I'm with you... is this not basically the perfect use for drones?

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Just can’t really tell unless there’s a power measurement . A prettiy aero rider is going to need a bare minimum 215 W to average 24 1/2 miles an hour without drafting.

Although people would have to be pretty stupid to post their power from this race. Doubt you will see it from the pros either, beside A.S.

There was measured power in both of those files, but I get what you mean.

It's fairly easy to figure out who got caught up and involved in some way in draft packs. Just go look at the files' cadence.

Here is a clean, steady ride -> https://www.strava.com/.../1538820748/analysis
Here is a questionably clean, unsteady ride -> https://www.strava.com/.../1539849709/analysis

You can definitely blame the athletes.

Just because testing for PED's for triathlon age groupers is almost nonexistent, that doesn't make it OK to use them "Because everyone else is doing it." Same with drafting when/if there are no marshals looking at you on the bike course.

It's not that hard to do the right thing.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Starky was not drafting at all when he past me. He was going way too fast for any of those groups. He was riding solo.

I took on the sport 10 years ago for the shear love of it. I pursued my development with all my heart and passion. The videos and eyewitness accounts race after race completely disappoint me. How do they stand in the mirror after the fact, how do they look at themselves. No idea. Same with doping in AG ranks, shakes me to my core.
When I get out there to race I am in pursuit of my own improvement, love to race head to head but at the end of the day, I go home, go to work, raise my kids.....Do it for the love.
What is the flavor of that result when you know you cheated your way through. Europe, Latin America, North America, all the same. Seen hordes and hordes everywhere blatantly drafting wheel to wheel just about every race I have seen.
Hell seen it with the pros as well from Kona to everywhere else. Is that the image of the sport we are going to have. Wait until one day drug testing truly begins in a manner IOC does with all olympic athletes. It is going to be a sad day. We will make cycling UCI look like a bunch of amateurs.

Yeah, I did it last year too. I was 13th in my AG coming off my worst IM swim ever. I did see some drafting after the wind picked up, but nothing like what I've seen from this pictures and video of this year's race. It makes me wonder what they did differently this year to the point that they lost complete control of the race.

The most fair race this year will be Ironman Norway on 1 July. The bike course has over 6500 ft of net elevation gain on a continuously rolling course, and the race field should be far under 1000 athletes. With IM Austria and Challenge Roth on the same day, and IM Frankfurt the following week, the inaugural IM Norway is attracting a very small field.

As a decent swimmer make it up on the bike and run guy, the lack of course marshalling was a slap in the face. My goal was to KQ, but the draftfest eliminated my strength. I towed so many freeloaders and watched guys I walk on during the bike coast in a pack heading in the opposite direction. This was all on the RD/IM for not giving a shit. I’ll take full responsibility for choosing a course that was flat. I was optimizing for enjoying my summer and peaking for Kona.

I road 4:38 right on inline with my predicted bestbikesplit estimate.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1537793194

Aside from it being a race integrity issue this was a safety nightmare. Peltons with guys in aero is a disaster waiting to happening. Imagine the bad press if 50 people went down. That’s hurts IM’s bottom line scaring away one-timers.

My position is you need to have two race classes. You declare ahead of time your chasing Kona/podium spots racing under a different set of rules. Charge us more and throw in the drug test for good measure.

My friend (F25-29....riding hard near the top of her AG) went down when she was swallowed up by a pack of M riders. One swerved....she swerved away and right into a cone. She is still in the Woodlands' hospital w a skull fracture. And her podium dreams and all the months of very hard training she put into this race are still right there, next to the cone on the tollway. Why does it need to take a pack of 50 going down for IM to step up to the plate and take responsibility? Can't it be the 40+ athletes that crashed on the bike course because of how the race was (was not) managed? Or how about even one athlete? The risk of 100s of bikers in packs, barreling down the bike course, is NOT one she signed-off on, when she registered OR when she signed that pre-race waiver. Does anyone in the WTC public relations dept. even look at ST? Do they care?

25.8mph on 180 watts @ 133 bpm. Sounds legit.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

 Just FYI. I did close the same time with very close to the same power last year as you did this year.

Good for you for not cheating and for posting your data. I won my age group last year and would’ve finished a nice solid 24th this year.

WTC should issue a formal response. They are responsible for setting rules and the course. They are responsible for working with local officials to obtain proper permits and work with first responders on how a race will be supported from a safety perspective. Athletes are responsible for following the rules.

IF.... WTC decided to not have officials on Hardy Toll road then they were negligent in their responsibility to athlete safety.

IF... Rumors are true that law enforcement prevented WTC to carry out pre-set plans to have officials on Hardy Toll then that government entity should be liable. Lots of questions about exactly what happened but every Athlete, family, and friend deserves to know to the truth.

