Got a message from a buddy who raced and he said the drafting was ridiculous when not climbing. Like you noted, some of it is intentional but a lot is not. When you get that many fast people of similar ability it's just going to happen.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

I was as an AG racer on the Saturday, then a spectator on the Sunday.

It was my first 70.3, and a tough course! Generally the bike is my strongest leg, but I got caught in traffic on the first half. While trying to ride without drafting I ended up having to accelerate and decelerate a whole lot, which made the climb tougher, and by the last third of the bike I was cooked! Just about everyone I spoke to said they had a similar experience. Saw plenty of peletons in operation through the ride, didn't seem to bother the officials all that much.

But what a beautiful course. Absolutely stunning. If I ever come back to the area I'd just do it as a ride to take it all in at a slower pace.

Spectating was a lot of fun - I watched the pros on the out and back section of the run. Terrific to get right up close to them all.

Then, when the age groupers were coming through I found a spot in one of the alleyways in Zell Am See and spent 90mins or so shouting encouragement at the athletes. It was a great atmosphere, enjoyable in its own right and very inspiring. I felt I could have done much better the day before, and although it didn't upset me in the slightest, just watching the WC has got me itching to get back to training to get better and better.

A really enjoyable first M-dot experience!

How did you qualify? Didn't realize there were other ways to get to 70.3 Worlds other than WTC 70.3 races.

I'll second that but did find the drafting too bad.....there were a few narrow spots....and its going to bunch.

The whole setup was prefect...picture prefect swim,smooth roads, fast bike course, hard run. Amazing!!!! Im alway amazed at how hard/fast the racing is here. Not a dog in the bunch.

Saturday's race was a regular 70.3.

Nice job dude. Pretty cool that these WC courses are no longer just flat hamster wheels!

Go drink all the wine.

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

That's brilliant. I mistakenly thought they had already separated AG men and women races on Sat and Sun. Looks like it was a fantastic course.

The worst drafted race every year is the IM 70.3 World Championships. It does not matter what the course it.

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Proud Member of Chris McDonald's 2018 Big Sexy Race Team "That which doesn't kill me, will only make me stronger"
Blog-Twitter-Instagram-Race Reports - 2018 Races: IM Florida 70.3, IM Raleigh 70.3, IM 70.3 World Championships - South Africa, IM North Carolina 70.3

Clearwater - yes
Mont-Tremblant - yes
Zell am See - yes

What about the Vegas course? I didn't hear as much complaining when it was there.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Vegas 2011 there were some pretty big packs, mostly the younger guys
Vegas 2013 was the year it rained. I saw much less
MT 2014 was the worst of the 3 I did.

I did Vegas in 2013. It was the worst drafting in any race I've ever done. It's the racers, not the course.

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Proud Member of Chris McDonald's 2018 Big Sexy Race Team "That which doesn't kill me, will only make me stronger"
Blog-Twitter-Instagram-Race Reports - 2018 Races: IM Florida 70.3, IM Raleigh 70.3, IM 70.3 World Championships - South Africa, IM North Carolina 70.3

Thankfully next year's race isn't super flat or anything. ;-)

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Agreed, fantastic world class venue. My perspective is from M55 starting at 1141 with women F55 and up and women's age groupers ahead of and behind me. I only saw one small all female peloton enroute to the climb. After that it was a very clean ride with just a couple of drafters here and there. I heard there was a lot of drafting in the younger men's groups. It took everything I had to get my old, Florida flatlander ass up the mountain and it destroyed me. But what an experience in the most beautiful setting. I hate drafters but those who pass on worlds because of it do themselves no favors. You come, YOU race clean, and you don't worry about others.

Just wanted to chip in with my experiences from yesterday!
Great race, great venue, great support and all, however 2 things were terrible off today!

1) INSANE draftpacks! I was passed by several groups of 30-40 people 100% bluntly drafting! Worst part is that the refs were there and did nothing! Its NOT okay and especially not at a Championship event. The 5 min didnt seem to be enough of a penalty! Its cheating, its obvious, its deliberate and its not okay!
2) the start at 11-12AM was probably made for the live coverage, but it was not 'safe' this year. I know that the last 4 years the weather have been 15-18 degrees and then it is okay, but with the 33 degrees hear at 2PM, you saw people dropping left and right. Combined with the drafts it made it a Championship where very few AG could do anything on the run and thus it became a WC for the riders (who could rest in a pack and run 1:25)...

In my oppinion its a shame for the sport, but I know its tough to change...

Also - I did like that the race announcers were making fun about saying 'Ni Hao' and trying Chinese in the morning :)

I think the racing was great.....super hard, super fun. I did see any more or any less drafting then normal.

But this is slowtwitch and we'll find something to bitch about.....prefect day!

I was racing the normal 70.3 on Saturday. It was cool because I started in M30 and got to pass people from other agegroups (and all the women) all day. There was hardly any drafting. Mostly I think because the top of the field wasn't as dense because of the WC the day after.
Here's my race-file if anybody cares: https://flow.polar.com/...g/analysis/193647156

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if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!

I agree this was my first 70.3 in 15 years on Saturday and did not get to see any packs out there. It was busy on the narrow sections and on the climbs but most made and effort to stay out of the drafting zone, beautiful course and venue!

Glad to hear the race on Saturday was pretty clean. On Sunday, At least in the glob of M25-39 riders that were all mixed together, it was rampant. I am trying not to let it bother me and focus on the positives of the experience which far out-weigh the frustrations from the drafting.

