Really? I assumed Wurf, Jan and maybe Starky, Long would be the closest behind Ditlev

Starky ? He got out swim , biked and run by they guy we are talking a out in Edmonton.

Sam in his last two ironman raced , held pace with Magnus is Texas and start the run ok. Had issues but also maybe was playing his cards for worlds the next weekend.

Worlds a week later in st.George out biked long, wurf and still ran a sub 3 hour run on that course.

His bike and magnus are top 2 not just because they have the overall bike time but they can still run well after and both are under 25 I think .

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

at the same time johnny seems to have even bigger problems for 70.3 and most people would say he is less arrogant to use your word, than his brother .and i guess it fair to say he wasnt even better than anybody else in his own family .

i have to say i expected him to do better than ali in 70.3 .

If you read the bottom of this article Ali explains how he's been having all kinds of sickness issues he's never had before (but he's not a conspiracy theorist)

https://www.tri247.com/...a-qualification-plan


It's mad how posters on ST can claim Ali overbiked with such certainty like one of the most intelligent athletes in the game who's been racing since a child just couldn't work this out himself!

How many 70.3's has JB done? Did he not just have his 70.3 debut in 2021 according to Outside article that I just quickly googled.

He's mixing it up with ITU and racing ITU really really well (and now injured from crash), so I'm going to reserve judgement a little longer until he's transitioned to LC like AB kinda did (he did have a mini itu comeback to try and get on the MTR for Tokyo). AB has what nearly 5 years of mostly 70.3 results to judge on, JB has what a small handful of 70.3 results if that?

(I'm not really sure what the point of bringing JB into the conversation for?)

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

A more interesting quote was basically how he wanted to execute his race:

I kind of wanted to do everything at a couple of percent easier than I would do normally, just to be safe and execute a solid race.


Can he take that tactic to Kona on the biggest stage? The crazy thing is, he's still one of the best in the sports, he's gotta let the others make the stupid decisions, because he's got the goods to be there in the end. He just can't keep handicapping himself (whether being sick / racing questionable tactics / injury issues).

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

With Jonnys pedigree he really should have done a lot better in the couple of 70.3s he's done, Jonnys had his own issues though since Cozumel.

Again I’m not sure why JB is being brought up. Your making comparisons of an athlete with 5 years worth of LC events vs someone w 2 LC starts?

Why did this get brought up to begin with? What point is being made in regards to my specific comments about AB?

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

Lionel is advising him on race tactics.

Agreed. He is not a relevant player in the conversation.

Ditlev is stronger on the bike than Wurf?

The crazy thing is AB doesn't "need" to take chances. He's already going to be at the front of the bike coming into T2. He's there on the run as well. Why take chances on the bike, when you've already cut the race down to a marathon run as the decider.

But again I think injury / fitness status is the biggest factor into his race day tactics more than anything.

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

This Horsfall Turner must be a hell of a swimmer. Looks like he was national level before tri?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Just watch the races he does massive surges that you just don't do in an ironman. Kona 2019 the first 15 km of the bike he did 3 massive surges. Up Palani hill he was killing it out of the saddle looking back to guys he dropped like " you guys aren't coming???".

also once he got the flat and support he surged back to Tim and Jan. He could have paced until the Wurf train and paced off the back and said time it run sub 2:40.


He told BOB on BWB that in 2018 70.3 worlds he tried to pull away from the group serval times and couldn't which lead to a difficult run effort.

I am not saying he can't bike well but he needs to lower the surges. ITU you surge and hide in the pack. Long course you can't do that

Everyone has bad races of course, but he has mad it harder then it needs to be in a few big ones.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

For Starky you pick one bad race? He has tons of course records. I know he isn't a strong runner, but that wasn't your original claim. If you had said bike-run and under 25 years old (as you are saying now, but thats oddly specific) then maybe.

He is over. He was the top flat course biker 2011-2018.

Get new info.

Also like a said you bike split alone does mean you are the best biker. If the effort removes the run then you just overbiked.

Notice the other front pack swimmers didn't chase sam in Edmonton. Ali could have rode like royal and got $$$$$ paid

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

Ok then remove starky and there are still 3 other guys in my list. I'm not hung up on saying Starky is stronger than Sam on a specific day and course.

If we want to say best bike-run combo we can add a few more athletes to the mix.

Sam is super impressive. Kudos to him for his Edmonton performance. I was just surprised to see someone rank him second to only Ditlev on the bike, that's all.

I’d listened to a Joe Skipper podcast and he said at Ironman UK he took major minutes out of Sam on the run to win it, and he knew he would.

I think the perception was that Sam blew up a lot on the run. Whether that was overbiking or not is open for debate. It seems that is the assumption made about Ali so maybe Sam too.

As for strongest cyclist I don’t know. If the assumption is you are only the strongest if you’re putting it together as part of the whole race then I’m not sure Sam qualifies overall.

both brownlees are of rather similar talent and have done very similar training. so why would you not look at the 2, to look at to similar people while not identical does not hurt i would suggest .

physiological reasons could play into it , johnny has done 3 middle distance races,first in 2020 , and has blown up in all 3 on the run and i think and most people would call him a bit more level headed or less arrogant . i can not think of an great itu athelte that struggled so much to transfer to middle distance in his 3 first attempts and its not just 3 races in a short space , its one in 2020 one 2011 one in 2022.
so both did not really transfer their itu run level into 70.3 .

it can be mental it can physiological, and also it could be that they have worn out their body and mind so much from all the training they have done.

since someone pointed out johnnies cozumel that would fall into the physiological category and the mental category as well , and i guess Alistair had a similar issue once or twice before where he pushed himself over the limit.
in short hard to call it what the issue really is from an outsider point of view.
at the same time the talent is there and you just never rule them out either. which makes every race with them rather interesting.

I think some people on this thread are referring to Sam Laidlow, and some to Sam Long….not sure which the person who originally mentioned ‘Sam’ as the strongest biker meant.

So your timeline is from 2020-2022 for JB that includes training specific to the MTR demands of competition of which he won a gold medal . I’m not going to take much from his performances and I’m not going to suggest he and AB were training to same demands.

It’s very very rare to win big time at itu and LC at the same time. Usually one of the energy systems will suffer.

Add in his “heat issues” post Cozumel and the fact that he still is racing itu extremely well, I think it’s a poor decision to bring him into the discussion.

Eta: so I think looking at it from a coaching standpoint, JB LC career is very much TBD, he hasn’t even “transitioned” to LC fully. So any judgement seems rather invalid while AB has many LC races to make a better judgement.

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

I don't think there can be any doubt Jonnys performances took a nose dive after Cozumel, he went from an Olympic silver, almost world title away in the same year (if he'd have stepped off that gas a little he still would have been able to walk down that blue carpet)

To struggling to get into the top 5, the pre Cozumel Jonny only showed up to one ITU race since.

I thought longer distance would suit him better than Ali also, but he's struggled and I think this influenced his decision to go for Commonwealth.

bottom line, this alistair chap is pretty good at sports.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I heard the same. Kid is pretty good. ;)

Did I just read above that Sam is top 2 bikers currently for IM? And also that Alistair is not a smart racer?

What are you on people? Alistair is one of the greatest of our sport. And the simpleton from Boulder who goes on Alpes d’Huez with a single ring setup on the other hand has everything to prove. Saying “strongest legs in triathlon” is not only stupid, it’s false. Don’t believe the hype.