I was there and saw Paula go by at least three times and she looked like she was hurting. At one point when descending one of the ramps she grabbed her rib cage and she looked like she was in pain. I'm about to watch the interview, so I don't know what she thought of her run.

The podcast is up and Paula does say she’s annoyed by the slower males on the bike, but she fully admits she just had a shit race. She’s not blaming anyone for her result and said even on her best day she’s not even sure she’d have podiumed since the top women were flying.

I watched the TTL video and Paula did not blame her disappointing run on anyone. She stated that she felt bad from the beginning of the race and was experiencing various forms of discomfort, including a tight back, before she even got to the run.

She did state that the male pros interfered with the race “in an annoying way” and speculated that she might have been able to create a gap had they not been there. She clearly didn’t like the fact that she sat out front pulling for much of the ride but also stated that “that’s racing” and called it “fair”.

I didn’t interpret her recap as anything other than justifiable disappointment and frustration. It didn’t strike me as finger pointing at all.

Then why embarrass the guy in a public video? She ran a 1:27, so even without Stern's "interference", she wasn't going to put 20 minutes on the other girls. She sometimes strikes me as a bit of a spoiled brat, she had a bad race and all of a sudden she is annoyed at all these tiny little things.

X2^^^^

---

Kiwami Racing Team

a male pro slotted in the LEAD womens bike train is no "tiny little thing".......

---

Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Explain. Exactly when Fndlay dropped Mathews, Sodaro and Lawrence and Sterns helped them close the gap back to Findlay's wheel? Seriously asking as I don't recall a single time during the coverage. There was some movement during a steep hill when Sterns moved up a bit, but they were riding very slow. Seems to me like Findlay was not racing very smart.. burning energy at the front of the race (a bit contradictory from "having a bad day all day") while the other three played her well, letting her do all the work. Then she blows up and gets her ass kicked on the run. Now she is passively aggressively putting Sterns on the spotlight for interference...and you are buying it.

The Outside coverage dropped so many times that I have a disjointed experience of the race. But we know that there was a male pro in the mix with Findlay, Mathews, Sodaro, Lawrence & I believe Jewett that changed the dynamics of the W Pro LEAD pack. Without the presence of that M Pro the race *could* have played out differently.

---

Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

https://watch.outsideonline.com/...mp;slug=ironman-70-3
Findlay is the best cyclist of that 5. Jewett is the worst (but better than ever before, albeit on that course and (legally) on a wheel mile 2 to 52). Findlay and Lawrence are the two weaker runners and better swimmers (in the water Findlay underperformed and Jewett overperformed), and to beat others they have to get away, or be assuredly run down.
Lawrence is up the road and Findlay rides her down, with the others (plus Stern in the train) in tow.

(Jewett and Sodaro modus operandi is 'hang on and run' - see Kona - which is fine). I have suggested upthread the capabilities/motives of Findlay, Lawrence and Matthews which explains why none of the front 3 (ahead of the MPRO interloper) made a genuine attempt to make the break and why Stern's presence didn't make significant difference (but would still have been better if he's dropped to the back behind Sodaro).
As soon as Matthews put her foot on the gas (about mile 45) the elastic broke in front of Stern with Jewett and Sodaro in his (legal) draft but Jewett then dropping off, and stopping for her penalty.

So what, for future races?
Jewett is a 'new force': on the evidence of her swim anyway. Dead impressed with what must have been serious work over the winter. Biking much better (that's always been the weakness) but maybe Saturday's differentials flattered her (depended on the performance/motives of others) and in a truer race she'll never see LCB, Findlay, Gentle or Knibb till near the finish. Ryf and Matthews will ride away too: maybe enough not to be caught, maybe not. Sodaro will have to think she must be proactive in getting a small gap into T2 (same for Haug and Philipp) so that will add to the competitive dynamic.
I expected Jewett's run to be adversely affected by a faster bike than ever before: it was not. 1:13 dead!
Hence I (and others?) talk of her in the same breath as all these world champs/PTO podium athletes and her peers will (attempt to) take the 'necessary action' - see Ibiza, Millwaukee and Lahti.
Lead in T2 needed ahead of Jewett:
Haug 1
Gentle 2
LCB 2021 3
Philipp 3
Sodaro 3
Matthews 4
EPB 4
Knibb 5
Ryf 5
Findlay 2022 6

I don't disagree with your analysis. At some point when Findlay passed the guy, it did seem as if she said to him. Even if it was a "f-off" spur of the moment, things are said on the road and it's ok in my books. Calling the guy out next day on social media, that is where I think she is being a bit of spoiled brat.

