1500 run

Are these the USAT ITU recruiting standards??? If so, the run time seems relatively less stringent than the swim, as the AR for the 500 is 4:08 vs the WR for the 1500 run is 3:27.

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

Exactly this, look at super league, he made some serious gaps over 400m!

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

I'll try to explain further. If a NF has a strategy of attempting to identify talented female teenagers and train them to be internationally successful triathletes, they may find that there is a high rate of failure to progress from talented teen to talented senior. Whereas if a NF has a talent id program to look for 21-22 year old women (like the USAT collegiate recruitment program) more of the identified athletes are likely to improve enough to be successful at the senior level. If the same strategy is applied to men, a NF which recruits 21-22 year old men might find that its athletes never are able to improve to a level to be competitive on the international scene whereas a NF which identifies 17-18 year old boys is successful.

I don't really know how exactly other NF's try to find athletes to win medals but if I look at the results list for Leeds and compare US and AUS it seems like there is a fundamental difference in strategy. Spivey, Kasper, Cook, Backhouse, McShane, Gentle all born 1990-91. I would consider all these women to be in reasonably the same talent level at this point in time, ie all capable of WTS top 10s commonly and podiums occasionally. The first international race results: Spivey 2014, Kasper 2014, Cook 2014, Backhouse 2010, McShane 2006, Gentle 2007. Looking back at Rio, the US strategy seems more successful. Looking ahead to Tokyo, it sure looks like these three US women have more potential upside that the Australian women, but time will tell.

One could propose many potential reasons for the discrepancy in talent between the US men and women: maybe the style of racing is at different stages (particularly on the bike), maybe men require more years of specific tri training compared to women, maybe women burn out at a faster rate than men, and many others. (We could go on, this is an internet forum and speculation is encouraged.) The answer is likely multifactorial. But I propose that one significant reason is essentially selection bias.

Those are the standards that I think 5-10 graduating HS seniors can achieve per year. But I don't really know. Don't focus too much in the numbers, my real point is that I don't think the US system works as well for men.

So what I'm really saying is that it's much more on the men to go "all in" quicker and be on the hook much more than the woman for what it's worth. I guess that is the cost of doing business/reality check. ETA: that is the ultimate in high performance. Those that are good enough will be good, those that don't will be shuffled out the back w little notice.

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

One could propose many potential reasons for the discrepancy in talent between the US men and women: maybe the style of racing is at different stages (particularly on the bike), maybe men require more years of specific tri training compared to women, maybe women burn out at a faster rate than men, and many others. (We could go on, this is an internet forum and speculation is encouraged.) The answer is likely multi-factorial. But I propose that one significant reason is essentially selection bias.

Can you expand on what you mean by "selection bias"??? I know what this term means in general but I don't quite see how it applies in the case of ITU recruitment.

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

Yes. Yes I am! Normally I skip huge chunks of the bike, but not this one. Quite the performance by Ali to gut it out until they got to the "safety" of the technical section.

I don't like him, but man do I respect his competitive drive!

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

you guys have been tiptoeing around the gorilla in the room. the very simple reason is that women's itu is nowhere near as competitive as men's itu so an american woman can go off to college on a running or swimming scholarship for 4 (or 5) years, get tapped on the shoulder by barb at graduation and within a year or 2 after no triathlon training for years (or ever) be swimming FOP and landing on ITU podia. this scenario has been repeated many times over the past 5 years. compare that to the men's side. the Bs, gomez, mola, etc all have been triathlon training exclusively since their teens (or earlier) and have tens of thousands of hours up on anyone who starts exclusive tri training when they are 22. that group has had a vice-like grip on itu podia and nobody who has picked up triathlon in their 20s has come anywhere near crashing their party.

I think you're being way too simplistic here. Yes, the depth isn't there you just have to look at U23 start sheets at worlds the past 5 years, I think it was Chicago or Edmonton perhaps there were less than 25 on the start sheet?

However running with your chain of thought; the same girl who is racing triathlon (successfully) at 13 alongside the Brownlees hits puberty and either i) realises over 2-3 years she's getting slower not faster due to body type realisation, or ii) fights the body through 15-19, and ends up with low bone density and the consequent stress fractures through 19-24 that we see so often in U23/talent athletes.

It's far more complicated than you're attempting to paint it on the girls side.

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http://www.sweat7.com
Facebook Page: Sweat7
Twitter: @sweat7coaching

it's not far more complicated. it's actually very simple. the competition at the itu level for women is a mere fraction of what it is for men, which explains how the US can pluck 22 year old women with zero triathlon background and have them podiuming within a couple of years. that is basically impossible on the men's side (not just for the US but the entire world). there are many reasons why this is the case, and we can discuss them, but you first have to come to grips with this very basic fact. i'm not sure what you were attempting to accomplish by mentioning a hypothetical female who is fast at 13, flat-lines and then quits the sport.

why do i have to look at the start sheets from an undercard race from 2 or 3 years ago to determine whether or not the elite side of men's itu TODAY is vastly more competitive than the women's side? duffy won yokohama by almost 2 minutes (after basically TTing the bike and jogging it in the last 1/4 mile). when was the last time a men's itu race was won by over a minute by someone doing all the work on the bike and then high fiving the end of the run? they are death marches from the opening gun with a varga-led swim and then a hammerfest on the bike with some combination of the Bs, gomez, mola and murray either at the front of closing in on the front. all of those guys are super talented and have been in the sport for > 10 years each. it doesn't leave much room for anyone else to crash the podium party. please show me where the equivalent of that crew is on the women's side.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're stating I know the racing isn't to the same level, it never has been but its far more emphasised these past years with the Brownlees specifically.

I just don't like how you're framing it stating "all of those guys are super talented" - guess what the girls are super talented too. My point is there is a whole raft of other issues you're painting over with the argument boys are more talented because they've been in it for longer and the depth is therefore far deeper. Girls are not boys and boys are not girls.

Why can the US talent ID at 21/22 and have relatively quick success? Because of the different maturational pathways of boys and girls.

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http://www.sweat7.com
Facebook Page: Sweat7
Twitter: @sweat7coaching

This makes a lot of sense, it does seem a particular bleak year for womens ITU though with all the top women either pregnant, injured or horribly out of form.

 it doesn't leave much room for anyone else to crash the podium party.

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It will be very interesting to see what exactly the qualification process will be for the MTR and how federation's handle that. Whether or not athletes will have to qualify in individual race to make MTR roster or if itu/IOC allows free reign to the qualified nations to fill their roster; however each federation sees best.

Hopefully this gets MLT and sponsor incentives to keep that style of racing for the pros now. Pretty much needs more sponsors to make it viable in my view, but maybe they can get it w MTR as part of Olympic package now.

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