Agreed, hopefully the conditions are reasonable, we want to see people broken (a la Blummenfelt), but not hurt. The relay picks will be interesting, because they are usually a day after the individual race, but here it's 5 days for the men and 4 for the women from their individual races, so there's more time to recover, and also to mentally reset after either a great race or a shite one... For that reason, I am not sure there's a huge advantage to the Dutch for resting their guys.

Breaking news, Tyler Mislawchuk is out of the relay due to an achilles injury. Gatineau's Alexis Lepage will take his place in the relay (famous for being in the break with the US in Hamburg, and crashing in the wet, but getting back up to still finish 6th, also has podiumed at the Tiszy WC with the heats and finals format, so while he's no Mislawchuk, he's no relay slouch).

🙌 Team GB all the way! GTB’s claw back on the run was awesome. Really enjoyed the men and women’s triathlon race. Such a happy bunch too - they do appear to enjoy themselves far more on race day than other athletes who slog it round in circles, fail to make the finals and cry into the TV camera apologising for letting the entire country down.

Looking forward to it!

Anyone know which British girls are in the team? I assume it will be GTB and Learmonth, but can't find confirmation.

The teams don't have to be finalised until 2 hours before race start.

Yes with Holland as reserve. USA seem to be going with Rappaport and Knibb as reserve.

GB
USA
FR

They have to confirm their roster a day out (It might be 48hrs out for the Olympics), but that is their list of athletes to choose from to populate their 4 on race day (and that is basically who holds the quota spots, unless there were any injury related substitutions). As noted, they have up until 2hrs prior to the start to confirm their actual line-up for the race. So it'll be Friday afternoon North American time, before that's confirmed.

As far as I can tell, the only injury sub is Lepage for Mislawchuk. The long lists for each country are now included in the startlist https://triathlon.org/...olympic_games/501766 but with that one exception entirely consists of the athletes who occupy the quota slots for each nation (there were a few who skipped the solo that are racing, including Van Egdom & Van Der Stel for the Dutch, Geens for Belgium).

So if I understand correctly, only Mislawchuk has been substituted. And they wouldn't replace him if he wasn't really injured or sick. No foul play by any federation, contrary to the rumors.

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

Yep, based on the long lists, he looks like the only sub (and given that it's sitting their top athlete, it's hard to think of a scenario where this would be an intentional subversion of the rules), along with the South Africa scratch (because their alternates weren't in Tokyo). Despite some speculation (ShortChute Podcast, I'm looking at you...), it appears to be malarkey free.

Interesting at the number of alternates that USA traveled to Tokyo (from IG posts, it looks like McElroy, Kasper and Spivey are all in Tokyo) for the relay (some arrived after the individual races). Not sure if that suggests that they were contemplating malarkey, or whether it was simply PTSD from the Tokyo test event where two of their athletes (KZ and Kasper) crashed each other out of the race, and they were proceeding with an abundance of caution... GB travelled a number of alternates, but they were on planes out of Tokyo before the long list was announced, once it was clear that their quota athletes made it through the individual races injury free... I suspect those departures might be tactical as well, given that many need to think about heading to Montreal soon, given that there's a mandated 72hr quarantine once on the ground there, and a deadline of August 8th for arrival in order to be eligible to race.

The rules are quite tight. Federations were worried about crashes and water quality related illness. A valid fear given that swim familiarisation for MTR yesterday was cancelled because of water quality.
Finally duathlon will get its chance to shine at the olympics....

Oh boy. Although they will find a way to make it happen, collect the water for testing from a known cleaner area. They managed it for the test event when every one knew the water was not suitable. Federation doctors will have the antibiotics ready for post event for all the ecoli cases.

It's not that simple, in that the water is tested in a number of locations to assess water quality. But I agree, that i can't see if being an MDR, they will do whatever they can to help that water under the thresholds so that they can go (there's less room for malarky in terms of water testing, since the course is tighter in the MTR, in the individual where they swim further out from shore, you can often get out to where the current is stronger and tend to find cleaner water than in the more stagnant bay).

And yes, given the cluster of Yokohama with water quality this year and athletes getting sick, having a bus load of alternates made sense, and as I said, the US was likely doubly cautious after the test event KZ-KK crash... Will be interesting to see if there are knock on effects from the water quality on the Canadian swing to wrap up this year's series (realizing that after that there are still a pile of WTCS races that count towards next year, as well as the SuperLeague 4 week series)? Those not selected for the games were bemoaning the inclusion of the OG in the points for the series prize purse, but they might be laughing in the end, if half of the Tokyo field is subpar for MTL and Edmonton because they have picked up water-borne illnesses...

GB: Learmonth, GTB, Brownlee, Yee
US: Zaferes, Knibb, Mcdowell, Pearson

https://results.nbcolympics.com/.../mixed-relay/1749195

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"Go yell at an M&M"

i read the ST article taylor spivey got to compete? if so good for her, to at least be able participate some how

Not for the US team.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

You nailed it Dan

wow that is weird, it was the SlowTwitch article I read from facebook

one thing about this olympics, it's the tale of two coaches (or whomever makes these decision): US Swimming could not have screwed the pooch more; USA Triathlon batted a thousand on strategic decisions.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman