still has a chance of Gold, he was less than 60 seconds away from 1st today but these ITU fields are just so stacked that there can be 10-15 people inside a minute.

Hes a great runner but there are a few of the younger lighter guys on the circuit that can outrun him when fresh. He needs the bike in Paris to be really really hard to take the edge off these guys , and then he's right in the hunt.

Serious question....will there even be a swim leg in Paris? The Seine continues to be a swamp. Or will they proactively move the tri and open water to another venue in France?


It seems that the chance of KB winning gold is much higher than having a swim at the Olympic games in the triathlon at Paris!

are there actually betting houses with those bets? Maybe not yet, but they'll come!

They’ve said there is no plan b and I highly doubt it’ll be a duathlon. Much more likely that the measurement that needs to be taken just so happens to be taken just as a bunch of fresh water is dumped in at just the right location. /pink maybe.

Triple digit vo2?? If he, or anyone, is anywhere near that then they have found a new doping protocol the testers haven't. Surely those numbers are all faked/highly exaggerated, not even true.

I don’t think he is the favorite - I don’t believe it is possible to go IM and not lose a little off your fastball. At the same time, it would not shock me if he podiums in Paris. Some of it depends on how the race plays out, but I definitely put him in the top 10 for guys who could podium.

To your question, if the Olympics was his only focus I think going long “screwed it up” in the sense that he traded incredible LC success for a small percentage off his short course ability. I also think he is fine with that.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Lol, Slowtwitch never fails to deliver. Olympic gold medalist, 70.3 world champion, IM world champion... Makes the transition from short course to long course look effortless and this clown thinks he is overhyped... Wow..

Id love to hear your thoughts on the real hype trains like Sam Long, Lionel and LCB then...? Heck even add in Sam Laidlow, pretty much every other triathlete for that matter. Besides Frodo who has come close to achieving what he has?

Nobody is questioning the difficulty of what Blu has achieved. That is however different from hype (assuming his qualities are above everyone else’s, that he can “suffer harder”, that he is more exact and scientific than anybody else, etc.) or ascribing him superhuman qualities. To assume he is going to come back and, unless something goes wrong, win another Olympics, is hype.

He has done something nobody else has done (the pace of transition to long course world championship and a comeback to world class short course level), but that doesn’t make other short course athletes take a bow instead of throwing everything they have at him. And what they have, in terms of fitness, is very very similar to what he has.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Doing what basically very very few athletes have done in itself is the definition of exceptional.....Blu is exceptional in every aspect of the definition.

So semantics aside if Blu is overhyped who in your opinion is worthy of the 'hype'....

Just like the water temp in Singapore was 0.1deg under the cancellation temp for both the men's and women's races. No way they are cancelling the swim, or the 10k OWS.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Still the best dad bod athlete of all time. He'll be ready come Paris.

Reads like almost every post about Lionel.
.

Being able to defy the laws of physics, and killing one of the basic principles of training can never be over-hyped. Over running a faster runner that is 20 kgs thinner in the worst conditions to dissipate heat (very high temp and extremely high humidity) is but one example. Being able to excel at sprint distance and one month later at ironman distance would be another one. Anybody remember when specificity was a key training principle?

Something like this was done in a pro race in Vegas and they also had indoor tris in France, But with a short swim it was like a swim meet . Here is the Bordeaux Indoor tri 1993, but if you are going to use that, just use one of the local 10 lane 50m pools, start in lane 6, send them off TT format, return to lane 1 and do all 10 and then just record the times, and then move them to T1, and send them off one by one based on swim time delta. Suddenly the swim and bike will become more meaningful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxJ8EkAIODo

I think Blu would win hands down in the format I propose (not that anyone would change the format) and that would have always favoured Jan

I have 0 doubt in Kristian. His results speak for themselves

I think it's a combination of things. In order :
-incredible drive, commitment and sacrifices
-tons and tons of work,
-great genetics,
-a scientific approach.

I used to believe some of the scientific hype, but recently they have published some numbers that are so questionable, I don't bother looking at any of it anymore. That part is hype IMO, not his achievements.

Will he move on to another sport ? Not likely IMO.
-he still has things to prove (eg Kona),
- this is too lucrative,
- another sport (cycling) will not be as lucrative and he will be far from the top.

If he went to cycling, wouldn't he just be a grinder like Wurf, breaking wind for others. I don't see him having the fast twitch to be a sprinter, and I don't see him being light enough to be a GC guy in the mountains. He would be in the category of Spencer Smith when he had a brief switch over to the Linda McCartney racing team (for those who recall). Kind of like the track stars who try NFL. There is more to pro cycling than pure engine and your genetics and body type need to be in line with the position to play on the team. Seems like Blu would just be the grinder on a team day in and day out. Useful on the team, but what's he getting out of it?

Too much to lose switching from tris.

Beautiful example of the hype I'm talking about.

Let me stick with the laws of physics.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Ya, it's just too bad that the "powers that be" would not do this kind of race. I've watched that Bordeaux race about 5-6 times. IIRC, Brad Beven does the run bare-footed and wins due to his super fast T2. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Laws of physics?? Lol...

So the smallest guy should always win in the heat? Lucky no one ever told Frodo that...

Have you ever seen Frodo in real life? He's as skinny as it gets. Better example would be Sam Long or Seb Kienle.