I noticed on the results today, as I moved up several places, that there are 13 DQ's in the M35-39 age group! I wonder what they were DQ'd for?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Actually in the 50-54 we had an amazing clean race at Zelle, much more clean than in Vegas. I was riding through 45-49's 40-44's, 35-39's and kept moving through with no one latching on and in my age group, the guys were really amazing droping back and giving space. I had a pretty bad swim for 70.3 World's (31.40 which is 40 seconds slower than my last few 70.3's where I end up swimming mainly solo, but at WC's I should have more people to draft off in the swim). On the bike though it was clear sailing. My ride time was 2:33 (2:34 chip time) with >1000m of climbing. The bike course really was awesome. The course was much better than Tremblant for breaking things up. I did not expect much on the run and barely ran most of it at a fast IM clip as I spent the week riding in the mountains in Italy and expected my run to be slow (which it was...1:44.xx) and squeeked in at 4:58 (sub 5 was my goal on that course). I liked the run course for overall for atmosphere. I'll have a full report later

In the the front of the younger age groups it would be another story. Just too many really strong guys just like in Kona. In the bottom 2/3 of the young age groups and In the older men's age groups and women's age groups, this course would have rendered a very clean race. I already told Jimmy that 7 min spacing between waves would be better (they could have just started 20 min earlier) and using the entire 2 lanes of road that was closed would have helped. For some reason, the officials were squeezing us into 1 lane which was WRONG because we were supposed to use the full 2 lanes.

I spoke with Jimmy Riccitello about this 10m after I crossed the finish line (he just happened to be there) and he was somewhat pissed that officials on course were squeezing us into one lane. The reason they had both lanes closed was so we could use the entire tarmac. This goes back to a conversation I had with Jimmy post IM Tremblant 70.3 WC's last year and he said, "I realize it gets narrow in Tremblant and that causes a lot of bunching....in Austria, we have approval for the full 2 lanes of road". Well they had the 2 lanes but some POWERTRIP OFFICIALs overstepped their boundaries and and enforced the center line rule WHEN THERE WAS NO CENTER LINE. That line in the middle of the road could have been painted over. It was like the Tour de France where we get the entire road, but clearly some officials did not know. On the climb I was way over on the left over the center line, passing guys and the moto asked me to move over. The reason I was not originally there was because I did not want people latching on. I was passing them much faster and was using clear road and was using the entire road we were given rather than getting stuck behind for an opening to make a pass.

By the way my entire way to the base of the climb there were like 3-4 motos around us and there were motos constantly in our vicinity after the climb too.

GMAN19030 this offers another perspective. From a competitive angle, this year, I found that it was a really fair race. In my age group, I can honestly say that everyone who beat me is just a better athlete. They were not guys getting tows to T2. I can look up and down the list and recognize around 75% of the guys who were faster (I was 41st in my age group) and they are faster than me in every other race we are in.

At the race briefing after the welcome dinner, all I heard several times was DQ for crossing the center line anywhere on the course. So imagine what I thought every time I someone on the other side?! First, I thought it was the usual Ironman speech about rules they never enforce. Second, I looked at those people as cheaters as much drafters. I would have loved to cross but was riding a clean race according to the rules presented. Not calling you a cheater given you had different knowledge, but I sure felt that way at the time. Also...saw maybe 2 refs the entire ride. Yadda, yadda, yadda, "drafting is cheating" speech but no enforcement...My typical experience. On the other hand, my son told me the Penalty Box in Zell was full before I arrived.

To be fair, the only place I felt I needed to use the whole road to pass was on the climb. By the way at the English briefing at 1 pm, they never mentioned an issue using the entire road. They said the entire road was closed to traffic. In any case, elsewhere on the course from the big climb it was a clear shot staying right of the center line where I was in 50-54, BUT I think in the younger age groups if they had the opportunity to use both lanes, a lot of the drafting packs would have naturally never formed.

From what I recall the only place they insisted that we can't use the road was the short 1K out and back where there was 2 way traffic. Everywhere else on the course was 1 way traffic and double lane road for us. Jimmy and the people doing the race briefing and the officials should have gotten coordinated. Jimmy has been pushing for 2 lane courses to alleviate the congestion problems so it si too bad that they finally got a 2 lane course and officials and race announcers stuck to normal rules. this is not a normal race, this a championship race....just like Kona, the draft packs are brutal when you have single lane in town, but as soon as it gets onto the QueenK a lot of congestion breaks up when there are 2 lanes (not saying the drafting goes away, but it gets somewhat better).

I seem to remember at the 1pm English meeting they announced that crossing the center line was a DQ. BTW, though we have never met, I was sitting in the Porsche Center eating a plate of chicken stew and heard them announce your finish over the speaker in the room! I have seen it so much here on ST that it just jumped out at me.

Something interesting I noticed in my AG, M35-39. I was 147th of 236 finishers, so in the bottom half. But 7th out of 29 Americans, in the top 25%. Did we Americans under-perform? What's the reason? (I know you're canadian, but you might have insight!)

Also - no one commented above on 13 DQ's in my AG. Seems really high. Does anyone know what most of the DQ's were about?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I think we fat, lazy, and overworked Americans are typically surprised in this fashion when we go race elsewhere :) Even more so at higher-stakes races! What was your relative AG/US-AG placing in Norway a couple years ago?

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Eliot
blog thing - strava thing

In Norway in 2013 I was 18th out of 167 M35-39 with a 4:32:12. 1st out of 3 American finishers. Not enough resolution to tell.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook