Yeah, I guess the bookie odds on Beth winning are like 1.01 ;)

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

was going to say, surely potter is the favourite for the women. normally i'd tip klamer as fairly reliable but i'm not sure about her form lately.

overall it looks like a thinner field that london, anyway.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

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If you guys have the time then check out the Super League Short Chute Show released yesterday, as they go into all things SL related and a few other little bits and pieces...

EDIT: (sorry,didn't see it was already posted below)
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Just under 9hrs to go and here are the global start times....(For the interested few)
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Almost there.....

Looking forward to this, shame they couldn't get a few more big names in.

Too much close ups of athletes when they're racing on zwift, they ruined that whole finish for the 1st female race.

Well didn't expect Coldwell to win that, think everyone expected Potter to run away with it the form she's been in.

Wonder if Superleague could have attract a couple of long course athletes into this race, haven't heard of half these athletes.

yeah, gutsy finish by coldwell.

was surprised by potter in race 3 - she seemed all over the shop. literally went first to last and back multiple times in 5 minutes.

also surprised by klamer - figured she'd be further up the field. Someone has said maybe she's saving up big for tokyo since her qualification is already safe . . .

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I'm still amazed that they managed to make and keep me interested in an event like this. Super League, you rock.

That being said, the Arena Games have the most anticlimactic finishes ever when the bike or run is the last leg. Everyone is like, "that's it, they're done"?

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

for both london and rotterdam i watched the women's races but not men's. i think maybe i knew more women on the start lists, and was genuinely curious about lucy. whereas at the recent 70.3s i knew the men's fields well but barely knew the women . . .

anyway yeah - i figure they've made indoor triathlon about as exciting as it's ever going to get without tequila or handguns.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

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Well it is a weird year and even before Covid shut everything down last year Super League had announced that they would schedule their events around the Olympic aspirations of the athletes. Now that they are actively working with World Triathlon they have tried to find the best development athletes to fill up the spots around the top end athletes who are able to make it to the Arena Games.

Lots of racing going on around the world keeping the big names busy leading up to Tokyo( Cassandre Beaugrand for example,won the European Triathlon Cup Melilla in Spain yesterday).
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Sorry Nick I have not participated in this yet. I did not even open my flobikes service to watch it. I spent my time watching the various British Olympic Swimming trials, doing some work and recovering from feeling like death from an Astrazeneca vaccine for 72 hrs. Will go watch it tonight (Canada time).

devashish_paul wrote:

Sorry Nick I have not participated in this yet. I did not even open my flobikes service to watch it. I spent my time watching the various British Olympic Swimming trials, doing some work and recovering from feeling like death from an Astrazeneca vaccine for 72 hrs. Will go watch it tonight (Canada time).

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No worries mate,hope you start feeling better soon. I see that Super League is following the trend of making an announcement of an announcement and lets hope this one has more substance than the big announcement that Ironman made the other week..
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I'm not shocked at the lack of long course athletes, given that there have been a lot more long course races that have been happening than there have been World Triathlon events. With that in mind, it's less logical for a long course athlete to train for something so short and intense for one shot at a mediocre payday. Lucy was a big catch for London, and likely was either getting appearance money, or strong nudging through her sponsorship with Zwift to support the event... But in general, I get why they would stay away.

While the fields weren't stacked with the biggest names in World Triathlon racing, there were really only 1 or 2 names that I hadn't heard of on the start list, and those were the young dutch development athletes. The rest have been on the circuit for a few years, even if they aren't at the pointy end of the WTS events.

In terms of Klamer, it's likely a combo of having an OG slot locked up, and racing straight out of a training camp, likely without a taper... Given that the race was both on home soil, and well supported by SuperLeague, for whom she's been a fixture since they debuted women's races, I can see why she showed up, even though she struggled uncharacteristically.

I found the racing to be exciting. And I wasn't surprised by Coldwell's win, Potter has raced a lot lately, and it's hard to sustain a peak like she's been having. They also shortened the bike leg, taking away 90sec from the race over which she could erase part of the swim deficit. This combined with Coldwell being on slightly better run form than she was in London, made the outcome less surprising. Coldwell is also someone who in general has always overachieved on the SL circuit (compared a bit to her World Tri results), she pulls decent results on the World Tri circuit (She's got WC wins and WTS podiums/top 10s) but seems to perform particularly well in the super sprint stuff (Mixed Relay and Superleague)...