asianzone wrote:
Ajax Bay wrote:
rrheisler wrote:
Essentially PTO rankings at the end of the year would dictate who would be offered them. Then a question of who accepts them, and how many of the PTO events are required to be raced under those. And a lot of that seems to be all up in the air based on schedule, because I'd have to imagine they aren't going to try to counter-program 70.3 / IMWC / Roth for their dates. But you never know...
As I said before, though, the real winners of the World Triathlon alignment will be current gen WTCS athletes who will look to "graduate" to this distance in 2025 after the Olympic cycle and meet the "have enough ranking points to be competitive" standard to get into the races.
Well timed warm-up race for the men heading for Kona 4 weeks later.
Almost undoable for women racing Nice 7 days earlier: well clearly doable but hardly sensible.
But that will free up start slots for the few top WTCS/Olympic women to have a taster.
Wonder who might be likely candidates to take on Gentle and Knibb (assume she will not race Nice but we'll see) for some decent money (and the chance to get points on the board for a contract for 2025, if they have finished with draft-legal).
My understanding is that those who sign the contract will need to commit to all PTO races, can’t pick and choose.
I am sure LBC and Ryf will be in Nice and doubt either will be committing to Ibiza?
Very few female athletes will sign contracts committing them to start all the PTO Tour races (imo): if offered the majority will if the requirement is (say) 3 of [however many] including those who race long distance.
Almost every long course athlete who aspires to place in the IM Series will be signed up for Texas which is a week after Singapore. Only lunatics would try and double up those two..
Knibb implied in her interview with Blanco on ProTriNews (about 10 mins from the end) that racing two 70.3s to qualify to race Nice (22 Sep) after the Olympics seems doable (thus unlikely she'll accept a wold card for Ibiza (28 Sep) a week later, at least not to race).