There are several men and women that cheated. Packs that big don't just happen if everyone is 'trying to race fair but just gets caught up'. That's a bunch of crap. Several saw the opportunity to cheat on purpose and that's what they did. Some 'just got caught up' and don't know they cheated out of pure ignorance. The cheaters were either ignorant or flat out scum.

WTC can't be responsible FOR the athletes (athlete conduct) BUT they are absolutely responsible TO the athletes that pay the money, sign the waivers, and give it their all.

I pray that your friend has full recovery as well as everyone else that was injured because of situations that got way out of control.

Yeah, drafting looks pretty obvious in the questionable file. Lots of coasting and if you look at the segments, like Hardy Northbound, he cut about 4 minutes off his time on that segment on the second time through on 23 fewer watts and there's a lot of coasting. Much more than the first time through. Hardy Southbound is similar. His time was about 40 seconds faster the second time through on 166 watts with a lot more coasting vs 223 watts the first time.

He averaged 24 mph on 219 watts for the first half and averaged 24.8 mph on 171 watts for the second half of the ride.

Probably had a great run.

If there is one guy that should know it's Jimmy R. I am surprised he hasn't chimed in yet. Hopefully he will.
A WTC press release would be BS. I'd prefer to hear it straight from Jimmy.

I'm in the boat its a no win situation for the athletes. You're not passing a pack of 30 guys, the pack is just going to be too fast. So you either join in or give up your race, its that simple. I'm not saying its right, I'm saying the organizers put everyone in morally bad spot by having a course that either made it easy to draft or forced you to draft (i.e. no room on course). Adding to that you have a race with draft packs where a large amount of athletes aren't comfortable and haven't trained in a pack with a bike not designed to for pack riding and it seems like there are a lot of unnecessary hospital visits.

My take on it would be if what you're doing is testing yourself,etc. then don't draft. If you're out there racing others and most everyone is doing it, then at some point you're just a sucker if you don't join in (basically the doping situation that existed in cycling).

Your assuming that the packs are there regardless. They have to build from one guy getting on another guy's wheel and so on until the group is made. With marshals those guys are incentivized not to latch onto a passing wheel, limiting the development of groups.

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No it isn't. One of the first safety rules for drones is never fly over large groups of people. If you lose contact with that drone and it comes down......

you are right. As someone who chose to give up my race let me tell you why: I was afraid of getting caught. I kept thinking that the marshals were about to bust everyone and I didn't want to be a part of it. And I figured get off the bike under 6 hrs and you can still KQ. Boy was I wrong!

So in the end what needs to be done is simple: more officials. It really is that simple.

I am very sorry to hear this and hope she recovers well. I would also love for a PIP lawyer to take this case on commission and test the strength of their waiver against a charge of gross negligence for hosting a large event without adequate refs to ensure a safe environment for the athletes. If WTC lost a lawsuit on this front, I bet you would see some serious enforcement going forward.

Two guys in my AG who raced in 17 and 18 who are pretty good athletes(KQ'ers) rode over 30 minutes faster this year than last, they ran about the same. Must have done some big cycling blocks!!

My 4:39 from last year would have been dusted. Run times were not too great compared to last year, those cycling blocks come at the cost of run fitness.

Sorry. Gotta disagree.

Many years is a drone pilot at this point. And you are right about the not flying over large groups of people, however, a drone could be very easily be hovering 25 yards to the side so not over anyone and be transmitting in 4k to race officials who would be able to easily zoom in and read bib numbers.

Right now, Costco is selling the mavic pro for 800 bucks. 30 minute flight time per battery, with extra batteries being reasonably cheap, 4K video, 40 mile-per-hour drone. No one's going to out bike it, you can fly it safely, and I bet there are millions drone nerds like it me out there that would be happy to be flying marshals.

Drones are loud AF. I think the sound of one of them coming along side and tracking a group will be enough to break it up in most cases.

Hell, the mavic is so easy to fly you can literally draw box around a group of people and it will track them from 25, 50, however far away you want to set it and crab sideways videoing them.

The tech has been there for years. The cost is minimal. WTC IS choosing not to take advantage of it.

Start of Boston Marathon uses tethered drones. They stayed up the entire time the starting area was open. Obviously they're stationary but 2-3 along the course at unknown points might be enough of an assistance to mobile marshals....

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Taylor Rogers

2024: IM Hamburg

Can't beat em, join em?

Takes a lot of Integrity to make that statement. That was supposed to be in pink.

I like the approach of the, I'm assuming Brazilian, Pro I saw at Oceanside this year. One of those packs caught her, then just sat up and soft pedaled in front of her because nobody wanted to do the work (cheaters being cheaters).

She rode up alongside of them and started swearing at them in Portuguese. Reading them the full-on Riot Act.

Earned a fan in me. That's for sure.