monty wrote:
Always fun to get these uber cyclists come over to ironman, but the bar is quite high for them. Higher than they think too. Up until now, Wurf has been the only serious threat, and not to the podium folks as of yet. He certainly changes the way the guys race, but as we have seen over and over, once a top pro cyclist swims and runs, they often only ride with the best triathletes, not demolish them.
He is going to have a very rough time with an 11 minute+ deficit in the swim though. Even if he cracks the swim open and is just 7 or 8 minutes down, there is just no way he ever sniffs the front of Kona, probably never catches the 2nd group either. Never mind his run will be toast, whatever it was going to be in the first place. IT will just take too much to get into the actual pro race, and. unless he has a 2;20 marathon to his resume, forget about it..
Richie Port will be a much better case study, think he can swim within 5 minutes of the leaders with a year of hard swim training, and as I recall, he could run too. But I wouldn't expect either of these guys to better than Cam did, that guy was a real outlier and took to our sport like no other top cyclist ever has. And don't really count Lance in that category, he was at the top of our sport before he left, nothing like all these "did" a triathlon before cycling folks coming over.
I would not call Hansen or Wurf uber cyclists in the peloton at all. Good cyclists no doubt. Porte absolutely is though; has a great TT, was running 30:30 10k whilst doing triathlon as a teen. He is a quick swimmer and so I agree he would be a great case study. Campanaerts has a strong background in triathlon and would be very interesting as well. His TT skills as well as his swim speed are known. I'm not sure about his running capabilities.