At that point it was an accurate statement. 24-25 years old and beating Contador and Froome? Sure, why not believe you can compete with the best? If you don't at that point, you'll never make it.

And the bit about Contador and Froom just watching each other - that's what I call "bike racing." Just about every successful solo breakaway in the history of bike racing was won because dudes were looking at each other.

We can quibble about all sorts of things (solo breakaway!?!), but... Honest question: Did you watch that stage and think that he had any chance of competing for a podium with the top cyclists in the world tour?

If so, I'd encourage you to watch it again.

I don't disagree, but it really depends on the individual and their background. A lot of those fast freshman have been training pretty hard for a few years. And there are freshman each year that come out with no running background and run as fast if not faster. If he ran and swam freshman and sophomore year, then it's really average. This guy seems pretty intense and likely to have been putting in decent training, and maybe the reason he got a stress fracture.

I guess it's proof that a top cyclist will not always be a top runner, and vice versa. Not sure why people would expect him to all of a sudden be able to swim, bike, and run fast against top pros. The evidence only suggests he would do really well on the bike.

He's been competing for podiums with the top cyclists in the world for a few years now. I don't need to watch some stage to know that. Just look at the results. He has GC podiums in 1.HC and 2.HC events (including the freaking Criterium du Dauphine!). He's in the tier of GC guys kind of alongside the likes of Majka and Yates, but he's absolutely a ProTour grade GC rider. But I thought we were talking about "competing." Not about "beating the very best consistently"

I thought that he said that he ran competitively....

I've always thought with these "single sport" athletes who come to triathlon, they have this idea that they can simply out gun everyone with their particular expertise in said single sport. But to me it seems *most* of the time, these guys come to triathlon on the "back half" of their athletic career. So suddenly that superb cycling skill or run skill isn't even top level for them + the demands of multisports in the race seem to knock off the shine.

I always laughed when people would say "all Webb has to do is make the pack and it's over, he'll run away"......like A) just making the pack with a swim/bike is hard enough B)that world class speed usually is knocked down by the total fatigue from multipart racing.

So I'm not saying a pro cyclist won't come in and take advantage of a strong cycling leg to catch back up (and have the best bike split), but I think sometimes we expect/think they'll do better when in reality demands of competition knock off that top end ability in the single sport. Almost as if we look at these splits and think it was a "let down" that they don't come in and blow competition away, when in reality it's very difficult when the athletes themselves are on the back end of their top sport anyways.

Maybe someone can remind me of Steve Larson, but is there anyone from a single sport that actually leaves said sport to become a triathlete before their peak in said sport....honestly Lukas Verbivzas is the only one that I can think of right now. Maybe some euro guy I don't know. So rarely does these single sport guys come into triathlon at their peak anyways. It's more or less they come to tri either bored/tired of demands of single sport and want to give triathlon a chance and maybe do well, maybe walk away after initial trial period.

eta: Talansky is 28 so what 29 racing next year. I'd say he's likely not completely peaked out cycling wise. Atleast not in terms of being the normal cyclist that leaves after a usual 10+ year career at age 33+.

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

Why has he retired from Pro cycling ?

Talansky: I am a world class time trialist
Skeptics: How fast would you be, if you had to cut your cycling volume in half and focus on swimming and running as well?

Talansky: I did a little running in Highschool and swam on a summer swim team.
Skeptic: Yes, and so did half of the age group field.

OK catching up with the thread. Really I don't see why he can't swim 60 min in Kona even if he was a crappy high school swimmer. Crappy age group swimmers with 4W per kilo engines end up at the 65-67 min range in Kona. Put a 5+W per kilo engine in the same crappy technique, and you're automatically swimming 60. OK, only the bike, after he is "fried" from a 60 min swim, can he ride as fast as Kienle or a touch faster? I don't see why not. Next is the run. With the engine he has from biking and highschool running background I can't NOT see him running at least a 2:40 open marathon. 2:40 is not "that fast". If you just have reasonable running form, good body composition and a high watts per kilo engine (the one that comes with being a pro rider), then you're there....RChung had done some estimations that threshold watts per kilo and threshold running m/s speed almost align.....4W per kilo rider ~ 4 m/s runner, 5W per kilo threshold rider ~ 5 m/s. What's 5 m/s = 18 kph ~ 3:20 min/K which is just over 33 min 10K pace but carrying it for 60 min. I am just pulling 5W per kilo out of the air to give a relative scale, but 2:40 open marathon feels like it is easily doable for such a high level athlete with the right body composition. That equates to a ~3 hrs IM run split assuming he has the durability after 5+ hours of swim+bike and can manage nutrition. Pro bike racers only have ~6 hrs races for long queen stages, but most of their racing is 4 hours. That's a totally different world from managing nutrition for 8+ hrs when the first 1 hour is much more energy depleting swimming. But I am sticking with him having the raw tools to swim 60, bike 4:20 and run 3 hrs in Kona provided he can manage the training AND pace his energy and manage nutrition. Will be great to see.

