That’s awesome! Is that a living doc - will you update as we get closer, or is it more of a snapshot?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Yea, forgot to mention that...edited the initial post to say that's my intention as more registrations come in.

Are sprints that much less competitive that their assumed winning pace is slower than an Olympic? Or is there another reason?

How will it calculate someone with a high score from this year, but hasn't been very consistent with getting 3 scored races in a year?

Very interesting... I'm in 40-44M and it is competitive for sure as I'm in both the Oly and Sprint. Will be interesting to see how accurate it is and how the course races time wise.

In general yes. There is no qualification for sprint nationals so you’ll get more people who are close to race wanting to race vs people flying in from all over the US. Also the people who double up are going to have a bit slower pace anyways from racing the day before.

That will change as the sprint is the easiest to do w no qualification + quality of athletes going for elite license is only going up w new elite qualification standards. See morgan Pearson last year. He did that purely to qualify for elite card.

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

what are the new standards?

FYI, athletes won't be able to compete at both the Oly and sprint distances next year at Worlds, so that may affect the distribution of talent across both races this year compared to previous years where you could qualify for both.

It uses the highest "computed" score since 2014...the actual score minus a point for every year in the past and minus two points if the score is from less than three races.

Also, I just looked at previous winning times compared to assumed course difficulty to come up with these guesses...however, if you subtract a fixed 3 minutes for transitions, the paces happen to be identical.

There are some DL specific pathways to get 1 year provisional license and the full on 3 year licenses.

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

Great Stuff. Thanks. I'll take my projected finish. Do I still need to race ;-] ?

Thanks for posting this, needed the remonder to go register for nationals.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Thanks. Nice work.

I took the top 50 from the M50-54 and applied the age up rule. 2 54 year olds move out and 19 49 year olds move in. Ouch!

Besides what's mentioned above about not having to qualify for the sprint and fast guys being tired if they do the double, it is worth noting that the transition times are just as long regardless of race distance. So in the Sprint race transitions make up a larger portion of the total finish time, therefore making it look like athletes went a little slower when they actually might have gone faster.

To the OP, since you seem to have done your research on this (thank you), how do you think this course will compare to Milwaukee in general? Looking at the profile I don't see much reason this would be slower, but I really haven't looked that closely yet.

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Powertap / Cycleops / Saris

In regards to the Sprint vs. Oly comptitiveness... the Sprint has some interesting statistics vs. the Oly... my AG is the largest in Oly and the third or 4th in the Sprint... older AGs have larger numbers for the Sprint.

My AG is definitely competitive in both the Oly and Sprint that does have much fewer athletes... I do the Sprint for fun in a reasonably competitive field, I have no interest in racing twice at Worlds, carrying two bikes, etc. I've qualified for both the last couple of years and do the Oly.

Sweet... How did u get all the data extracted?
Now I have another bar to shoot for.

I love what you did here. I absolutely do. I actually shared it already with some friends. But after reviewing the document, I'm not sure it's going to work. Tim Hola went 2:03 last year and won his age group. The guy is at the top of his game. He's got results going back to 2009 on USAT. I'm not sure he's going to drop 8 minutes in an Olympic. But other than what you did, I'm not sure what else you could do to rate the winners.

Wow, I have the absolute lowest single year score in my age group. Granted it was from my first year of doing triathlon (2015) and my current year score is 30+ points higher, so I've definitely improved, and somehow managed to squeak out an Oly qualify. But what a way to make me feel like I have no business being at AGNatls. Psych me out, you surely have, haha lol 8-)

Your estimate for me is spot on. Nice work! My new goal? Race faster than you predict to make it wrong :-) Of course, now that I think about it some more that would include racing faster before getting to Nats which will make your estimate faster and now it feels like I'm just chasing my tail faster and faster until I fall on the floor and stare up at the spinning ceiling.

The wining times in Omaha were around 1:56 and 1:58, and the winning times in Milwaukee were around 1:51 and 1:53. I just picked a winning time in the middle. The course profile looks flatter than Omaha but not sure on accuracy of courses, weather, transition lengths...the run course looks a bit more winding.

There are going to be outliers with how the algorithm works. Hopefully the relative ranking and spacing between athletes within an age group is fairly accurate. I had to guess a winning time to generate the rest of the predicted times, and he just happens to have the highest score with the algorithm I used.

Why won't one be able to double up, as we have in previous years?

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

Great tool for USAT if they want to look for doping. Look at some of the ranking "trends" of 40+ year old guys....

10 to 15 point increases in 4 years from a "good" score to a "great" score.

Did anyone else notice that USAT is now giving away our zip codes and home address on some of the race results.

Not cool.


Look up the results for the Williamstown Badgers Autumn Lake Triathlon from 2017...you will see what I mean.

Nothing to see there.

Four years is about the length of time it takes to maximize your abilities in the sport. Legally.

If the "good to great" leap was a year or two, I would agree, there's probably some monkey business going on.

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

Many older competitors have transitioned to being empty nesters and now have more time to train due to less family obligations. And many 60+ competitors are retired giving them much more time to train. So you're going to find a significant number of apparently suspicious increases having nothing to do with doping. Ranking trends could be used as one of several factors to evaluate in doing targeted testing but I think testing is so limited now that USAT would be better to focus on anonymous reporting of suspected dopers as the best source for targeted testing.

All true. More time, more money offset by natural "old age".

It just seems very fishy to see people above 40 (above 45, above 50) moving from the mid 80's into mid / high 90's as they age. I can easily see a 10/15 point improvement if they were going from a mid-60 to high 70 or even mid 70 to high 80 score, but high 90's.

Holy crap -- thanks for posting this. I never really looked at the results through the USAT site before. Definitely not cool, and seemingly at odds with their own statement.

"If you register for an event using the USA Triathlon service, some of your personally identifying information may be provided to the event manager, who may not use or disclose the information except as necessary to manage the event. USA Triathlon does not disclose any personally identifying information to any other third party except when required to do so by law."

I just sent an email to complain/find out how to keep my information from being displayed...

I assume it is because of the scheduled dates/times of the sprint and Oly races at Worlds next year. In Rotterdam last year the sprint and Oly were on the same day so this type of condensed format for Worlds has a recent precedent. I like it. It gives more athletes the chance to race at Worlds.

ITU Competition Rules 2.5 Eligibility i. Athletes may not compete within 36 hours (as determined by the start times of the first wave) in more than one multisport event (see Appendix I) when one event is of standard distance or longer. Exceptions will be for the PT5 guides and team relay events at the defined super-sprint distances (see 16.1.a.);

Thanks for sending an email and looking up their own statement to use in your response to them. Thats more time than I had to do this morning.

It caught me off guard too. Especially since one of the racers on that list I referenced is the biggest local race director in the Philadelphia/South NJ area. I doubt he wants locals knowing exactly where he lays his head at night. I could be wrong though.

Good point. Rather than focusing on a certain percentage improvement, as the improvement from lower rankings to MOP rankings are much more easily explained by improvements in training; focus on those competitors that make large improvements to move up to FOP rankings, that would make for a much more effective target.

I am 33 and started doing triathlons last year. I have gone from the upper 70's to the upper 80's in less than one calendar year...so far.

I expect to break 90 before the season is over. It can be done with nothing but hard work (in fact, I don't think I work nearly as hard as I should)

I agree.

At 33. I’d hope so. My post was not about people in their prime. It was about old guys.

As well as guys just getting started in their 40s or getting back into it after being out a decade or so

Just this week I think there were 4 posts by people doing exactly this

I feel old

Maybe you just don’t train hard enough. I lost to him so he must be doping. I started triathlon when I was 35 and I keep on improving. There is not a special formula, it’s just day in and day out of busting you ass. If you think you work hard there is alway someone out there working harder.

I am one of those 40-44 guys who have improved 13 points in three years. Hired a coach, training smarter, and entering more competitive races that give you higher scores when you podium. All clean. Quite a leap of logic taken with the doping comment!

Dan - You clearly missed my point and are clearly not the group of athletes I was referring to and clearly better than 99.9% of the people reading this thread.

