This is a bad take. The start list will be plenty stacked and the winner will put together a monster performance to top the podium.

I second this. Laura Philipp is there training right now. The rest will be prepared. Lucy is right about needing to prepare (and...I don't know that she's the best bike handler) but it will be awesome. I think we got spoiled with Kona this past year - I don't know that we have ever had every top racer get to the start line and race hard. Ever. So...that was a win. But Nice will be pretty freaking sweet I think.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Who gets to decide it’s not a world championship? Certainly nobody on this forum. If an unlikely set of circumstances prevented Yee, Wilde, Blummenfelt and the French men lining up in Paris, would the winner not be the Olympic Champion?

Whoever puts in the effort to prepare for and win in Nice will rightfully be World Champion and should not have to put up with sniping about a weakened field.

You can not say this às choosing and preparing are 2 different things and only Lucy so far confirmed your point of view,so far

i like exciting racing, and i think we've had a handful of events this past year (especially some PTO races) that had 'world champ' fields. also there are sometimes races - like, say oceanside - that feature really close racing and interesting fields, so it ends up being at least as fun to watch as a one-sided world champs race.

on the other hand: you can only race who shows up. if the women's field at nice is thin . . . well, that's the women's fault. they've got the dates, they can plan for it, and they can show up if they want a crack at the title. whoever wins that race is rightfully the IM world champ.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

If by "best," you mean three pro women have specifically said they won't race in Nice this year, but everyone else signed up for T100 Series still might...

...might want to hold off on that till we start seeing who takes their WC slots.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Who are the other two that won’t race Nice? LCB, JM? Who else?

We will see who shows up, but for now it seems the PTO series is pulling the top talent in. My guess is Nice is a very underwhelming race. Give me 10 top pro women who have committed to World Championship Nice?

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

1.) It's January. Most people haven't qualified yet.
2.) The list of qualifiers are here. https://www.ironman.com/pro-athletes

Moench, Langridge, Lee, Pierre, Norden, Thoes, Wilms all seem like pretty decent names.

Give it time. It'll still be a high quality field. It'll still be a World Championship.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Like it or not, it's a World Championship regardless of who shows up. The winner will be crowned Ironman World Champion and will win the same amount of prize money as those who won in kona.

Now if you want to have a conversation on why athletes are choosing other races or series over Nice, that's a fair conversation to have.

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blog

Who gets to decide it is a world championship? Certainly not some private for-profit company.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

quote rrheisler]1.) It's January. Most people haven't qualified yet.
2.) The list of qualifiers are here. https://www.ironman.com/pro-athletes

Moench, Langridge, Lee, Pierre, Norden, Thoes, Wilms all seem like pretty decent names.

Give it time. It'll still be a high quality field. It'll still be a World Championship.[/quote].

Laura Philipp for the win.....

I wonder if IM didn't hurt itself with their validation process.
I think they were trying to make it harder to race PTO but I think it may have backfired.
Just wondering

You can only compete against those who show up. By your reasoning, Pidcock didn't really win the Cyclocross World Championship a couple of years ago because WVA and MVdP weren't there.

If top ranked competitors just choose not to show up, should the governing body revoke the 'championship' designation?

Laura or Anne or Daniela. All experienced & good bike handlers not scared of the course.

Its funny that we cheer when there's more options for pros in the sport, but then complain when athletes exercise those options.

Exactly. Take it one step further-What if the current WC retires? Can there ever be another champ?

The race invite is there for everyone. Everyone can (technically) qualify. It's announced as World Championships. Not racing it is the same as forfeiting. The winner is the World Champ, full stop.

Why can a private company not designate a world championship? Plenty do - Formula One, Crossfit, WWE to name just a few.

To add to your list, MLB, NFL, NBA in the US all tend to refer to their champions as "World Champions". But that really only works if there is no other comparable league/competition in that sport. For the first time in a long time (possibly ever?) it looks like triathlon will have two roughly comparable competitions for athletes to choose between. So although it's true you can only race against whoever shows up on the day, it's a little different if your competitors didn't show up because they chose to do the other competition, and not that they were injured or didn't qualify.

Hmm...
World Series in MLB.
Super Bowl winner is crowned a world champion.
NBA winner crowned a world champion.

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#swimmingmatters
Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
The Doctor (#12)

Can I set up a competition in some sport, and call the winner a world champion?

How many non-MLB teams are eligible to play in the World Series? I note that the winner of the World Baseball Classic is called "World Champion."

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Sure you can. There is a World Toe Wrestling Championship set up by a bunch of friends and all kind of other similar things.

Whether you can get anyone to recognise it as such is another matter, but I think it would be hard to argue that athletes, sponsors and fans do not recognise the IM World Championship as a WC.

The world championships for long distance tri is simple,the race with the most highest ranked PTO racers participating is the championship

Yup this is true and we will not gets the big one day races with everyone in top form ever again in long course.

Itu Olympics yes .
Kona kind of
Pto no , guys will play it safe more in these races.
Pto grand will they be healthy and fresh enough to race ?

Just like doing intervals if you know you are doing 8 and not 3 you need to pace and bank energy.

Some pto races will have guys jogging it in on rough days to get the finish points and balidate the 6 races needed no more digging in deep for money and pionts for 12 place

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
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