This is the shit that will cause a billionaire to just say "yeah screw that, i'm going to another sand box to play in". Which is why I always wondered, ok this was a awesome event but then what....is this all SL will be? An event as long as the billionaire is footing the bill? How many sponsors were on board this past weekend? I think 4 commercials I saw, and atleast 1 was an in sport sponsor (bo box or whatever gel thing that Macca was advertising).

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

Jordan,

Thanks for sharing this. Would not have seen it otherwise. I agree - fair and totally valid points by the ITU President.

One point I am a little fuzzy on - the original Formula-1 series that obviously inspired the Super League event, and which Marisol Casado mentioned - she said it was an event put on by the Australian Triathlon Federation. Just wondering about that. Would it not have been put on by a private event management company, with with ATF sanctioning? That is a significant difference.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

ITU should be proactively marketing the advantages of drug testing, gender equality and expanding the global tri market rather than publically complaining about companies who do it differently. There is little to no effort in the article to justify why the ITUs approach is actually good for the sport. Even if the benefits are (or should be) obvious by choosing not to state them and to rather focus on bashing the competition strikes a bad chord. It feels like the ITU is saying: 'We are losing money by supporting female athletes and drug testing athletes so YOU should be losing money too!' which in my opinion is the wrong message for a governing body to be sending.

The ITU has a point. I get it that by hosting a men's only event in a market where Tri has strong roots and not spending extra on things like drug testing SuperLeague is clearly not taking in risks and maximizing immediate profit at the expense of other vales. But as the governing body of the sport the ITU has to take to moral high ground and they are making a killing off it (just look at all the complaint threads about the cost of the AG world champs). How you say something is at least as important as what you say and it feels like the ITU gave little thought as to how they addressed their grievances.

OTOH, Leonid Boguslavsky may well be flattered that the first high-profile tri he bankrolled resulted in a column by the ITU prez!

I admit, I never wondered while watching last weekend whether "the boys" had been or were going to be drug tested related to the event. That won't be the case at the next Super League event I watch.

Promoting the advantages of drug testing, gender equality and expanding the global tri market is basically all the ITU does. Marisol's blog post didn't strike me as complaining. It brought up some very valid points. Watching the race last weekend, I didn't once stop to think "I wonder how much testing is being done pre- or post-race?" And I'm glad that Marisol has brought that up. Keep in mind she did so on her personal blog, which I commend her for. It'd be great to see the sport's other leaders, like Messick, sharing their personal views in such a way.

From my experience in working with Marisol and ITU, I can assure you that they don't view SuperLeague as a threat or competition. The ITU will support any event that helps triathlon reach more people and getting the sport broadcast is one of their core missions. But so are gender equality and clean sport. So if Marisol sees SuperLeague as doing one of these things really well and two very poorly, good on her for pointing it out and starting a conversation.

Brad Culp
@bbculp

I could not stop laughing when she mention anti doping. Marisol Casado is a member of IOC, one of the most corrupt group of people in sport.
IOC has not little to combat doping.

She is maybe in ITU, but she is a IOC member.

No comments on the two different fonts?

I was trying to be nice...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Good article but clearly from a perspective of a competitor, whether she stated they aren't or not. It had me thinking a bit about each of her points.


No Women .... From the coverage on this topic it came down to getting the top females who were invited to sign on. They committed to it later in the year so why this is an issue is beyond me. It came down to logistics not gender bias. Also perhaps now that the women have seen the event they will be more keen to sign up. Also there was the top ladies being all pregnant this year, Rachel Joyce, Rinny, Gwen, Nicola, etc. If we want the best it would have to include all or some of these ladies.

Drug Testing .... With all of these athletes competing in the ITU/IOC sanctioned events they can be almost certain they will have been tested. This is simple economics, why spend money on a test that's being done by another party. Going forward they will however need to put something in place but at this point it's nitpicking at best.

We have to keep things in perspective here and that is this was a "Test event" to feel out the feasibility of such a venture. Reduce cost, logistics, and work on getting some advertisers on board from outside the triathlon/endurance industry. Having viewership numbers and other metrics will allow them to go into meetings with big advertisers possible. They can back their claims that the money spent will hit a high number of viewers of a certain type and age group etc. We are in a data-centric world, especially in advertising industry so this was a very smart move on their part. It compliments the other events being in the fall as well because now they can shop themselves around with proven data.

What I'd like to know is if the spectators had to purchase a ticket to watch, especially at the finish line/transition. Those are premium seating and could fetch a healthy amount of money from people who are passionate about our sport. If this is to be the "Premier League" of triathlon why are we allowing it to begin with the same flawed paradigm that Professional cycling is using. This is an important thing to nip in the bud because once you give things away for free the willingness to shell out for it will be a difficult hurdle to get past.

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"

Having viewership numbers and other metrics will allow them to go into meetings with big advertisers possible.

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I think only in US were viewers forced to watch through the online/YouTube channel. Aussie was apparently on paid cable and not sure how Europe telecast was..

But here are the YouTube numbers:

Day 1 full broadcast: 15,756 views
Day 2 full broadcast: 14,857 views
Day 3 full broadcast: 7,611 views



Now I've heard nothing but great things but I also noticed what 3 or 4 sponsors and one of them was a gel company. Not who you can build an expensive endeavor on.

