How does Team EMJ (Every Man Jack) work and function? Those dudes seem to win just about everything, from an age group perspective, and all appear to be wearing the same gear and riding the same bikes.

They also appear to have many people that have probably qualified for their pro card 10x over.

Agreed.

In canada I think we do a better job in tri than cycling of nurturing young talent out of our high performance centres in Victoria, Manitoba and Guelph. Barrie does a tremendous job out of Caledon Ontario as a tri club model which has produced Lionel, Taylor Reid, Andrew Yorke to name a few. Those athletes didn't have to pay for coaching either. So your point is well taken there. But those athletes then mature and move onto more established crews like Paulo tri squad etc. where they do pay. Vance has a junior program. I assume USAT pay Vance for juniors free and now he's establishing "next step" option.

Overall yes...tri is disparate in model though. Best option is via the federation to WTS level THEN convert to LC if career "self CEO" can pay bills. But there is not many spots on federation payroll that's for sure! Check that, not many ATHLETES on payroll!

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@rhyspencer

Tim? Didn't realize you were on here...

EMJ is a great example of the opposite end of the spectrum (as I understand it).

They have jobs and live across the country - Jim’s would be basically full time athletes and live/ train in San Diego

EMJ is mainly fast age-groupers looking for AG podiums, where I assume Jim’s would be aiming for ITU, Olympics, pro podiums, even pro WC podiums.

I assume EMJ would use some common gear sponsors where Jim’s would be bringing their own sponsors. Maybe?

Am I thinking about this correctly? I only know one EMJ guy.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

How many future Javier Gomez's and Patrick Lange's are hanging out on this forum without coaches and sponsors already knocking on their door?

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

if you don't really understand what Jim is trying to do you should dig back into the Slowtwitch archives where you will find something Dan wrote nearly 14 years ago as this describes what Jim is trying to establish,
http://www.slowtwitch.com/...opinion/running.html

Obviously not something new in triathlon or running but something that is needed to advance Americans to the top in both triathlon and distance running. It is very rare that any athlete at the top in international competition does not come from some sort of enclave described by Dan in this article and by what Jim is putting together in San Diego.

Over the past 5 or 6 years we have seen American distance running surge more towards the top. It's not because some lone wolf is out training night and day on their own and became a world leader, it is partly because they re part of a larger training enclave. In running you have the group in Mammoth, Big Bear, Flagstaff, Beaverton OR etc. In triathlon you have.....?
We did have Paulo's group in Poway (San Diego) which produced three Olympians in Rio but what else? This is what Jim is trying to work on. Jim has already proven himself with the Juniors that he has been working with devoting the past 10 years and now with pro's like Ben Kanute.
Should he get paid for this, of course but how he gets paid is between him and each athlete that is accepted and moving towards this enclave. How this happens is often quite different from how most of us on here are accustomed to hiring and paying for a coach that sends us a weekly/monthly schedule and communicates with us through email/phone calls.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Not that Paulo really needs anyone to speak to his resume as a coach, but he's had a LOT more success among his squad than "just" two olympians. Not sure that's completely fair.

I hope Jim finds success, he's certainly timed his CTA right with Ben's recent successes and resultant publicity.

of course he has but that wasn't the point. The point was that Paulo's enclave (The Triathlon Squad) helped take a lot of people to a higher level and that it is this enclave type situation that is needed in order to see more people move to or closer to the top levels. How many people he helped is not the point of the discussion, it is the concept that is the discussion. The fact that three of the roughly 20 in his group became Olympians is something more easily recognizable to the average armchair quarterback.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Fair point, but I think there is also a press release aspect. The more folks that know, the better.

I go back to Paulo a few years back. I was even less knowledgeable then and thought “who does this guy think he is? Isn’t he some ST rando?” No idea if he got any athletes via ST, but it certainly didn’t hurt.

