good read...thanks

Interesting to hear his take. I think he is very logical (but a terrible proof reader). He may get some push-back regarding his presentation of the stats of men vs. women. While he did not actually voice an opinion on whether Kona should be equally men or women and for the most part just presented statistics, those statistics seem to support the argument that more men's slots is logical, IF you subscribe to the idea that the men's and women's fields should be equally competitive (defined by him as the last place woman finishing the same percentage back from the winner as the last place man)

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

Very interesting read. I think he brings up valid points on male/female split that many other (male) pro's are afraid to bring up (due to risk of being labeled as chauvinist).

I've said it before that his blog is the best read of all the triathletes. And I like it that he doesn't care what anyone else things but just tells it like it is.
But my favorite part of this post when he referred to The RS as "the parody account of myself."
And what he said is true even if some might not like it. It is factual.

He writes nearly as bad as Sutton.

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

He is a professional triathlete, not a writer. I cut him all the slack he wants to share something like this. Very well done IMO.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

Bullshit. It doesn't take much effort to either proofread your own shit or have someone else give it a once over. I have no issues with the content. I do have issues with the half-assed and complacent writing... which undermines credibility and content. I have no issues with typos, grammar errors, etc. when tweeting, replying to FB, replying on message boards like ST or whatever because that's a rather spontaneous thing (I have probably made errors in this reply). I'm assuming Andrew took a bunch of time writing and researching his points but gave zero effort to writing like he has an IQ over 75.

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

I am horrid at grammar, spelling, sentence structure etc. I hired English students to help me all through college, including my Ph.D. With that said, even I will say his writing is pretty weak. Not that I care at all since it makes me feel good about my own writing skills (or lack of).

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

I understood Starky's article and thought it was interesting. I was reading for content though, not grammar and spelling. I read Sutton's stuff 5 times and still do not know what he was saying.

but at least with Sutto (or Paulo, or some others) there are some hidden gems of wisdom hidden in those 140 character tweets, if you dig deep enough and speak Sutto.

I got nothing out of Starky's post.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

To be fair, he says its a three part series and part one is just a presentation of data. I think we shouldn't judge the usefulness of his contribution until we see the next two parts. If it's as frank as his other contributions (such as his end of year video) it will at least be interesting.

this is true.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

This is wrong:

"There has been a lot going on in the world of long distance triathlon in the last 18 months. It started really seemed to start when the town of Pendicton, BC decided that in 2013 World Triathlon Corp (WTC) would not be welcome back and the event would be Challenge Pendicton. Challenge Family which started in Europe and had expanded to Australia now was staking claim to one of the oldest Iron-distance races in existence. WTC and Challenge Family then went on a tirade of stealing each other�s venues in Australia and Europe. "


It started way before the Penticton change, when WTC stole Challenge Cairns. Scratch that, it started when WTC dropped Roth in the early 2000's.

Part 2 now online

http://www.andrewstarykowicz.com/2014/09/ld_part_ii.html

More interesting than round one. I had a question though. On this bit:


Can someone who was around confirm or deny that there was truly this level of coverage in the period in question? I simply have no idea but it seems somewhat surprising to me that coverage was that much better in the channel constrained environment of 20 years ago compared to today.

I must also say he does a good job of breaking down how the fields fill out and where races are being cut. Any argument that WTC might make about cutting pro fields because they aren't filling out seems entirely disingenuous now.

"Sure the local shops and business� will show up but the big sponsors will just go to the races with the pro fields and sponsor the swim course, sponsor the bike course, and sponsor the run course because millions tune in online to root on their favorite professionals."

I'm skeptical about this statement...millions is a lofty assumption in my mind, and from my perspective, would guess that a 100X more folks track their own AG racer(s). I came in 608th at IMWI, and had at least 15 people watching me online - from my limited marketing experience, these family and friends watching likely represent a much larger group of potential customers than a minor few watching the pros; a minor few who are likely already influenced through experience and other influences as to the products they buy. As a marketer, I would be very interested in the amount of hits/views watching the pro race/stats versus those of the other 2500+ athletes.

I'm confused about online coverage. Do you not get coverage of both the pro and AG race when you "track" online?
ETA: Every time I refresh an individual that I'm tracking it kicks me back to the front leaderboard and I have to use the search function to get their splits back up.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

They might see the pro data, but don't care about it; just a gateway to the info they are looking for...the apps avail to tack an individual is prob another good advertising venue. The live finish line video is where it's at...extended undivided attention while waiting to see their AG'r cross the line.

Just a tip: If you make use of the Favorites checkboxes on the Athlete Tracker, you can just go to the Favorites tab and see everybody all together without having to re-enter their name, etc. every time. I used to do the same thing you did, and it sucked. I was following 8 or 9 friends at Steelhead this year, a few at Louisville, and a couple at Wisconsin, and the Favorites was pretty slick and worked well every time.

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

Badly.

Ironic post of the day.. ;-)

I'm in agreement with you though this is a bit of a "chicken and egg" thing with the pros. Almost every race I do, I have 15-20 friends checking my splits online and I'm sure the typical age-grouper receives similar support. If there were, perhaps, a dozen web cams on course providing live coverage and each athlete had a GPS/3G tracker on them I'm sure this would improve engagement. IMO, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have 15,000-25,000 people watching a race online for a 2,000 person race. We're not talking NFL/NBA style glued to the screen but casually checking in every 15-20minutes. There's advertising value in that and that's without even mentioning the pros.

Regarding professionals, they need to turn themselves into a brand... into something marketable... in order for the money to flow their way. But they need to have a platform before they can make themselves marketable. IMO, the infrastructure investment required to provide this coverage (on course cameras, maybe a drone or two over the water, gps/3g trackers, lte uplinks) would really be pretty minimal for the WTC in the scheme of things.

Why are women's Ironman fields less competitive than men's?
Why are only 19% of lightning fatalities female?
Why are women so much less likely to get bitten by rattlesnakes?

Could it be the same reason?

There are two approaches that could be done to ensure parity:
1) Increase female dumb-assedness
2) Decrease masculine dumb-assedness

I am personally a strong supporter of approach 1).

I thus reject the direction starky's analysis seems to be pointing. Prize purses and kona slots SHOULD NOT simply reward dumbassedness, as it is currently proportioned across the genders. No- Prize purses should employ the power of economics to encourage feminine dumb-assedness. Female prize purses and awards should be increased. This also make sense as a future investment, as feminine dumb-assedness has seen much less development, and thus represent a greater untapped potential.

Not even close.

Although I do wonder where Pendicton is...

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I'm confused. What happens to the women's prize purse money if it's not claimed? He says 10k is left on the table. What happens to it?

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My triathlon training blog