But, please look at your rankings for the past 4 years. Have you improved 10-15 points?

No - you have remained consistently at the top with a 1-2% variance over the years.

Would you honestly believe some-one who was near your level 4 years ago is now scoring 15 points better than you simply by training harder?

Thank you for this. Using it as motivation for my M17-19 junior in both sprint and oly. As a swimmer, he is accustomed to psych sheets and is always motivated to beat his ranking.

Both sheets have been updated with the latest entry/ranking data - a few hundred more people have entered.

I've updated the sheets with the latest entries as of July 16. Also, based on the wave start times and predicted finish times, I created a "Finish Density" chart to give an idea of how crowded the course will be during your race. This is the current chart for the Olympic distance race:

I am competing next year at Duathlon Worlds in Spain and they were running into the same problems as well. They are hosting the Sprint Duathlon on Saturday (AM) and then Standard Duathlon on Sunday (PM) to cut the 36 hour rule close. Looks like we will be racing very early and very late to make this accommodating. Don't quote me, but I believe I heard that they got the times confirmed by the ITU to be able to do this. Doesn't give us much time to recover and race again, makes you think whether one will race both races or just one. Heard Penticton was ran perfectly for those events to give enough rest time and not break the rules.

A huge issue you are going to run into is ways you can get a better score simply by picking different races.

If you pick small flat races, you're not likely to get a big enough gap on the field to produce a high score even if you win overall. If you pick a race like Nationals or Worlds, and just finish in the top third your going to get a pretty decent score, because everyone in the field has high scores from last year.

Also, if someone gets a flat tire in their A race, and they don't do too many other races, they would have an unusually low score, and then look like they were doping the following year when everything goes right.

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I swim fast because I'm afraid of sharks.

People above you will generally have higher USAT scores and people below you will have lower USAT scores. I calculated a "normalized" score for each year (subtracting points for years in the past and if it was calculated with less than 3 races). The predicted time is calculated using the athlete's USAT score relative to the predicted winner's score (I just assumed the winner's time to get a baseline). I think a score of 100 is calculated to be around 2:03 in the Olympic distance race. If your score is 80, then it's going to be 123 minutes / 0.8 = 2:33:45. That's how USAT scores normally get calculated. There may be some individual outliers, but the placings/times should be relatively accurate when comparing between athletes (if you trust USAT scores).

Got it.
Thanks!

It's been a few weeks since the USAT rankings have been updated. Races have been scored but not included in the rankings. I emailed them over a week ago to make sure they were aware. There is a problem (obviously) and they are working on it. Would have assumed it would be fixed by now.

Yeah, I also emailed and they replied that there is an IT issue they are working on.

I actually qualified for Nats at Escape Philly Tri and they have not uploaded the race results because the race director listed the Oly as an off-road event on the application. They do not know how to fix that error currently...so no invitation from USAT for nationals.

I had also qualified for Nats at New Jersey State Triathlon...which they just posted yesterday. I am not sure if that makes the cutoff for this years Nats or not...maybe it qualifies me for 2019?

The qualification period ends August 3rd (also the last day to register). The were having issue with sending out the qualification emails too.
This was posted on the event FB page:
For athletes who have recently qualified for Olympic-distance, but have not yet received notification or the registration link, please email registration@usatriathlon.org to obtain your registration link. Technical issues have delayed qualification emails for some people.

I live in the CLE... If measured right will be fast course. There will be wind along the bike route close to lake. Maybe faster than Milwaukee.

I emailed them about 2 weeks ago with a link to the results from my race in May. I got my invite the next day.

The distance should be measured right according to the Garmin file they linked to. It was right at 24.85 if I recall.

You mean a tailwind on the way back. That would be great. I'm slow as sh*t so anything will help.

Probably a cross wind... But you never know...

I just updated the lists with the latest ranking and start list data - should be the last one. Good luck to everyone racing!

Looks like around 3,400 people competing in the Olympic distance race. The 50-54 age groups look to attract the most competitive fields based on percentage of previous All-American status.

