realbdeal wrote:
Can I use this thread to rehash the draft distance discussion for the presumably millionth time? I know it's been talked about before but I've never really understood the arguments for a longer draft distance until recently. I think I even kind of scoffed at Sanders in 2017 when he said he wasn't going to go to 70.3 Worlds because it would be a draft fest (paraphrased).
Having realized the massive benefit of racing in a legally spaced pack, it makes me desperately want a longer draft zone. In Cozumel, I only ended up riding 250w avg, but had nearly my fastest bike split ever. I wanted to ride harder, but with the winds, I knew that if I tried to break away from my small pack of 4, I wouldn't be able to drop them and I'd just end up doing all the work off the front for no benefit. Instead I sat in the pack, leading as little as possible except for two surges. Boring. At one point I did glance over my shoulder a few times to see someone sitting maybe 4 meters behind me, prompting me to sit up, give them the finger, and yell some not so nice things. He dropped back but it pissed me off. Saw him blatantly drafting off Taylor Reid right in front of me when our pack first caught him.
In addition, I would assume the drafting benefit does not scale linearly on distance. If someone cheats the distance to say 8 meters, right now they may not get a penalty because that's close enough, but they're also getting a much bigger benefit than the legal 10 meters. If the legal zone was 20 meters, if someone cheated up a bit to 16, they're benefit is much smaller.
So I guess the relevant part to your question is, does having the legal distance short enough that there is a benefit make racing more interesting? It certainly makes it more tactical but from a being in the race perspective that's kind of disappointing. Despite the potential benefits of drafting on the swim, triathlon is arguably an individual sport we do at the same time as others. I'd argue the mental aspect of being out there with others is tactical enough and we don't need to add in physical advantages to be gained as well.
If you think packs and the benefit are bad now, just wait until the first time you ride in a moto parade, and then you realize how you literally have no chance against the moto parade in a bigger race. And to be a little cheeky, I believe you wrote the piece...
Five professional traits I admire (and the pros the exude them), but maybe it could get an update to include two more important traits... Leadership and Integrity.
The draft zone is 12 meters, we (at least when I raced) used the yellow dashes where they existed. The majority of pros follow a fair and equal distance spacing IMHO. You get the occasional bad apple. On flat courses it is much easier to control spacing than on rolling courses. On rolling courses it can be quite mentally taxing as all you are generally doing, or at least me, was mentally spending energy keeping proper spacing. 20m would be much better. But yes, we have hashed this topic so many times.
It would best for the pros to come with the leadership to enact change because it isn't going to happen from an ST debate here. Not sure if this is something the PTO is working toward but I am sure that everyone, well most everyone, would be in favor of 20m.
From a policy statement I have had this conversation many times but there needs to be blue card drafting (blatant drafting) and yellow card (unintentional) drafting. The majority of the drafting penalties in the male field should be yellow card but they should be doled out with higher frequency as well.
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