What happened with cam brown? How was he tracking at the time?
Awesome to see Braden have this race.
Growing up in NZ that coarse chip seal is just what I was used to, but can’t say I miss it being overseas now!

Yeah same, all the loose chip swept to the side buy the gutter where you are trying to ride. Get pretty relaxed on the bike around Netherlands with all the bike paths

NZ scenery can't be be though

Cam had some issues with pain in his feet. He saw his son watching on the side of the road and switched running shoes with son because he wanted to finish (what a concept). But due to the shoe swap with a spectator he was DQ'd.

How old is Cam now? 49?

Dev

For the carbon plated troll that suggested he could only run 2:50 without carbon plated shoes: he ran 2:39 pre-carbon plated shoes that time.

kipchoge did 1:59 with carbon shoes on and course optimizing, 2:01 in berlin. His best effort pre carbon shoe era is 2:04. The faster the athlete is the less difference time wise, but percentage should be the same. 2:04 --> 1:59 == 4% !!

It would be best to look at run times of prior to 2017 when triathletes began to adopt these shoes into racing, and you will see for quite a few years run times for winners will be steady and the same. Now these winning times every news story is new course record broken bla bla bla. But the dust from this storm is starting to settle... and 2:40 is the new standard in triathlon to win.

It’s pretty freaking amazing!!!!!

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Jason
None of the secrets of success will work unless you do.

The sad thing is that this thread has become a conversation about the shoe not the person. Which if I get the initial intent of the comment about the shoe - running should be about the human achievement not the kit is slightly ironic. An argument could easily be made that the 2:50 times you referred to were made possible because of the bike tech improvements leading to fresher legs on the run - so 2:50 was actually 3:00 or 3:10.

But the sport is Triathlon. Not discrete sports. And the rules of triathlon are more permissive for each component than the equivalent individual single sport equivalent (actually, OW swimming may be same?).

One final point to consider - race was a 3 weeks later and so was cooler on the run than normal. And as mentioned 4 lap run this year. So way way better than the old 2 lapper to past the airport.

i've long been a fan of currie's and have marked him as my dark horse pick a few times in kona. that performance in cairns against gomez was particularly impressive, but sub-8 and 2:40 at NZ - new course or not - is bloody impressive.

i really hope he can put it all together at kona. i really like him - seems like a good bloke, and he comes from such a different background to the other guys. just a different style of racing, and i like that.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Yes, I did derail the thread a bit, only cause run split was mentioned in the title. It was a good performance I will aknowledge

huge (cumulative) marginal = huge marginal

there people who can the blanks and can't

Aside from seeing some really light shoes(like the Mayflys and original Nike Zoom foam) which I would say were a small (but probably) measurable marginal improvement, there have been almost no real performance improvements in shoes in the past 30 years.

Any anything related to corona is completely temporary. Looking at some running results, its arguably been a gain, with less races athletes have had extreme focus on being completely on form for the few races that are happening.

idk, one great time begs the question about conditions and factors that led to the performance moreso than the performance of the person.

You can always go win Kona five or six times like Dave Scott and then nobody is interested in your equipment. Greatness in this sport (because courses frequently have measurement errors and because the long race distances can make the integrated effects of weather very significant with respect to finish times, both of which make times very hard to compare, before you even consider technology changes) is not about some particular time, it is about consistently winning the biggest events, agains the best competition and by how much.

Yeah, as a fairly regular Fitter Radio podcast listener I've really enjoyed his interviews. Definitely a legit podium threat at Kona. He'd need a special day to get that top spot, but he should at least be in the mix.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

So the answer is: Braden, who hasn't updated his Results-Page since 2019?
C'mon - sharpen up, Braden!

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if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!

Give him a break 2020 was a write off and 2021 just started...

ok, 3 day recovery break granted...

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if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!

I’d give him a few more days he’s busy...
https://www.instagram.com/...?igshid=hp86vjk7rxnm

Sometimes I really think that YouTube stalks me waaaaay too much because these videos came up on my YouTube page today..
Part 1:


Part 2:

I was just watching Kona 2018 while spinning on the rollers yesterday and watching him run early on the run leg in the chase group behind Cam Wurf was pretty impressive. Not as impressive as Lange, but if he can pull together a low 2:4x in Kona (he ran 2:53 that day), he is right in the mix for the win. Well there would need to be a kona 2021 first for him to actually win Kona 2021 and he's gonna need to get out of NZ magically, which from what I gather is not that easy.

I'm a huge fan of Braden Currie and I think he's an awesome athlete, but you're somewhat omitting what happened to him in 2019 in Kona. In 2019, Currie came out with the front pack on the swim but somehow couldn't hang on the bike with the likes of Frodeno, Alistair, T.O., and Clavel. It's surprising to me that he let them go as I consider him a pretty great rider. So while he seems to be pretty solid on the bike around the globe, him letting those guys go in 2019 makes me doubt his ability to win the race. I think his run is a weapon and I love his running form, but I think his run gives him the ability to possibly podium but not necessarily win.

All that being said, I would love to see Braden Currie win Kona and some other big races.

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Team Zoot 2023

I wonder if Braden's decision in 2019 was strategic. Alistair was riding like an idiot early in the race from a pacing perspective. Jan stayed close enough, to not let the rubber band completely snap and used Alistair as an unpaid domestique to break Lange and a few others who had to overbike to keep Alistair's pace (including Alistair himself who was overbiking). Jan only went so deep early. He was a master tactician, using Alistair to up the pace, but never really burnning his own matches. Only Tim and Jan had any business staying in the vicinity of Alistair. Alistair himself had no business being in the vicinity of himself as he later proved out.

In light of that Braden likely had to make a tactical decision. Go at the pace of Alistair and end up like Lange, or choose his sustainable pace. He ended up with a bunch of people that biked around 4:30 which was waaay too slow to contend. What I would be interested in knowing was once the Jan group was out of sight, he still had a chance to being a 47.xx swimmer to ride on Sebi, Wurf, Lionel and others who were coming by. I think he would have come off around the same time as Matt Russell.

You are right that if he's going to contend he has to be able to shadow Jan and frankly if Alistair gets his act together like at IM Western Oz 2019, he has to shadow him. All these guys can run as fast as Braden. And in 2018 Lange proved he can outrun Braden, so if Braden can't be that far behind Jan, or latch onto Sebi-Wurf-Lionel, then he won't have a big buffer to someone like Lange. But if you can't come off the bike less than 5 min behind Jan your game is over if Jan is not injured.

Clavel seemed to do most of the work and self destruction prior to the turnaround. I suppose it could be seen as a strategic decision, but did that strategy pay off? Yes, ultimately he could've ended up like Lange and just taken himself out of the race, but I have my doubts that Braden Currie came to Kona with a strategy to protect a top ten finish. I think it was Kienle or Macca a few years back that talked about taking risks in Kona and how just riding to power and following a pre-race plan rarely works. Each race has dynamics that can't really be planned for and those decisions in that moment can be crucial. I guess I'm wondering if Currie was able to ride with Jan while the others pulled the train. It just seems like him letting that group may have cost him significantly.

Outside of 2016, we have not seen somebody get off the bike when he's on form (Excluding 2017 with the back). In 2016 Kienle got off the bike with Jan, but I think we all knew ahead of time who was going to win that foot race. I'm not even sure we've seen really pushed on the Kona course. If Jan were to get off the bike in a somewhat even position with Currie and Lange, then we might really see what Jan is capable of on the run. Also, if Alistair figures out Kona before Jan retires it could make for a pretty epic battle.

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Team Zoot 2023