Andrew90 wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:
OK, Frodo's results for swim+bike and positions the last 3 year rolling back 2016, 2015, 2014.....Frodo's always second out of the water and then in striking distance off the bike (unless of course he flats and gets a penalty like back in 2014). So now that we have beaten the Frodo run thread to death, with the big X on his back, looks like the we will see him basically repeat what he does to T2....get to T1 in second, and then toy around with everyone for 112 miles, mess around with their heads and let them burn all kinds of matches trying to surge/break/attack and then get to T2 within striking range of all the overbikers....well unless Lange employs pretty well the same strategy and comes in just behind Frodo. Basically everyone else other than these two have to roll the dice and put the hammer down at some point on the swim-bike (remember the year Kienle overswam and stayed with the front pack on the swim and was cooked on the bike).
I think with Frodo's swim strength, it get's into the heads of everyone. They all probably over swim a bit and over bike early just to stay close to him because they are afraid of the train to T2 leaving right after Palani on the bike and missing the entire thing. Meanwhile Frodo can swim in cruise control and just wait around for all of these guys to burn matches and pick him up and then he can bike even easier sitting legally while these guys try to break him.
So Monty, being the Kona course swim expert, what's the analysis of how much all these guys overcook the swim and overcook it early in the bike?
It's gonna take a Macca-2010 like coup to dethrone Jan. I find it hard to see where they will be able to upset him, but better believe people will try!
You gotta believe that Sebi and Sanders are working on the coup. But Jan could have a counter coup up his sleeve. He swims with Amberger and then the two of them get picked up by Wurf and they get on as passengers behind the Wurf Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train). Now you have Jan out couping the coup coalition. Jan gets to T2 in 48 min swim + 2min T2 + 4:17 bike. He hits Alii drive at 5:09 race time. He could basically moon walk the entire lava fields after that, and still have a chance at a sub 8 after that. How do you beat that counter coup? Good luck with that. Jan just got blessed with the IM Cairns front train to tow him along all day to the fastest ever combined time to T2.
At Cairns Josh did 47 + 4:17 and Wurf did 49 + 4:15. This is the front bullet train in Kona assuming these Aussie boys are on form. I don't see why Jan can't go with that.
I actually don't hope this scenario materializes and ideally Lionel and Sebi can ride through the field including riding past Jan, drop him and latch on to the Aussies in the front and do the full blown 2010 Macca coup, but I don't think this is possible if you do the simple math in terms of catching Wurf. Mainly for them, I hope they can ride past Jan and pick up Josh and let Wurf be a race non factor and go on the suicide mission.