$400 entry. That's a lot.

I was referring to races to date that any pro can enter although i accept the nascar circuit races to date have been invite only.

My 2c is race that have restricted entry e.g. Collins cup should not be included in points calculation for exactly the reason you mention, the PTO should back those races with sufficient prize money to make it of interest to those invited who take a long view at year end rankings implication.

Either it should be a level playing field or it shouldn’t and it be made clear the ‘upper echelon’ going to be favoured monetarily (perhaps weirdly then inspiring newer pros to want to break through)

Bringing this one back up unfortunately, as the PTO have also announced that all PTO races will receive a 5% boost in points awarded. Awarding points to an invite only race would be one thing, but artificially boosting the numbers higher is just absurd. If their ranking system worked like they claim it does, they wouldn't need to do this.

And this is on top of the new that one full distance race per athlete gets a 10% score boost. That's exactly what we needed... to punish athletes who are not yet ready to start full distance racing or have decided to stick with middle distance for one reason or another. But I guess when the higher ranked athletes literally have more voting power per person than everyone else, and the highest ranked person who doesn't do fulls is Ben Kanute at #8, they're going to turn a blind eye to what this will do to the rest of the field...

The extra boost for IM distance doesn't seem fair, especially since it seems like IM distance races already score higher points than 70.3 on average.

How does voting work in the PTO if you're allowed to talk about that? Were these new PTO scoring boosts put to the entire PTO for a vote and the top 10 athletes get more votes than everyone else? I'm just curious about how these decisions are made in the PTO and how much their members contribute.

Thanks for your feedback as a professional - we don't really get much of that here on Slowtwicth!

Nomination Qualifications: Any PTO Professional is eligible to run for a position on the Athlete Board. If a PTO Professional wishes to run for election, they must be nominated by at least three other PTO Professionals who are eligible to vote for the vacant Athlete Board Member position in question. Thus, if a PTO Professional wishes to run for the vacant position that is to be elected by the Top 25 Ranked PTO Professionals, they must be nominated by at least three of the top 25 Ranked PTO Professionals. If a PTO Professional wishes to run for a vacant position that is elected by those PTO Professionals ranked from 26-50, they must be nominated by at least three PTO Professionals ranked from 26-50.

Nominations: Any PTO Professional wishing to run for an Athlete Board Member position can submit their application here.
Please only submit your nomination once you have received three endorsements from the required ranked PTO Professionals. Applications are to be submitted by December 1. Once submissions have been received, those PTO Professionals who are eligible to run will receive confirmation by December 15th.

Election: As soon as the 2021 PTO World Rankings have been finalised on December 20th, the top 50 ranked men and women PTO Professionals will be contacted with the list of eligible Athlete Board Member candidates, and voting will take place. Voting will close January 15, 2022, and new Athlete Board Members will begin their terms on February 1, 2022

Election Calculations: One man Athlete Board Member will be elected by a vote of the Top 25 Ranked Professionals. According to the By-laws, for this position votes are weighted depending on a PTO Professional’s Ranking as follows:

Rank 1-5 are allocated 7 votes each,
Rank 6-10 are allocated 5 votes each, and
Rank 11-25 are allocated 4 votes each.

One man and one woman Athlete Board Member will be elected by a vote of those PTO Professionals ranked from 26-50, with each voting PTO Professional having one equal vote.

I heard on an interview a while back that the PTO is looking at a 200km race distance (4-160-40). Has anyone heard more on this?

I heard on an interview a while back that the PTO is looking at a 200km race distance (4-160-40). Has anyone heard more on this?