Moscow is a great city with a burgeoning triathlon scene. Clubs there have been trying for years to bring long course racing to Russia (sprints and Olympic distance racing have been going on for at least a decade), so this is welcome news. Please DM me if you’d like more on the city, I lived there for six years until last July.

Awesome, will do. Many thanks!

Digging a little deeper, it looks like this is a 70.3, but the course looks great, for the most part.

I've done a swim in the rowing canal they will use for the first leg, which is a good staging area. The bike course looks fantastic, a flat, straight shot into the center of town and then a loop around the Garden Ring:
https://challenge-moscow.com/...-e1617598034753.jpeg

(I am amazed they are going to shut down the Garden Ring, it's a major artery that only gets this treatment on Victory Day and other important dates.)

The run course in Gorky Park will be shaded, but slightly hilly. Eyeballing the same map you'll likely have to do a series of out and backs, so expect a somewhat crowded run course (I don't understand why they did not choose a longer out and back, that side of the river is a really nice place to run).

Overall, I'm really pleased for my Russian triathlon buddies-this is a really good opportunity to showcase their city and the growth of mass participation sport in Russia.

What percentage of the field will be dopers? I know we're talking AG'ers, but sadly the first thing that comes to mind with sport in Russia is doping.

My guess is that it would be roughly on par with any given American field, possibly lower given the expenses required to dope.

Bear in mind that mass participation sport in Russia is a relatively recent, post-Soviet phenomenon. While Russian elite sport has a documented history of doping problems, conflating that with doping among amateur age groupers is an exercise in casual empiricism. It's tantamount to pointing to Lance Armstrong or Marion Jones and assuming that American age group cyclists and runners are doping too.

Aren't they ?🤔

Many thanks. I am doing some sums!

Check your xenophobia.

Normally I hate the use of the term “check your X”, but here I’ve gotta agree with you. It’s very much unfair to generalize the Russian age group athletes into the category of dopers when it was a state sponsored program directed at the elite (Olympic) level athletes. I would never think any of my Russian friends to be dopers just because I watched a Netflix documentary (Icarus) or saw the news of Olympic athletes

I suggest you watch this documentary https://www.google.com/...iZspCey1vDAz7kMEhZdb and come back after it. One of the things you will realise is that albeit Russia is far from being innocent, they are not alone. And that they are being used as scapegoats.

That is such a negative view. The doping problem in Russian sport is at the highest level. At the age group level I am confident it is no better and no worse than in Europe to the US. I lived in Russia for 11 years competing in AG triathlon and masters cycling - I never once came across, or heard rumours of people using, or was offered drugs myself - but am sure it is present, same as it is in the US and Europe.

Having had the privilege to race in Europe a couple times within the last few years, we met some lovely Russian triathletes. And have followed them and their racing scenes in Russia via social media. Before covid I told my husband I wanted to do the IM 70.3 in St Petersburg someday (not sure if it's still on the IM calendar). I really don't think Russian AG athletes are doping any more than Americans or Europeans or people from other parts of the world. I do believe doping is happening in AG racing but it's not fair to shame one country more than another. My husband is always quick to say that people are people, no matter the race, country, etc. Good and bad people everywhere.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.