I disagree. Two years of Kona with B level pros while another event like Roth gets all the A level pros and becomes the new defacto WC and the pendulum will rapidly swing away from Kona. Kona rapidly loses its luster when it is no longer the de facto World Championship with an annual NBC special about it.

Three things are needed to make this possible
1 - Pro solidarity. PTO makes this possible, however unlikely
2 - A viable alternative that is preferable to Kona in many aspects and can be played against WTC. Challenge and Roth immediately comes to mind.
3 - Covid to disrupt everything for at least one year which enables a break out of the status quo.

I'm with ItaloBritt. PTO needs to leverage the pros against WTC.

Agree with this stance. Because it's basically the only card they have to play.

But IM could simply wait them out. That $10M will be gone sooner or later and the PTO will no longer have appeal when it's not forking over easy money

That equals unsustainable.

Yea you should probably only read posts from those that agree with you. 😝

And this is the answer. Pro's are just the cheery on top of the cake. The real customer are the age groupers. There is very little demand for the pros and ample supply. That never generates revenue.

Exactly, the vast majority of triathletes could not care less about the pros. And I would argue that pros did NOT build this sport. Whether short course events in California or Ironman in Hawaii, it was just a group of regular athletes getting together for a challenge. And like any sport it quickly attracted top athletes who came to participate with all the other athletes before there even was any money to be had. I think it's more accurate to say that while pros add some sprinkles to the already iced cake, they really didn't matter then and they don't matter now.

I think you're missing the economics of triathlon. The economics of Triathlon is that this is a mass-participation sport. Without age groupers pros don't eat. You can see this with every promoter, even ITU event promoters have age group triathlons at every location. ITU Worlds...Age Group Event.

Economics of running? Mass participation sport. I like watching pros and stuff, but the vast majority of triathletes that toe the line in races have no idea who pros are. Just like social media isn't real life, slowtwitch isn't real life. We are the outliers.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

That's more of an Ironman-hater fantasy than a business model. Competition is a good thing, and I'm glad to see PTO backing Challenge Daytona, but I would bet that this gnat on the elephant's ass is unlikely to change things much.

You missed nothing. But thanks for reminding me of the 'block user' function.

Apparently elite sport is 'about making sacrifices' and if you have to wait for a bit to have children that's part of elite sport. I thought elite sport was about going faster than everyone else.

Anyone who trains makes sacrifices. You could be sitting on the couch having a beer. But you're not, you're outside running in the pissing rain.

It's a sacrifice, but it going for a run when the weather is crap doesn't make you an elite athlete.

Doing that run in the rain or that race FASTER than everyone else makes you elite.

It's performance, not intention or circumstances.

OK it could go that way, in that the Tier 1 pros do other events and elevate those other PTO events past Kona. Or it could be that Tier 2 pros do Kona and they become the new Tier 1 pros on account of winning Kona. Look at the Giro this year. Top 2 guys were to even considered in the equation at the start of the Giro. Thomas crashes out, and the older Tier1 pros (on the Tier 2 part of their career) under performed. New young Tier 2 pros outperformed older Tier 1 pros (who are really Tier 2, guuys like Nibali are Tier1 in their legacy, not performance). Now Tao and Jay are the heros.

So whether the finish time at Kona is 7:55 or 8:15, no one will know what the T1 pros "would have done"....so its possible that T2 turns to T1.

Here is an example. Nice Triathlon 1995 was an ITU World Championships. Lessing won (a T1 guy), second were Luc Van Lierde and Peter Reid (T2 no names). No one paid attention since Mark Allen was losing to Hellriegel by 13 minutes at T2 until he came back on the marathon.

Fast forward to 1996. Van Lierde does the 8:04 course record, Hellriegel 8:06. Reid in 8:1x in 4th. 97 Helliegel wins, 98 Van Lierde...then Reid wins 3 more....T2 players at 1995 ITU worlds become the top guns later.

So at some point, does the race make the player or does the player make the race?