The College Recruitment Program is stronger than it used to be, but it is a big world and probably plenty of athletes slipping through the cracks. Ben Kanute was a fine athlete two years ago (collegiate champ, ITU) but now he’s an Olympian and 70.3 podium guy. Who knows what young athlete might be lurking on ST and decide to give Jim a call.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

I was thinking about it and there may be one or two relatively new to the sport that might have the talent on here. - that 25-29 kid that went 9:01 in his first IM at Lou maybe? Can he drop 2 hours (or maybe 1:50 on that course)? When I state it that way it sounds like a pretty big ask. I would think that going to college running and swimming programs, talking to the athletes that are just not quite good enough to make the olympic team and have the right physiology and tempt them on over to the dark side....USAT already does that, no? Or the 22 year-old brand new pros who are going relatively fast without knowing their ass from their armpit yet.

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

One of the great things that this will do is provide more avenues for athletes to pursue elite world class racing. Instead of 2 options, they now have 3; and maybe in a few years a few more "squads" pop up and create options for American athletes. The one thing that this level of racing does is requires you the athlete to go "all in". So all these guys boo hooing how it's stupid or unfair that athletes are having to pay for coaching.....what that does is create full on skin in the game. And only when you are fully committed, is when you reach your ultimate level of success as an athlete. And that usually means no job, full daily training.....sleep...train....nap....train....nap....train.....sleep, repeat until every day is Monday; but that's what it takes to becoming world class. You can't work a 9-5 job and train around that schedule, that's completely limiting yourself. Go ask GJ about that, and her journey and what she did before going with Jamie Turner and after working with JT, which obviously resulted in the olympic gold. So all this BS about sponsors, and paying for X and not having to pay for Y is frankly noise that doesn't matter. Jim's positioning himself to setup a squad that goes for world class results. It's now up to the athletes to either go for it or not.

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

I think you can say that the high performance center/enclave method has a lot to do with USA Swimming's success too (colleges serving as the first step of that). As the average Oly Team age goes up, those pros flock together and thrive.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

You must be new around here...

Been here plenty long. Just pointing out that it is ridiculous.

I should have typed it in pink for sarcasm...

Paulo had 3 Olympians in Rio...

You're stuck on "TV". I think TV is nearly irrelevant. TV is like from the 90's! Now some of the hottest races are fixie races sponsored by Red Bull, etc, that have online streaming, but certainly no classic TV deal.

The prize money from local races has nothing to do with TV at all. The sponsors are a few thousand each from, say, a local law firm, a local bike manufacturer, a local wheel company, a brewery, an LBS, a local hospital. Say that adds up to around $15,000. Then another $15,000 comes from entry fees. The race will then turn around and pay out $15,000 right back to the racers as prize money. All the racers, not just the "elite" fields - though most going to the "Pro 1-2" races, which often have a grand total of zero true UCI-registered domestic pros, and who will therefore not show up on TV once in their whole season. Then the rest is used to pay for the race expenses and pay the race director. I'm kind of making those numbers up, but that's the ballpark.

That almost never happens in triathlon, which seems very stingy in prize money, even to pure pro fields. I think it's just a culture more than anything to do with "TV." And that culture is somewhat beneficial to aspiring elite athlete because they can make a bit of money.

And that's just prize money. The whole team aspect is helpful too. Teams will secure sponsors. Even the geezer teams I've been on will get title sponsors to throw out several thousand dollars per year. So the total annual budget is well into the five digits. With zero riders who will ever be on TV. That pays for hotel, entry fees, kit. Sometimes coaching.

I'm holding my line here. I think TV is irrelevant, and a crutch to avoid looking at the real cultural issues. Chris Froome and co. might as well be on a different continent (oh, wait).

Tv=media=advertising=$$$

So whether it’s tv/streaming if you don’t have access to your sport you are nothing. I’m not really sure what we are debating here. Your sport has a ton of more money and resources, that’s already been confirmed.

What tri races are stingy with prize money? Maybe 30 years ago but in today’s tri market no races are money purses unless the big ones. So your local crit race will have prize money, our local tri won’t and really never has accepted cash as prizes.

What points are you trying to differ again? Your sport has a ton of money in it, tri not so much. ETA: I'm not caught up on tv. I'm caught up on saying it's dumb as fuck to compare triathlon and cycling and how each handle itself within the constraints of each sport, and that somehow because you can do it in cycling, that that's how it should be done in triathlon, when almost nothing structurally is even close to how cycling is structured.

