jwmott wrote:
First, I'll say that it is really not fair to compare times from Saturday's race between people who started at 7 and people who started at 9 as it did get hotter as the day went on. This is a tough topic though because the right answer depends on how one views the importance of the multiple purposes of Age Group Nationals. On one hand, you could say it is the national championship and should prioritize a fair race to crown an overall national champion and overall podium. On the other hand, you could say it is an age group national championship and only needs to prioritize a fair race within each age group, which it did on Saturday as everyone in an age group started at the exact same time.
Where it gets messy is that this race is also used to decide World Triathlon championship slots. However, these are based on aged-up results (everyone gets a year added to their USAT age). This was especially advantageous for 34 year-olds like me. I started at 7:12am, but ~80% of my competition for worlds slots started at 9:05am. So, besides having different weather conditions, not everyone is racing head-to-head for worlds slots, which isn't ideal.
The other factor they consider is optimizing athlete density on the course, which is apparently how they came up with the wave schedule. This seems important too and I think they did a good job achieving good spacing on the course.
One approach that might work is to do the waves by ability level (they could use USAT scores to avoid the issues that come with self-seeding/time estimates), fastest to slowest. This ensures that the best athletes are racing head-to-head in wave 1 and everyone is at most 1 or 2 waves apart from their likely closest competitors in their age group which solves the weather difference issue. All awards can still be by age-group and this also mostly solves the age-up problem. This approach is likely bad for course crowding though. Going by age groups works well because they know there will be a pretty large variation in swim/bike speed throughout an age group. However, this is more or less how USAT Collegiate Nationals worked (10 years ago) with the faster athletes going in earlier waves and it seemed to work fine.
In general, I'm all for some sort of elite amateur category in triathlon, but it has to make sense within the context of qualifying for worlds, so unless World Triathlon adopts the category as well, I don't see it working well at USAT Nationals.
Anyways, this was an awesome event and I really hope it is back in Milwaukee again next year (and forever).
Bring back the 90's! Almost every race that had prize money had an open/elite wave. I can remember racing in those lining up next to pros who were gracing the cover of the tri mags. I can also remember plenty of 1:54-2h oly times that did not put me in the money.
A long time ago I sat or talked with people who were working on a committee for some sort of category thing for AG racing similar to bike racing. That idea got killed quickly by whoever the committee was reporting to.
I think, from what I've gathered with short talks with people at USAT, they want and they do everything in their power to make it as fair as possible for everyone in that AG that is about to start. Wave starts for the head to head know where you're at aspect, spreading the waves out to keep rider density down and prevent clumping of riders on the bike, making sure the start dock is = distance so no one has an advantage by starting on one side etc.
[quoteB_Doughtie] In talking to many of the top overall places and their coaches, how many actually go to worlds vs use it as a chance to qualify for pro card or use it as opportunity to race the best in the country. For those athletes that’s the bigger draw than a worlds AG slot from talks of coaches and athletes I’ve been able to talk too.[/quote]
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Most people aren't here for AG worlds slots as they often roll down 20-30 spots (sounds like another worlds). They are here bc it's one of the most competitive races in the US......of any distance year after year after year.
Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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desert dude: Aug 9, 22 13:40