A few years ago at a 70.3 race, I passed a WPRO at around 70 km on the bike. From behind it seemed as if she was pedalling squares an looked as if she was swerving a bit. It was a bit of rough road so maybe she was trying to find the smoothest section of the road, whatever. When I made the pass she swerved and got really close to me and we almost made contact. No issues from my side since I have group racing experience, so I am used to a bit of contact. Next thing, she is freaking out on me and yelling. I didn't care too much, so just kept riding as I was fighting for third place in my AG. Then she starts legally drafting off my wheel. Again, I don't care since the girls I catch are never fighting for the podium. We were closing on another girl but because she had yelled at me, I surged on a highway overpass and dropped her. At the finish line, I was chatting with the WPRO winner as we were friends and we trained together when I see the girl approaching me. I was like, oh lord.. here we go. She actually apologized. Said something along the lines of "sorry I freaked on you out there, was really hurting and you did nothing wrong". I told her, no worries at all and even apologized for giving her a smart ass look after I had surged climbing up a bridge and dropped her. We had some food together and that was the end of it.

I certainly wouldn't have appreciated if the day after she would have called me out on IG or YT for whatever it was she thought I did wrong.

Imagine if she made a slowtwitch post about it?!

;)

Hello Slowtwitch :D

Not coming on here to defend myself but just to clarify, I did not call out any particular male on social media, I honestly had no idea who it was, my only point was that of course having males in a women’s group impacts the dynamics of the race. It's really fast, close racing in both the women's and men's fields these days, so any variable like this has the potential to impact the race outcome.

OF COURSE this is not the reason that I ran slow and had a terrible day, and I’m the first to admit that this is part of racing, nobody was cheating, and everyone was within the legal distance.

Eric and I put a lot of our lives on social media, for better or for worse, and we put together this video really soon after the race. Hadn’t really had time to process anything, I was just explaining the dynamics as I experienced them first hand. Nobody can argue that pro men sitting in a pro women’s pack is probably not the best situation, regardless of if it actually had any impact.

I try to be fairly non-polarizing and I really hope that I don’t come across as a spoiled brat, anyone on here knows that we get tired and grumpy as athletes sometimes, Eric and I just happen to put those days on the internet :)

Thanks for the support.

PF

For people that make a living based on a small number of races per year, there is probably no such thing as a "tiny thing". And, even if there were, men interfering in the women's race would not qualify as 'tiny'. I'll just point out that I get pissed at other riders all the time and I'm a scrub amateur. I'm hardly alone in that regard.

Again, if you watch the video, there is no time when PF says or even infers that she finished fifth and ran poorly because of a couple of male pros. She is quite clear that it was a bad day from start to finish, something with which we are all familiar. Also, at one point she says something along the lines that the running speed at the front was so fast that what happened on the bike likely did not make a difference. She is also quite clear that she is not disappointed in her placement as much as she is in the way she experienced the race.

I think your reference to her as a "spoiled brat" says it all. You're predisposed to dislike her so you're interpreting her comments in a dark light, misinterpreting her justifiable frustration and disappointment as finger pointing and shaming of other riders.

I think it's great that both you and Stern engaged in the discussion. Kudos for responding. Some of us feel that the vlog was a bit harsh on Stern, some other fans would disagree and that's fine. He is a neo-pro and certainly learning. However, I think all of us are in agreement that the rules could be rectified to prevent these situations.

I reckon that "spoiled brat" can come across as harsh if read as text only and without the context of a not so serious verbal conversation. e.g.. my wife calls me a spoiled brat all the time when I complain about a having a bad workout, weather, amazon packages not delivered on time, etc. So please don't take the comment too seriously, we really enjoy your social media content.

Thanks a lot for responding to this thread. I really appreciate the more real and raw tone of the youtube videos that you and Eric put out for us to enjoy.

You don't come across as spoiled, but as someone who tends to wear their emotions on their sleeves and has a hard time covering them up in difficult situations. There's nothing wrong with that. It's called being human and honest.

I'm just sayin, if anyone on here is honest with themselves they've said some things post race that they wouldn't want the whole world to hear. I know I have. It's almost always about myself in reality, but when we're exhausted and feel crappy about a race...things happen.
We all put an awful lot into our races and you pro's much more than the rest of us. I'm regularly impressed with your honesty and transparency both on the vlog and podcast. In my view it is really important to hear that you all are real people with real feelings, it makes your accomplishments that much more impressive. I think that folks on the interwebs type lots of things that they either wouldn't say in person or would use non-verbal cues to communicate that it's a joke.

