Sighs, I hope the race goes off well. I almost wonder is it going to be over for PTO before they even get their "shit together".

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

Seems unlikely at this point that the PTO will make it through next year unless something dramatically changes. They've basically thrown this year away.

I understand IM"s are likely too long for their broadcast, but I do wonder if they went all in on the 70.3 distance and invested in the races already, if that would have taken a bunch of stress off the organization. To essentially cut out being an race organization and just be the money bag man, and/or be the main sponsor of 70.3 world champs, etc.

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

You may want to go back and listen to what their CEO said was their plan for this year.

Race organization is not their stated objective nor is being a sponsor of 70.3.

Yes but here they are producing their own races and it seemingly being hit or miss on the talent showing up. As I said, it seems like things have gotten a little too out in front of their skis so to speak.

if your not going to sponsor, then by default your going to have to produce your own series.

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

He was saying they learned the hard way that organizing a race was harder than they expected.
He talked about hitching their wagon to existing races, which they had great success at Ibiza and by all sounds of it Milwaukee will be the same.
I think they were ambitious with Marrakech OR they intentionally want to revamp the CC.
Singapore....no idea. I suspect they will pull it off because it's a much smaller scale event

They have made a ton of mistakes as many startups do.
If they pull off the 3 races, they will have done 3 of the 4 things they set out to do.
They admitted blowing the scheduling for 2023 and promised to be earlier in 2024. Let's see.

Maybe they are blowing smoke up everyone's ass. Maybe they will see their 5 year plan will not work and bail early. But early 2023 they said they had a 5 year plan and it sounded like they had their investors on board. Go back and look at their last round of funding. This is not usually an event that occurs with mickey mouse players that will pull the plug at any second.

I guess my point is, it sounds like they wanted to invest in the athletes to highlight them. So essentially they are saying the only way they want to do that now moving forward is the pto race distance. Which hey that's cool. But that pathway kinda forces them to be in the race production scene right, even if they are sharing resources with an event. But I mean as the money bag man, yeah you dictate how things are going to go (IE- no 70.3 races). I just wonder if that's created more problems for them by essentially not really working within the frame work of the pro ranks, but basically making another pro league.

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

Have you lot heard anything about the 2024 "world tour" ? About to end Q3 and no news. Watching the Taylor Knibb beyond human episode that just published, and I have to say. As much as I had issued with the directing and the comms of the Collins Cup. These 100k races are boring, because they're just normal races. The head to head racing at least was different and I'm reminded how much weird things can happen. So at least the Collins Cup was interesting.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

We know that the Asian Open is moving to April.

But as we discussed on this week's episode of the Podcast with Brad Weiss -- everything else is pretty tight lipped at the moment.

They did say specifically that the schedule would be announced in October, so not shocked on that. Just really, REALLY hoping that they don't try to announce during Kona race week.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Renouf said the 2024 PTO Tour schedule (minimum 6 races) would announced in October. Singapore has been shared as the first one in mid April. Reasonable to assume one a month and not one so late it clashes with Taupo.
Athletes need to know the schedule of races (particularly in September and October), what size field and construction (ie all available 16 contracted plus wild cards), prize purse and distribution; and how the 16 contracted will be identified (what pathway/criteria will PTO use).
"A points-based competition with Professional men’s and women’s World Championship titles awarded at the end of a season-long tour, as well as the planned creation of up to five Continental Championships at one-off races, including: the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania."

This whole contracted athletes thing is somewhat of a rumor as I've not seen it in print anywhere, but also let's say it's real. How much we talking? 100k? That would probably need to be the number to get exclusivity of the athlete's race calendar. So 1.6M+ prize money? Seems an incredibly heavy investment after another heavy investment that hasn't paid off much. As long as Big Mike is ready to go for another 7 years then maybe it gets its footing. Otherwise we're about two years away from the VC plug pull.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I don’t think the PTO wants the athletes to only race PTO events, but they want to ensure that they definitely race the required number of PTO events.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Well, let's look at things they did to have less of the top athletes make their races first choice.

1. Cut End of Year Bonus Pool Payout from top 100 to top 50.
2. Cut race slots and prize purse.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Your point 1 had zero effect on the top athletes choosing to race one or more of the 3 PTO Tour races this year. Athletes ranked outside the top 50 were not getting a start slot option in 2023 except if 'special' in some way, in which case wild card.
Your point 2:
Part a: Deliberate policy to reduce field to 30 or less (25 or less in 2024): too many athletes trailing in further back (lapped even on a short lapped run course) confuses the narrative. With no benefit to spectacle/tv.
Part b: Money still better (and reaches further down) than for any race the athletes might have chosen instead. NB Contracts already written to reward PTO podia/top X.
Top athletes (top ranked 20 at the time) chose not to race one or two PTO races (nearly all ran one at least) because:

• Proximity to other races (Lahti and prep for Nice) which both maintained pre-eminent status, this year
• Some reluctance by youtubers to cross the pond (both ways)
  
• Travel and heat of Singapore
• Injury/rehab
  

The contract thing's been confirmed by an email sent to athletes a while back.