Based on the start times and time predictions, it looks like 10:30am-11am will be the busiest at the finish line - hopefully the announcers can keep up with 25-30 athletes crossing the line every minute.

Rarely a tailwind on the return trip on course, but you never know. Betting man would say a tailwind out, and a headwind, or best case cross on way back in.

Any benefit of updating this to include the actual finish times? I think it would be cool to see how close you were or potentially speculate reasoning for slower/faster times given that we know what the course was like.

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Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
https://membership.usatriathlon.org/...A2-BAD7-6137B629D9B7

You predictions were very good. You predicted 13th for me and that is where I finished. You predicted 61th for my buddy and he finished 70th. Times were off, mainly because of the swim conditions and extra 200 meters distance tacked on. It would be great if you could adapt this for the Ironman races too.

Well, my predicted placing was fairly far off, but that's probably more likely caused by the fact that I just started doing this last year. Some friends, who are seasoned veterans, were pretty close to the predicted places.

You'll probably see fishes with greater deltas than non-fishies.

Someone requested I do this for 2019, so here you go:

Olympic Distance Psych Sheet
Sprint Distance Psych Sheet

Some observations:

• Olympic distance entrants down from 3,379 to 2,544
• Olympic distance projected finish density looks to be much better than 2018 with only a brief time above 20/minute.
• Sprint distance entrants down from 2,030 to 1,292
• Sprint distance projected finish density looks significantly worse, peaking at around 40/minute. Last year there was an 1:50 between first and last wave; this year just 1:30.

Thanks for doing this. It looks like the Olympic distance might be off, at least for 35-39M, It looks like USAT has 143 registered, but your spread sheet has 64 (I think that's the sprint registration).

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/23685202

I'm registered but not listed in the chart. I'm assuming that means I'm predicted to finish pretty far back...

Yea, I am seeing a few things that are a bit off with that spreadsheet too. I am not listed in the m40-44 Olympic tab either. The number of names listed in the age group tab matches the number from the total tab.

Is this true for 2020? I am not seeing it on usat website?

I believe some of the tabs are mislabeled. Check the next tab over.

Yep, I checked that too.

I fixed the Olympic sheet. When I was fixing an issue last night, I accidentally loaded the sprint start list into it.

REALLY hoping you're wrong about where I end up, and my finishing time, because my last OLY was 10 minutes faster than what you have predicted..on a hillier course. Haven't done an OLY that slow in almost a year.

ETA - nevermind, I found the key.

I skimmed the new sheet. I'm new at this psych sheet stuff. What am I to take from the pink vs green vs no color fill?
I'm not running like I used to prior to hip surgery, but my bike set up is surely better than for any prior race I've done. Here's hoping I beat your prediction - for the Oly. I'm taking the Sprint as a recovery SBR.

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To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.

The time predictions are based on your USAT score relative to the person with the highest score overall...and that person I just assigned a fixed time. It's probably more useful for place predictions within your age group. If you do better than the predicted place, then you outperformed others based on your and their USAT scores.

Sister Madonna Buder is the lone competitor in her USAT Age Group Nationals Sprint, at age 89. So great to see.

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Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018

I color coded first, second, and third placings in the psych sheet for the Olympic race. There were a few people not on the start list or without previous results tied to their name, but other than that, it was pretty accurate!

I gotta say, you were pretty much spot on for me for placing for the Olympic..much to my chagrin. The time, who knows considering the swim was shorter. About 8 places off for the sprint, but my time was faster than predicted, so I'll consider that a win?

Happy to say I finished 9th in my AG instead of the projected 17th. I had no rankings data for the last three years, so that definitely made the predictions pretty tough. Side note, I hate that Wisconsin has so few USAT sanctioned events (although I did take off from tris all of last year too).

Your predictions for the top finishers were very accurate - nice work!

I had very little data for you to work with as I've only done a handful of USAT races but finished 23 places higher in Olympic distance and 4 lower in Sprint, but with a quicker time in both races than you predicted.

Thanks for pulling all this together!

Do you know when you’ll start creating the 2020 AGNC psych sheet? Will be competing in both distances next year.