Om his run: remember Ben King who just ran a marathon alone to «see if he could». He ran about 3hrs. http://www.strava.com/activities/210077806

Now I have no idea if this was a 90, 100 or 110 % effort on the day, but if he can run 3 hrs on cycling-training alone I say 2:40 is easily attainable with 12 months of running volume.

I’d guess talanansky is in the same region.

Its not the engine that limits these guys, its form and muscle specific fitness.

I agree, there are a ton of age grouper guys around this forum with much smaller engines (like ~4.2-4.5W per kilo guys) who have been able to run low 2:40's. But to some degree it really does not matter if he can take the pounding of a 2:40 pace and not slow down. He just has to take the pounding of a 3 hour pace off the bike and can be in the overall zip code of the top guys in the sport. I realize this is all theoretical, and that is why it will be fun to see if he can prove what should be a theoretical slam dunk. I'd say he needs 2 years to put it together. I'd put him in a slightly higher caliber to ex pro cyclist Chan McCrae who did not do much when he did youth triathlon to pro cycling back to triathlon

Any combo of
1. his team folded
2. never recovered fully from his many crashes
3. was not that great. he showed promise at dauphine but never real did much beyond that.
4. it's tough to serve as domestique when you think that you deserve to be team leader.

You can quote me on this.. Talansky will be racing on a canyon next year. Insider source leaked the info to me at a recent bike festival.

Guess this is canyon trying even harder to get me to buy a speedmax.

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Train hard to Race harder

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift" - Pre

Confirmed

Bob got him on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-3YNZbMNI

I don't now about "never did that much"

He was 3rd at Tour of California just this year and I would think in the sporting world this is regarded as a superior achievement to say 3rd at Kona.

http://amgentourofcalifornia.com/...on/standings-results

And he was team leader for this event too. You can't be team leader at every event, if you're not the best the team has for that event. I would say he will be hard pressed to have better results in triathlon to what he did at ToC or Dauphine or other races.

Watched the interview... He says he's going straight to Ironman no Olympic distance no 70.3. What a terrible way to get into the sport. And he somehow thinks he's going to competing in Kona next year... he's going to have a pretty rude awakening.

I think what he said is he will do a few shorter races for experience etc to build up to Ironman, but Ironman is his goal so he's not interested in focusing on the ITU / 70.3 (competitively) before moving up to Ironman.

Start playing with the numbers a bit. What do you think he could ride the Kona course in? 4:20 doesn’t seem out of the question.

Seems like he’d put time into just about everyone. If he can swim 55, he can likely influence the race.

Well if he swims a 55 and bikes 4:20 he will enter t2 at almost the exact same time as Frodeno, so don’t really think he will influence the race in a big way unless he can run a 2:40 which is unlikely seeing as he said he wasn’t such a talented runner in high school.
I just don’t see how anyone can be a threat now if they aren’t a complete athlete which means at least 50 swim and sub 2:50

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

Why? He has a larger engine than 99% of pro triathletes currently and has an incredibly diverse skill set. I think many people fail to realize the incredible aerobic engines of grand tour cyclists. He knows that olympic/half racing will not be his forte. He has spent most of his career racing 4-7 hour races, day after day, week after week. Ironman is a closer approximation to his current skill set then a 3:45 or 1:45 race. Clearly he will have to spend a lot of time back in the pool but that will likely come back quickly. The biggest unknown will be the run, but i suspect that will not take very long. The biggest advantage is that he has a swim background and can easily bike with the front pack. His run ability will be the big unknown.

Agreed. Dude has a huge engine - I think his biggest challenge will building up run mileage AND staying injury free. He's going to need to be careful here - he needs to follow the BarryP plan!

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 He's in the tier of GC guys kind of alongside the likes of Majka and Yates,

He is nowhere near in the tier of Majka, come on Majka has won multiple stages at the Tour over the last 3 years or so, and on his day can climb with Froome Contodor etc.. Talnaksy has NEVER done anything like that, sorry not even remotely close.

He won the 2014 Dauphine, beating out both Contador and Froome. He also beat Majka at the ToC literally five months ago. I agree Majka's palmarés are more impressive overall, but they are not leagues apart.

Majka has zero World Tour event wins.

Talansky has one.

They both have a scattering of podium GC finishes at other events. Majka 3rd at the Vuelta and Talansky 5th at the Vuelta.

I don't know what you mean by "on his day can climb with Froome, Contador." Talansky did that for like 8 days at the Criterium. Froome, Contador, Yates, Bardet, Nibali, Fuglsang (and Tejay!) and others.

Can he do that consistently? No. But neither can Majka.

But at the end of the day Talansky, at least, has a signature GC trophy win to put on his mantle. And Majka, at about the same age, has no signature win.

I'd pick Majka as the better one-day racer, e.g. Olympic bronze. I'd also pick Majka as a better team workhorse. Majka can go through a full World Tour schedule. Talansky seems a bit more finicky, and seemed to skip a lot of races.