Essentially PTO rankings at the end of the year would dictate who would be offered them. Then a question of who accepts them, and how many of the PTO events are required to be raced under those.

And a lot of that seems to be all up in the air based on schedule, because I'd have to imagine they aren't going to try to counter-program 70.3 / IMWC / Roth for their dates. But you never know...

As I said before, though, the real winners of the World Triathlon alignment will be current gen WTCS athletes who will look to "graduate" to this distance in 2025 after the Olympic cycle and meet the "have enough ranking points to be competitive" standard to get into the races.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Both things had a major effect on the reluctance of top athletes to commit their schedule to things from Moritz events. They seem to be going down a path again to fight against Ironman. Which hey all the power to them but this sport isn't so big for the pros and Ironman doesn't need them at all.

What happens when Ironman leaves professional racing? Which honestly if this nonsense continues will happen. All the while PTO will definitely continue to struggle. We've seen them cut back athlete expenses and cut back on broadcast. Hard for me to see how they expand on their event schedule.

Sure they contract athletes, hopefully it gives them what they want. But um, who's going to watch that to the point where they can sell broadcast rights for $5M+ a race?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

28/29 September 2024 effectively announced (PTO insta post) for the PTO European race again in Ibiza. (Singapore in April already announced.)
https://protriathletes.org/...ropean-open-sign-up/

Well timed warm-up race for the men heading for Kona 4 weeks later.
Almost undoable for women racing Nice 7 days earlier: well clearly doable but hardly sensible.
But that will free up start slots for the few top WTCS/Olympic women to have a taster.
Wonder who might be likely candidates to take on Gentle and Knibb (assume she will not race Nice but we'll see) for some decent money (and the chance to get points on the board for a contract for 2025, if they have finished with draft-legal).

You have to think that rules out the PTO US Open being tied to AG Nationals again which is speculated to be in mid September, no?

Or are they assuming people wouldn't do both regardless of the timing.

Free up slots? Don’t think it works like that
My understanding is that those who sign the contract will need to commit to all PTO races, can’t pick and choose.

I am sure LBC and Rfy will be in Nice and doubt either will be committing to Ibiza?

I completely missed that PTO had announced Ibiza for Sep 28-29, 2024 (via a story on IG!) but Pro Tri News discussed it on their pod. Having the race one week after Nice is a joke. Happy for Ash and Paula though.

Not looking like we'll get the full 2024 calendar in October at this point. They must be REALLY struggling putting together these races.

I think with ironman's pro series now, in addition to two world champs dates for 140.6, it's going to be par for the course for big races to be close together. No other way to do it. The calendar is crowded with lots of money making opportunities for pros, and I think that's a good thing. It'll be very interesting to see who does what in terms of the pros and their respective race schedules.

October isn't over yet! I myself am hoping we get another race announcement soon! Makes sense to spread em out a bit to capture the news cycle 2 or 3 times, instead of announcing em all at once. I dont think at all it's indicative of them struggling to put races together.

Eh, I think it shows they're struggling. Ironman beat them to the punch. After that, the best thing to do would have been to announce the entire series, all details, and contracted athletes last week on the tail end of the Kona/Ironman Pro Tour buzz. One up them as soon as possible without being overshadowed by Kona. But instead we have the second race trickle in with most people not even knowing it was announced.

Idk if I buy that. They'd never outdo or one up kona in the news/media cycle, which basically lasts 2 weeks. It'd have been dumb to do their big announcement and just have it buried by kona stuff. yes ironman surprised us with the pro series but I still think the smartest thing for PTO to do was wait for kona to go away and then make some announcements and all the spotlight would be on them. Idk if it's fair to say most didn't know about Ibiza...I certainly did, saw it on IG, their website, and it was being discussed here.

Does your "understanding" come from sight of a draft contract (in which case you're well ahead of most and do tell).
Very few female athletes will sign contracts committing them to start all the PTO Tour races (imo): if offered the majority will if the requirement is (say) 3 of [however many] including those who race long distance.
Almost every long course athlete who aspires to place in the IM Series will be signed up for Texas which is a week after Singapore. Only lunatics would try and double up those two..
Knibb implied in her interview with Blanco on ProTriNews (about 10 mins from the end) that racing two 70.3s to qualify to race Nice (22 Sep) after the Olympics seems doable (thus unlikely she'll accept a wold card for Ibiza (28 Sep) a week later, at least not to race).

It's what Sam said during an interview when they announced their series and the reason for offering contracts. Main reason is to create a consistent narrative and story throughout the year and it's only possible when you have the same athletes show up.

So that's at least what they hope to achieve, hard to create a year long consistent story if LCB shows up in Singapore and skips the rest of the season as she prepares for Nice?