Either way, thanks for sharing both on the vlog/pod and here. In my view it shows lots of courage to put yourself out there every day and we appreciate it!
Thanks!

Classy as always Paula! Thanks for chiming in. The beauty is when you are being grumpy or don't want to be filmed etc you actually call it out and are incredibly self aware. Kudos to you for being interviewed for the pod when it was still so raw. Keep on keeping on!

Signed

A fellow Canadian!

You call that a tantrum? If that's a tantrum then a normal day with a toddler is Chernobyl.

---

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

All of this is more than reasonable & thought the YouTube was fine too. Like hearing honest thoughts from pros.

I said it earlier but the next big US IM race is IM Texas. There's just a 5:00 start gap between the pro men and the pro women. The reality is top pro women are good enough to be mid-pack in the men's race. Jewett would've been 27th/49. You're going to have this problem moving forward if the gaps stay tight. Gotta increase the gap or implement rules about pro men dropping back. Swimming is not going to be everyone's strength in the male pro field. You'll have people like Foley who will come out of T1 with pro women and then hammer the bike. But pros like Stern are still dropping good times & should get to develop in the sport.

It's interesting how Messick argued for a "fair women race" as part of their reasons they are not making IM WC a one day event, and yet we get bullshit like this where they can't give the women more time so they can have a fair race.

Pretty sure MPRO to WPRO gap of 5 minutes is 'normal'. Yes, Jewett was #27 of all athletes BUT not at T2 (which is the final moment when it might 'matter'): she was maybe #45 (adding the 3.5 mins in). Matthews/Lawrence/Findlay maybe #38-#40.
https://www.trirating.com/...april-22nd-seedings/
At Texas, disregarding the male BoP outlier (?Hansen), only Brandon will exit T2 with MPROs around.
Thorsten estimates 4:50 for the bike for her, and McCauley and Matthews on 4:40 and 4:41.
In the MPRO field there are a couple of FoP swimmers but weaker bikers (Raelert and Csoke) who will be out of T2 before any WPRO. All the MPROs (exclude IM debutants) are up the road (good swimmers) or much faster riders who will blast past, for example Aernouts, Foley, Russell.
The aberration at Oceanside was maybe five MPROs (Stern, Henri, Hammer, Bollinger and Nelson) whose swim/bike was very close to 3 minutes longer than that of a quality set of WPROs. (NB Apart from Stern I am not suggesting these guys rode close to the lead WPRO train, they just entered T2 very close and several can be seen running in with the 'top 5' women.)
https://watch.outsideonline.com/...mp;slug=ironman-70-3

Easy there tiger. If TTL wants credit and plaudits for showing their “personality” then they are opening themselves up for others to interpret them. There is a certain sense of entitlement from time to time that comes across. I would consider somebody that bombs a workout and knowingly their mood affects others to be somewhat bratty, considering they are no longer a child. There is a heavy burden to be carried by the one in the relationship that has to appease, comfort, walk on eggshells because the other “has to wear their emotions”. They will continue to put out content because they are greatly benefiting from their branding. How does a mid pack pro get a deal from Specialized? Their content! They are making a living off their contracts and I wish them continued success. If PF is making bank from the PTO races then it made no sense to show up to Oceanside in top form. However, if the run times continue to improve and she is limited by the volume and intensity of her run training, there is only small room for improvement in the other two disciplines and she will have to pick her courses perfectly and show up primed and ready and there are new people joining the pointy end.

Facts:

1. Paula is a professional and handles herself like one. Thank you for being so transparent and honest about your experiences. It's refreshing and people really respect it and hold you in high regard.
2. Stern did nothing wrong and did not commit any infraction.
3. Stern did affect the front of the women's race as he was riding in their group. It did affect race dynamics.
4. This situation was an aberration.
5. How do you prevent it from happening again? You don't. It was just an oddity. A greater gap starts the rest of the race later. You can't prevent every situation.

There are a lot of opinions and misinformation in your "facts". For example, "this situation was an aberration" how so? Look at any previous results, a lot of third-fourth tier pros are caught by the fastest WPRO and there has been many of these situations. Many AG we also catch many of WPROs and they legally draft from us. I shared a funny story about a WPRO freaking out on me at one of my races in the other thread. The difference here...Findlay claims this affected the outcome of the race and called the guy out. My opinion: not a cool thing to do just because she had a bad race. If she coulda dropped the other girls, she would have done it.

"It was an oddity". Happens a lot more than you think. Again, watch any previous results, many third-fourth tier pros always get caught by the top WPROs.

Did Stern affect the race. Maybe. Did it change the outcome of the race. I don't think so. These are opinions, not facts.