#13: - Making AG World draft-legal. This was a resolution of an individual federation (Brazil) - and historically, these almost NEVER succeed. In this case, the resolution itself was apparently withdrawn prior to being presented for a vote.

#1: - Censuring USAT for sanctioning Lifetime Fitness Triathlon. This is one of Les McDonald's pet projects. He makes all sorts of noise about the LFT format being "demeaning" - with "men chasing after the women" - which is horseshit, and he knows it. What really frosts him is that LFT likes to take the same weekend as traditionally goes to the Corner Brook (Newfoundland) World Cup - and because of the huge purse at LFT, the field at Corner Brook is weak. That irks the Corner Brook organizers, and McDonald will fight like hell to protect his own. Add to that the fact that Corner Brook is in Canada, as is McDonald, and you get a bone that McDonald is unlikely to give up on easily. And then add to that the fact that USAT supported Sarah Springman in her campaign against McDonald for the presidency of the ITU; McDonald won (40-33) and he is not in the habit of forgiving and forgetting.

At any rate, the resolution to censure USAT passed (handily, according to the Triathlon Informer) - which is no big surprise, since most nations of the world love to beat up on the big bad world bully whenever they can. That leaves three questions: (1) Will USAT ignore the resolution and continue to sanction LFT - and I'd be flabbergasted if the answer was anything but "yes"; (2) what if anything will the ITU do in response; and (3) what recourse does USAT have if it doesn't like what the ITU does.

What, for example, would happen if McDonald pushes USAT too far, prompting USAT to either (a) go to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS) or (b) take the nuclear option by withdrawing from the IOC. I can't believe the USOC would do anything other than fight like a wounded animal in defense of USAT under circumstances of that nature. I'm not sure McDonald would want to risk that sort of encounter.

#3. Adding Winter Tri to the Olympics. This is a no brainer for the ITU - of course it will petition the IOC in favor of this action. But the IOC does not want to increase the size of the Games - which means that if winter tri comes in, (a) another sport will have to be excised and (b) winter tri will have to beat out all the other sports that want a place on the winter menu. In other words, don't hold your breath.

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Lew

Lew, as fun as winter tri is, the ITU format is "barely winter". Its got running and Mtn biking and XC skiing. They'd run a better chance if they went XC skiing skate - speedskate - XC ski classic. This would be a real winter triathlon.

I agree. The original Mountain Man Triathlon in Vail probably had the best combination: xc ski, snowshoe, speedskate. I'm not sure why the ITU chose the current format, but it probably arose from very practical considerations. For exampole, it could well be that most world cup venues had difficulty providing a speedskating rink. But why they chose running instead of snowshoeing is beyond my meager imagination.

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Lew

Or they could go XC ski classic-snowshoe-XCski skate. The FIS world cup has a Skiathlon race last year, which was XC ski Classic+ XC ski skate + with a T1 (ie different from the old pursuit format where you had a combined time oof two events).

Dev

Problem with your idea may be jurisdiction - if only because international federations are very zealous about defending their "turf". Summer triathlon succeeded in overcoming this hurdle in part because we had three existing federations all yipping at each other about who should really control the new sport. But in your format, one federation (FIS) would claim jurisdiction over two-thirds of the new event - and my guess is that the IOC would not want to wage that sort of fight against the entity whose events constitute the very core of the winter games.

That's probably one reason for the current format: biking, running, and xc skiing are each controlled by a different federation. But so would the Mountain Man format: xc ski, snowshoe, speedskate. In fact, snowshoeing is not yet even in the winter games.

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Lew