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

Not sure what you mean by "forced" since that would easily be my preferred method of watching.

Forced- when only method of watching race is 1 format. It was not picked up by any US tv stations from what I was told and read in other threads. Therefore only option was online.

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

I watched it live, on (pay) tv in Vietnam. Part of FoxSports 2. I never watch tv apart from Formula 1 (car racing), but I stayed home to watch this (timing was quite convenient for us as well). I would have also happily watched via Facebook (which I did at one stage) or YouTube. However, if you would ask me whether I would pay an additional say US$ 15 to just watch this race, I don't think I would.

The no women in this race was explained by Macca as well prior to the event, if Marisol would have read or watched the interviews and facebook site she could have known it's in the works for later, so no deliberate action from SuperLeague I would think.

I watched it on cable TV in the USA. Not live, but a dleayed 1.5-2 hr package for each day. I think it was on beIN Sports.

Marisol how does your start order for teams tag reflect equality. (it's a bugbear of mine)

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

So SuperLeague just spit off a bunch of tweets.

They say the race was sanctioned by Triathlon Australia. But in order to have drug testing on site, doesn't the race/RD have to request/pay upfront for onsite testing? Just because your sanctioned by a governing body, doesn't mean your race is clean. It's then really no different than the local sprint I'm doing on Sunday.

Or am I missing something? I don't really understand how ITU and the IOC work with testing. Never really done the research.

I did also notice the tweeted that the series will run from October to March. So no more races until October?

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blog

Sour grapes from the effin ITU.

Seriously, this was their first crack at this and the OUT DID the ITU on so many fronts. Creative fairer more exciting format, Much higher quality coverage than the ITU....and she bitches about not having drug testing all figured out and not quite getting the women's event lined out in time.

She and the ITU look petty.

How long has the ITU been around and what innovations have they introduced?..... Drafting, a relay, and (gasp!) Sprint distance..F them.

Keep going SL

These critiques encompass why I wasn't excited about this event...it doesn't have the organizational structure to show that it's a long-term commitment. It was designed for the wow factor without building in "sustainable infrastructure" (drug testing, a women's race, etc.) that was clearly unimportant to Macca and a large chunk of fans.

I remember being very excited about the Bahrain million-dollar challenge, but I also remember long-time veterans expressing skepticism because of the history of one-off big-prize events that fold after a couple of years. And we saw that with Bahrain--some basic boneheaded organizational blunders quickly sunk the series.

So until SuperLeague shows they're serious about being a long-term event that improves the sport as a whole, I'm adopting GW Bush's motto: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, won't get fooled again."

That's what I watched it on.

Steve what issue are you talking about?

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

This is true. BUT that doesn't help with actual substances that could be taken that are short acting and that would offer a huge benefit over a three-day multi-stage affair. Yes, you can probably rely on the fact that many of these guys (though I'd bet not all) are tested semi-regularly by their own NADOs. So maybe you can say, "okay, they're in the clear" for things that are long-acting (e.g. EPO). At the same time, not having IC testing opens the door wide for stimulants, which would be a clear help for races like this. I also don't know enough about EPO/testosterone/etc to know if they can be short acting enough to help with recovery over a three day event in between stages, but something like homologous blood doping (obviously that might be a bit hard to cover up on a small island surrounded by your closest competitors) certainly could.

But really, the easiest/simplest reason - and need - for testing is for stimulants. Three days of all out racing. You don't think amphetamines would be a MASSIVE advantage there? And relying on OOC testing done by other parties does nothing for you there...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

 
I've never liked it how ITU stipulate the starting order as F-M-F-M. I know a lot of people say it makes no difference, but the vast majority of images used by media are of the person crossing the line. They've gotten better at it of recent years (I've been watching the images used since it's inception in the mid 2000's), they'll incorporate a pic of the entire team these days, but it is still the case that the 'winner' gets their image used predominantly.

The fact is, its written into the ITU rules, start order must be F-M-F-M. If they were truly invested in equality, it would rotate yearly.

It's only a small issue, but one that's been brought up with them multiple times and they choose to ignore. And as to Marisol's comments, I feel they're not appropriate, SL put on an amazing show, ITU have been doing this for 28 years now, the WTS is nearly a decade old, but SL stepped up alongside them (some would say a better production) at their first attempt.

SB.

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

I agree with you and these are all good points that are hard to argue. I suppose if somebody wants to cheat they will get away with it in that case. My larger argument was more about if you were a billionaire investing in this would you want to incur that cost for a event which really is the "Proof of concept". Those types of minds are only thinking about three little letters ... ROI

Again great points though, which we can always count on you for!

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"Train so you have no regrets @ the finish line"

It goes back go AC's thoughts on SL. I don't look at SL as anything but an all star style event. The same way I never really cared when a pitcher grooves a fastball for the hitter or hockey lets up in their all star events.

I think wondering if SL was doing doping controls or not kinda misses why a billionaire invests in this whole process. SL was setup to showcase fast short racing. You think they care to make sure their winner is doing it clean? Yawn, they want to provide world class field w world class production. As you mentioned "drug testing"....they are thinking "meh live that to others to worry over".

Which is why I said all that "drama" just will cause the money man to split. Which is what I'd think will happen regardless. I think the event was done tremendously well. But if the YouTube views are any indication of interest, they won't get the financial backing they need.

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