How so?

So I used 51 mins as the 3 min or slower variable.

3 out of top 15 swam slower than that. And actually those 3 all swam 54+. A few swam just under 51 (so roughly 3 mins back out of T1).

2nd- 54 (so your LS result of 2018).

---

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

there are 2 things pretty much everyone on this forum knows, and neither of the 2 parties (objects of this knowledge) realizes is it: lionel could have done a lot of things very differently and his results would have very likely been better; and davews09 is a dick (or if not he's got a really good imitation of it going today).

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

well he did write this beauty of a post a while back:

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...e_P6725752/#p6725752

I have no feeling about Lionel one way or another. However he's obviously extremely gifted ( as are any # of pros) and has a grazy drive. BUT.... it's painful to watch a athlete waist (IMO) yrs of his career because he thinks he knows best.

As for his fans.....What can I say your just fun to troll:)

You keep saying this, I don't think anyone here believes you.

Completely agree with the first part of that. I'm actually a pseudo Lionel fanboy... but with what he's done following Kona last year he deserves the critique.

Was he? It was an amazingly accurate assessment and prediction. Somewhere, can't remember where, I saw an interviewer ask Sanders about Frodeno being out. He essentially said that, while he was sad for Jan, he needed another year to get ready to race him anyway.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Seems like his head was not in it

it's not the critique. it's the delivery.

---

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Most people I know that enjoy schadenfreude are dicks. Just because you know the name of it doesn't make it any less untoward.

Lol, true. Like, just because genocide has a name doesn't make it ok.

Bart Aernouts swam 54.07 against Lionel's 53.5x.

Grow up....

---

Colorado Triathlon Company, CO2UT 2021, Crooked Gravel 2022, Steamboat Gravel 2022

Dammit Lionel....maybe why your body was off is you did an IM in Tremblant on empty 7 weeks ago and you did all these 3/4 IM days too close to the race. I think he says it in the video.

In fairness to the Sanders overhype, Kienle under performed too as did did Frodo and so did Gomez.

Hopefully it’s a wake up call. When he had his great race last year he was working with (but not coached by) Tilbury-Davis I think. Maybe he sees that there was value working with him and looks over at fellow Canadian Cody Beals and sees how well he’s done under his guise. As mentioned in every single LS thread, his ceiling is very high, but he needs someone to keep him on the right track and protect him from himself so he can reach his potential. As a fan of the sport I’m hoping today’s performance will help him step back and see this

---

Matt

Think he's saying bad days are really only from getting sick or recovering from sickness. Most other bad days are self inflicted and Bad day is a good cover story

Maybe Patrick Lange is one of the best if not the best to ever do this race and Lionel was unlucky that Lange showed up last year where he would have won otherwise

How many in the top 20 did an Ironman within 6 weeks like Lionel did?

One, Matt russell


Terrible prep, terrible planning. Bottom line he was not recovered and athletes like Lionel need tough conditions here on Kona.

I like Lionel but he needs someone to plan his schedule.

Frodo even alluded to it in his discussion when he was a guest on the live coverage during the race. He's seen all kind of people miss start lines for various reasons, and it's never really happened to him, but he said he went too hard in South Africa and just paid for that by the time he got over to Australia for his pre Kona camp. Sanders blew it in Tremblant, but maybe not to the same extent as Frodo. At least he made it to the start line but maybe in an under sharpened state from too much too close too often. There is no need for him to do race simulations constantly so close to the race because that's not the optimal way to prepare your physiology and he's not immune to what generally does not work for all of the population when getting ready for these events.

In any case, he performs well in the Hoala swim because there are others to swim around (age groupers, women etc). On the day of the pro men's swim, when the pace gets ratcheted up, the chord snaps, then he's in no man's land pulling water himself. I don't think he has developed the 25-50 meter surge when already swimming on the rivet to stay in contact, and being lighter probably did not help him since he's already swimming like a drag chute. Losing muscle works against him in a surgy swim....then the game is over and not having Wurf or Drietz around left him having to do everything on his own watts. He basically biked the same pace as the Drietz group on the same watts as he put down last year (which seems weird unless he was sitting up like a sail most of this year because everyone was riding faster). He needed to minimally be with the Drietz group to save his legs for the rest of the day like all the guys in that group minus Drietz were doing (kudos to Drietz for basically towing all those guys around the QueenK and then backing it up with a solid run. He was very impressive for a big guy in Kona.

Sanders 53:59 swim time his race was over. Head case. Times in Kona were so fast today he was in no mans land. Even when he would get within 1 min of Lange group sanders could never bridge up. I have been in Kona for 10 days and I have did every time I have seen Sander he is ya too skinny. No wind Sanders etc (Uber bikers) are done.

LS is good for the sport

He is engaging, transparent and articulate

Ironman WC are not like riding the tour, running Berlin or the 10k at the world champs

There is little opportunity to correct errors and the impact of errors compound over time; miss swim pack, chase to hard, miss special needs etc

It seems deriving some sense of satisfaction from someone's poor performance who showed up to race is pretty classless

It seems even more amazing that those same people know exactly what he did wrong when he finished second just a year ago

I've know idea who LS talks these things through with, but it seems that this is an opportunity for him to learn.

Those that dismiss his ability to learn don't seem to be able to reconcile that he is apparently smart enough to have figured out how to learn enough to get to a point where he finished second but not smart enough for this to have been a result of anything other than him not being smart............

I've no doubt he will be back, delivering, communicating, being an advocate and learning from this........

Sanders too skinny and no wind and he's done....exactly the same thing happened to Hellriegel around 1998....showed up too skinny (no place to store glycogen) and not enough wind and the champion was off the back. In this case 2nd place to also ran for Lionel. He should just do the Hoala swim totally solo to see what time he really does, because there is no big train in the front of that swim to create the surges he has to follow on race day and there are no age groupers/pro women around him to draft off of on race day who he can draft at the Hoala....or just not do that practice swim and focus most of the final month on getting his 25m to 100m swim speed as high as possible (and not doing race simulations constantly)!