I think you're extrapolating the effect of top SC athletes like Iden and Blummenfelt and reckoning that others stepping up will have the same impact, failing to recognise that they are not in the same league (as GI and KB). Which "talented short course guys [won't] get Olympic slots"? Surely Luis. Maybe Brownlee or McElroy. Or maybe Lührs. https://triathlon.org/...pionship_series/male
But I doubt that any of these guys are going to have the impact you've described.
Please don't waste your time throwing shade on athletes who put effort into SM - scarcely a useful benchmark. Consider how the top 10 current MD athletes will square up: West, Bogen, Funk, Margirier, Laidlow, Noodt. What was the impact of Royle and Kanute stepping up: hardly game changing?

Imagine how satisfied you will be in 13 months when you can tell me how wrong I was.

If he and Jason West got off the bike together I could see them pushing each other to run 1:05:xx on fast course with ideal conditions.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Maybe 1.5km swim, 5km run, 40km bike, 5 km run. At least the bike starts with more separation and rather than two or three gigantic groups you inherently have something like 10 smaller groups starting off, and then some will clump on top of each other and some may or may not get away. If could even be weighted as 1.5, 8, 40, 2 to really create a sense of urgency on the bike knowing you only have a couple of km to close a gap (if you have a 30 second gap at T3 and run 3:00 per km, the others have to run 2:44 to close).

The current format does not really create a lot of excitement on the bike. The gaps are largely not big enough at T2 to defend.

I think we spent the last 25 years negating the bike's impact from a spectator angle. O4 just do a 10km run, 40km bike and 1.5 km swim. Its not like they have to worry about keeping a swim course open all day for a pro race (which you do for age groupers).

Overall at a pro circuit level, I think we "blew" the formatting of the short course aspect of the sport, because we limited the format to "age grouper safety" which is a non issue at pro level racing. It makes sense to wrap up the swim as soon as possible, get lifeguards out, get road closures out of the way, and then the race can be a relatively non disruptive run race. That makes sense for organizing an age group race. But not required for World Cup racing to limit ourselves to this.

I can't believe the people at the organizational level at the ITU/World Tri have not tried some better spectator friendly formats. If old boring sports like XC skiing, and cricket and develop spectator friendly formats, a new sport like ours should have done it a while ago.

Your not going to have a 6km course with 12 turns and 3 dead turns per lap for athletes using TT bikes, it just wouldn't make any sense. If you want to make it non-draft you'll have to basically go the route of PTO, longer distance per lap and less laps. Your not going to have an 8 lap course 40km crit style course with full TT bikes, the athletes would 100% push back.

Daytona track is ideal for an TT bike, you do no turns. But that's not anywhere close in comparision to the 4-7km "Crit" style courses that itu does.

And I'm actually on the opposite spectrum, I think with how different the events have draft zones, I think they should just cull all drafting rules and let it be a free for all. Too many issues with "incorrect" calls imo at key points in non-draft these days. (and yes I know it'll never happen...I just think the solution to the drafting rules issue is fairly obvious; take the drafting rules out of the sport....but again it'll never go to that length).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

to be fair ... 'twas ever thus. i've posted links like this before, but check out the bike leg at the "non-drafting" world champs in 1991:




eventually, when everyone's swimming and riding at a high standard, drafting is the only way forward. (unless you want to talk about true ITT-style starts, but i don't think anyone's proposing that.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

What do "SM" and "MD" mean in this context???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

On the assumption this is a genuine enquiry, Eric, SM = social media and MD = middle distance (ie 70.3 and 100km). The SM addresses the 'youtuber' category that @TU is reaching for as a benchmark of who might struggle in the New World order (Taupo).

I don't see the need to change the formatting, keep the same distances. I would argue that knowing that the bike is non-draft will motivate the super swimmers like Vincent Luis to drop a bunch of guys knowing their gap will remain for the rest of the race as opposed to burning matches at the front of the bike to no avail with folks in a pack catching up and saving energy. Same happens for the not so strong swimmers, with the current format they know that they can redline in the water as they will recover on the bike but without drafting that pacing strategy might not be the best. We are overthinking it, exit of T1 is just first come first serve, you have say 200 m to give the 12 m gap or get DQed (no drafting penalties). Again, it will not be perfect, but Daytona showed there will be significant gaps even in a short space.

I could not agree more with ITU/WT not doing anything. I think change, when trying to tackle a problem is always positive and promotes innovation. Doing the same stuff over and over again expecting a different outcome is the definition of madness. The fact that Blu got $700 for 7th place at the Paris test event is not great publicity for the sport.

This could be the end of dozens of second or third tier 70.3 pros as they might have a harder time getting sponsors if they use the same ol excuses to avoid racing the top dogs in a non-draft Olympic distance or get massacred day in and day out whenever the likes of Wilde, Bergere, Van Riel, Luis, Blu et al decide to race 100 k or 70.3. I suppose they could race IM only but if I were to sponsor one of these guys I would like them to race a bit more and give my investment a bit more exposure.

