Ajax Bay wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:
monty wrote:
My big question now is does sam start thinking about the Ironman series?? . . . I mean he probably cannot win the thing, but with one, maybe two fulls, well it could be possible to podium?? He could still get some good $$ for doing 5 half's at this level too, especially with a great worlds performance at the end. Has to be entering his mind I bet, so perhaps a full will suddenly appear on the horizon after a little break now for a good training bloc...I chatted with Sam at Eric Wynn's ST get together BBQ in St. George. It "sounds" like Sam may be contemplating a full IM this summer some time. He mentioned Penticton being an option
Penticton isn't a Series race, however lovely and a living/surviving legend (and I appreciate the reason you might float that).
I'd be surprised if he chose to race an IM just 'for fun': to be meaningful surely he would want to race a stacked field? And racing anywhere except an IM Pro Series race will be a 'B' field (racing one would take prize money from the the neo-pros who need it).
Long's two top 70.3s plus 2700+ points at Taupo means he could rack up 12000 points with two more 70.3s.
With his contracted T100 events, whilst he needs to race 3 more times, plus GF, he only needs one more podium in the regular season races. That determines when he might slot in an IM (or heaven help us two IMs) or two more 70.3s, or one of each.
So which T100 offers his best chance of good points? Probably not SF with its swim and climbing, and van Riel there btw.
London looks good with Ibiza a possible, but with an enhanced level of post Olympic competition. Las Vegas will lose all the Kona bound athletes but that'll mean a wedge of wildcard weapons to beat. So let's target London (end July) with Las Vegas as the standby, and Dubai as the kick return.
He has multiple North American 70.3s to choose from in the next 7 weeks so that's not a determining factor. But IMs?
If only one then IMLP is the obvious choice (21 July) but that would mean shelving London as a 'top finish' target.
Frankfurt on 18 August is another, but likely the winner there will be further ahead, and 'every second counts'. And he doesn't travel well. Doesn't clash with anything, though.
The numbers (tl;dr probably not worth it):
A set of five scores, including one good (for him) IM raises the IM Pro Series potential score to
14,500 which will be top 10 (my estimate) and remember #8 only pays $20k.
But an athlete who places average #20 when completing two IMs plus Kona (30 minutes down in all three) plus a couple of 70.3s (15 minutes down x 2), scores
13,800.
The max possible score (Ryf 2018 dominance) is 21,500. We might expect Lange to score about 19,000 points (now on 6519, +4800 (Frankfurt), +1900 (10 mins down in a second 70.3), +5800 (Kona)) and not go to Taupo (he has no slot nor likely to get). Who else, as a benchmark for whether it's worth Long trying to score 5 times?
We might expect Mignon to score over 18,000 points (now on 4641, +4400 (Frankfurt), +4000 (two 70.3s), +5400 (Kona)) and not go to Taupo.
I assume Blummenfelt is going to validate his AQ for Taupo after Cagliari (guess a gentle training day @ Les Sables) so he with
only four races could score
15,300 (2000+4700(Frankfurt)+5800(Kona)+2800(Taupo))
Of course the current IM Pro Series standings include only NA races (x 3) and the European contenders have IM Vitoria and IM Frankfurt to show their cards before Kona. So we have a skewed insight to the likely players.
I shall cross post this into another (non-event specific) thread.
Yesterday Sam said he IS doing T100 San Francisco.
I have not tracked it, but I assume Penticton is an Ironman Pro race, but perhaps not part of the Pro Series but does it offer pro slots to go to Kona? If so, Penticton is easy travel given it is in Sam's time zone and maybe an easy Kona slot and if he has all the T100 points he needs, then he does Penticton as a training day gets his Kona slot and races penticton for IM Pro series points.
I have not skin in the game on Penticton, Sam was the one who mentioned it as a potential event