I guess since there is nothing really productive coming fron the original thread and Dan ,rightly so ,is already moving away from it. Brandon's post kind of shows, why I always think the truth is between Sutton and Dan wether pros should make money from sponosrship or racing. It needs to be a mix.
Here we have an athlete that Dan called an model athlete to be sponsored, who works really hard for his sponsors, yet the truth is its very hard for those athletes to make the money from sponsorship, as well.
Michael is certainly a talented athlete at the same time if Bjorn and Brandom had taken the same way Michael kindly admits between the lines, where would those athletes be now?
I wager they could most likely have doubled their maybe trippled their income around 2005.
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-BrandonMarshTX wrote:
Slowman wrote:
if you look at the list of athletes in your post, fine me ONE who we have not interviewed on slowtwitch. is there one? i can't think of one. however, we cannot force them to answer your questions on the reader forum. it takes the special person, who is involved in the special outreach, to do so. you know who i'd sponsor, today, if i were a bike sponsor, beyond jordan rapp? brandon marsh. why? because of all the pros, this guy does more behind the scenes, is more involved, does more on this forum, he leverages his talent about as far as he can. the movember calendar initiative, the men of triathlon? that was brilliant. the very first thing i'd do, if i was looking for an athlete to sponsor, is see who on that calendar is available (brandon being one).
I'm really only posting to this thread to quote the above because it is recognition that a lot of people in the industry do not see.
In the grand scheme of things, I am still chasing a win at a pro race, and when I retire my results will be forgotten in a hurry. But, what Dan says above has been the challenge for pros who are not at the top of the field, because behind the scenes 'stuff' doesn't get noticed unless someone like Dan points it out. When you've got a bunch of top-10s and top-5s with no win, it's tough to get sponsors who 'pay' much beyond product/bonuses regardless of how you try to market the behind the scenes activity. So, when an athlete like Michael Weiss, who does not appear to be repentant about 'whatever happened in the past', wipes the floor with some pretty good athletes his first race out, yeah it pisses me off. He's taking money, exposure, and maybe future sponsorships from athletes who are, by all indications thus far, clean.
I don't have anything to add that anyone here hasn't already said or asked of Michael Weiss. And, they are the questions that he doesn't seem to want to answer.
I fully support the guys like Matt and Trev who were so 'unprofessional' via twitter. I don't like the idea of Dan giving a 'nice guy' who is also a doper a voice here on this forum. Dan and I can agree to disagree on this topic. But, I'll continue to post here and take lumps along the way like I have on some of the 'controversial' threads. And, regardless of Dan's stance on whether or not he thinks that this is furthering the sport of triathlon, I'll continue to do what I can on the course and behind the scenes to try to make the sport better for all involved.
And yeah, the Movember calendar was fun. It was different. It takes away a little bit of the 'boring' nature of pro triathletes. Chris Corbin, Jesse Thomas, and Matt Lieto had the biggest part in that. I was just the real Texan.