Ajax - Indeed it was a genuine enquiry. I can't recall having seen social media and middle distance abbreviated that way previously but obv it makes perfect sense. Thanks for enlightening me. I kept thinking of sado-masochism and the U.S. state of Maryland (MD). :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

non-draft is certainly the most "fair" and balanced format but IM have yet to achieve real non-draft racing even in the far longer distance so questionable how practical it is in short distances where the gaps are inevitably smaller. it would however be entertaining to see the controversy from debatable enforcement racheted up a few notches in that context.

to my mind, the solution is hilly bike courses to reward attacking out of the pack

This. We need harder bike courses both to break up the packs and to make the sport more interesting to watch. I’m a massive fan of the sport but even I now tend to tune in only towards the end of the bike, of fast forward through it if I’m watching later.

If they get off the bike together Hayden is saying bye bye and Jason will be decently off the pace. Now if Yee and Wilde get off the bike together you may be onto something.

If he and Jason got off the bike together it would mean that Wilde was "decently off the pace": Wilde would've had a terrible swim/bike.
As a comparison, look at McKenna (70.3 Chattanooga) who swam and rode with West. Now look how far ahead Wilde was yesterday (8 minutes, even after a truncated swim).
The 'together' hypothetical is just that. But I don't think their run times will be that different, if both fit and motivated. West's good runs (most of his races) are all finished off with a sub 3:15mpk paced run. Do I think Wilde would confident head-to-head? Hell yeah: he's always confident, against anyone (maybe bar Yee), and rightly so.
Wilde's biggest threat in Taupo is the penalty tent.

Due to the drafting effect in short course there are some extremely talented athletes that miss the front packs but can still ride and run extremely well. These guys might likely miss oly selection and their swims will be near front of mid distance races. Royle and Kanute were already out of the ITU top places in races due to their run speed. Those coming from the other end will likely be more successful.

It's an interesting exercise. Who are the top(est) ITU athletes likely to miss Olympic qualification and could possibly have a strong impact on a 70.3 Worlds or PTO races next year:

At the top there is either one of Vincent Luis or Leo Bergere.

Jonny Brownlee if he doesn't bounce back enough next year and GB feel like they want to go in another direction (Barclay Izzard deserves the spot based on recent results, or they could go with a relay specialist and domestique role for Alex, such as Max Stapley

One of Matt McElroy or Seth Rider or any other American not making the team next to Morgan Pearson. I don't see either as a huge race threat at 70.3 level, but maybe Seth Rider more so (due to relative swim-bike strengths to race from the front).

I'd say Dylan McCullough is the likely 2nd pick for team NZ for the Olympics, but if not he's another potential great mover and shaker at MD.

For Germany, Luhrs and Hellwig have qualified. That leaves one spot only among the likes of Jonas Schomburg, Lasse Nygaard Priester, Valentin Wernz and Simon Henseleit. Now apart from Schomburg, the others are still very young and may not want to diversify just yet.

Switzerland, Adrien Briffod (met the qualifying criteria for his country) and Max Studer are the likely team in Paris. That leaves Simon Westermann and Sylvain Fridelance out. Both are potential really good MD racers (strong on swim and bike, decently fast on the run too).

Belgium, Arnaud Mengal has had some really strong results this year, is on the up, and potentially either of Jelle Geens or Marten VanRiel could lose their Olympic spot as a result.

For Australia, a decent possibility Jake Birtwhistle doesn't qualify.

Norway obviously, two of Vetle Bergsvik Thorn, Casper Stornes and Gustav Iden will miss the Olympics.

I could go on but you get the idea.

I think Matt will be forced to go 70.3, even though it seems like he's just not able to put it all together at non draft (yes it's not his focus as of yet). I think Seth Rider will likely stick to short course / SLT focus with dabbling in 70.3 events and not "focused" on non-draft. Rider seems to be the perfect example of an athlete sorta forced to race standard distance racing even though he's much more suited for the super sprint distances. The NZ athlete Reid also seems to be stellar at MTR and less so at regular standard distance.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

McCullough from NZ is also very young, he would have his eyes on LA if doesn't make Paris. Some of the Spanish guys also will miss out and could be quite good.
Wernz and Priester are 1995 born so notbreally young, same age as Birtwhistle From Aus who may miss out too, but has already won a 70.3 early this year, his strengths should cross over well. Vanriel is racing a long course very soon, and has also proved this distance suits him. The season for 70.3 world's 2024 closes too early for most of these guys though as even if they don't make their countries teams, announcements don't need to be made to the IOC until mid June, and many of those athletes would be expected to be reserves and be unavailable to race 70.3 until mid August, too late for Taupo qualification, unless they are racing soon as Hayden did.

I didn't include the Spanish guys as they have a very clear profile of swim-run (for some) but mostly run specialists (among triathletes), with a clear weakness on the bike (when do you ever see a Spanish athlete at the front of a pack).