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

I certainly don’t know enough about cycling to say for certain, but it seems your last sentence illustrates a key difference. How many folks with real Olympic or pro tour aspirations can stay stateside? Isn’t that one reason Talansky wanted to switch to tri, so he could be home? What does Phinney do? I truly don’t know.



Plenty of tri teams operate like you describe, with gear discounts and such. Age group teams. There are fewer similar pro teams - ones that have major non-endemic sponsors. BMC has that, as does maybe Bahrain 13.

I think one main difference is cycling is a team sport with team tactics. With a few exceptions, triathlon is individual.

ETA - a point is that I bet TV exposure plays a role in companies sponsoring cycling teams.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

No it doesn't have a ton of money! I think you're under the impression that because the TdF is televised that somehow magic money flows to USAC category racing in the U.S.. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every dime comes from local sponsors. And usually zero of those sponsors will also sponsor at the UCI level. Sometimes there are exceptions, like Shimano, SRAM, or Mavic supporting local races. But those are the exception rather than the rule.

I'm holding my line here. I think TV is irrelevant, and a crutch to avoid looking at the real cultural issues.

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And I'll hold my line, your sport is the way it is because it makes a shit ton of money and has a shit ton of resources. You talked about a fixie crit series that is streamed online. Every GT is streamed online and in TV all around the world. How many triathlons are streamed online around the world? 20? 30? That's 1 GT, and then we haven't even talked about the what 20 one day classics or so that get streamed every year. And it's streamed because sponsors pay to have it on. Just like your Red Bull example. I've not seen one Red Bull sponsored event in triathlon, but I have seen some of the top itu athletes pick up Red Bull sponsors.




So what cultural issue are you seeing that I'm not. I'm seeing a sport in triathlon that has 992 pros and only 60 make $30k or more from prize money. Compare that to cycling where in SALARY alone 50 guys make from $87k to top salary of $381k; again that's in salary only.


Now almost all these teams will secure "sponsorships" just like your local dentist sponsored cycling team will do. In fact they likely take much more sponsorship because instead of a $3000 dollars worth of "free" stuff (bike/kit/race entries), they would rather save $15k in medical expenses from having to visit the PT/Physio/massage/bike fitter as often as they need to when they deal with the bumps and bruises of training 3 sports every day. So these "squads" work out deals with the local docs to help them with recovery etc., and that's a hell of a lot more valuable than getting a free $2k bike, especially when they can then secure likely a EP type deal at the local bike shops.

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

There's no set pattern There are examples of aspiring World Tour racers who developed almost completely in the U.S. then made the jump. Examples with recognizable names would be Phil Gaimon or Chris Horner who both cut their teeth on the domestic circuit. Then there are also guys who jumped almost immediately to European domestic pro teams instead. I know a few San Diego kids who were very recently juniors and are now racing for a Spanish domestic team. There are pros and cons to each. But they call get free bikes and coaching. :)

Clean out your crack pipe with warm, soapy water when you're done. :) I'll stop going in circles with you.

No it doesn't have a ton of money!

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Yet you pretty much told me every single race you enter has prize money right? Lol, that's not even close to what triathlon does. And it's all because the structure of the 2 sports are vastly different, not because triathlon RD are "stingy". Try RD's have so many more expenses than your local crit series does. Way more permits and money being spent by a tri RD than a crit RD.

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

Here is the disconnect. By "your sport" he means cycling. Not local cat cycling - global cycling. UCI. The main conversation here is pro athletes, pro teams, pro coaches, etc.

Pro cycling has more money than pro triathlon. Agreed? A significant part of this is due to TV, yes?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Where did I say he was asking for people to be coach for free? I simply said that he is framing as starting an "Elite Squad" or team instead of "hey, im looking to start coaching as a business"

It's the whole "you have to apply and feel lucky that I would deign to accept your money and Coach you" way it comes across that rubs me the wrong way. This is Triathlon. Anybody that can make a living coaching should be stoked that people want to pay them money, regardless of how good they are.

As I said, I've got plenty of experience in another Niche sport. If I could make a living in it, I would, but I would thank each and every single person that offered to pay me for my advice.

That's the difference.