Exactly. We need some trash talk and rivalry for the media to hone in on. 27 athletes all explaining how much they love each other and how great it is to be in a team is just plain boring.

Sam Laidlow mouthing off how he has no wins to speak of but is going to kick everyones butt is exactly what I want to see. I hope he wins and then starts mouthing off about it, just for the entertainment factor. It should create some fun YouTube for Talbot to exploit. Imagine the Lionel post race video if he gets third. I can picture it now - Erin and him in the mothercare outlet choosing a cot for the first borne while Lionel spouts off how rubbish he is and he needs to start training at sea level again. I wonder who the next coach will be? Meanwhile Sam Laidlow and Sam Long agree to a rematch at Indian Wells 70.3 in December and start sharing YouTube videos of their training trash talking each other. Should be fun!

Or we could just have 27 athletes all finish the race, say how wonderful it was and go home.

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He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.

Haven't seen the smack talk, but been saying for years this sort of stuff is what Triathlon needs to appeal to casual sports fans.

I'll usually get slapped down on here by traditionalists for suggesting it, they may need to go one step further and have them go to fight each other (who cares if its staged if it brings interest to the sport?)

Boxing/MMA have been using this template for years and there's a reason Floyd Mayweather v Connor McGregor made 600 mill, even though deep down everyone knew the fight was a farce.

Totally, I was impressed by Lionel's reaction. Basically just laughed it off and seemed quite happy that the focus wasn't all on him for once.

I think the 1v1v1 thing is great as a once a year spectacle. Fake or not, (I am leaning towards not for Sam V Sam, and definitely fake for Ellie V Holly) it adds some spice to things, I am way more invested in Sam V Sam V Lionel than I would have been without all this nonsense!

Oh! She was Sophie Chase. That all makes so much more sense. I had no idea who Sophie Watts was or why people were picking her.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

I think people are picking her more because Nicola is finally falling off a bit, (and if she rides a road bike on this course, that certainly will NOT help) and Vitoria isn't great on the longer runs.

All that said, I won't be surprised if she does very well the longer removed from her surgery she is. She is a very strong athlete.

When the adult in the room is - of all people - Lionel Sanders, you can't help but ask yourself "how the hell did we get here", LOL.

Sam Long is a great guy but there's something to this insecurity. I thought the smack talking was just for shits and giggles and that he had more self-awareness. Now he claims to have gone from seriously shit talking to seriously respecting people. I can relate, I was like that at age 11.

His bipolar behavior has given me advanced schizophrenia because I'm now a Sanders, Long and Laidlow fan. Poor me!

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Funniest part for me was when Blu was timing Sanders, going 81, 82.... knowing that he was running at race pace.

Gotta love SL though. If he got inside of Longs head I think Long will blow up on the run due to over biking.

Also, Chase and Watts are two fantastic triathlon names…

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

I hope he can, I'm baseing this on the fact he's gone off quick and faded a few times at superleague and shorter distance, I think he's a match for Blum on the bike and run but Blums been training at this distance (and longer) all year, be huge if Wilde can pull this off.

Sam is pissed. Hope he has a decent swim to make race interesting.

Just watched Long's speech in the press conference. This is either brilliantly choregraphed (I really don't think so), or this guy has the maturity of an 8-year-old. The speech was ridiculous, would have been better to shut up and talk about stuffed animals of just laugh about it. Ladlow's apology was pathetic, he should have told Long to suck it up and shut up (regardless of race results).

But as other said, it adds interest - I could not bear listening to the rest of this thing with these stupid questions, it was awful.

I'm rooting for Team USA, but predicting a Team Int'l Win. Team Int'l has more short/middle course speed than Team USA and Europe combined. Almost all of USA/Europe is focused on long course and peaking for Kona; whereas Team Int'l is mostly peaking for this event specifically. The ITU days for most of team Europe and USA were well over a decade ago.

I'm taking Wilde to beat Blu. Wilde is hungrier and is peaking for this event, whereas I believe Blu is focused on Kona and trying to train through these Collin events which is why he had "power issues" in Edmonton.

The speed and youth of the Internationals are going to get them the win tomorrow.

Agreed.
She went from strength to strength.

Wilde would have peaked for Commonwealths surly? Which was a sprint and the relay even shorter, as good as Wilde is don't think it's possible to peak for a sprint and this in less than a month?

Isn't that the issue with the distance though, it really favours the short course athletes 🤔. It's gonna be a lot easier for Wilde, Duffy etc to tell themselves to run 10s slower per km for 18km rather than their usual 5k or 10k pace but a lot harder for Ryf or Ditlev to make themselves move 10s faster per km knowing it will be over quicker

I can assure you this was not staged or fake. I dont think this video provides the built up and context to what happened. I like both sams. I do have to back sam long on this one. There was alot of personal messages sent and maybe to the point it was bullying. This was just the breaking point.

This was all real prob should of not been shown on Camera tbh but im sure you all saw the press conference and what sam had to say.

I do know after the door slam lionel went and got sam and got him fired up and chatted with him for a bit. You will deff see sanders and long working together.

That’s hilarious. Sam has talked much worse about others and he couldn’t handle that comment? Based on the intro to the clip I thought it was going to be much worse. He’s definitely taking himself too seriously.

12 hours to go. As Wellington probably did not say after Waterloo, it's going to be a "damn close run thing". Every bonus point (won or 'saved') is going to count.

Match ups and predicted points:
1. Ryf-Duffy-True INT 4.5 EUR 3.5 USA 1
2. Philipp-Gentle-Sodaro INT 3.5 USA 2 EUR 1
3. Matthews-Findlay-Moench EUR 4 INT 2.5 USA 1
4. Spirig-Lopes-Watts INT 4 EUR 3 USA 1
5. Lawrence-Salthouse-McCauley INT 4 EUR 3 USA 1
6. Haug-Jewett-Hering USA 4 EUR 3 INT 1
WPRO totals: INT 19.5 EUR 16 USA 10

7. Kanute-Blummenfelt-Wilde INT 4 EUR 3 USA 1
8. Long-Laidlow-Sanders INT 3.5 EUR 2 USA 1
9. von Berg-Ditlev-Neumann EUR 5 USA 2.5 INT 1
10. West-Lange-Royle INT 4 EUR 2.5 USA 1
11. Hanson-Iden-Laundry EUR 6 INT 2 USA 1
12. Leiferman-Baekkegaard-Currie EUR 3.5 INT 2.5 USA 1
MPRO totals: EUR 22 INT 17 USA 7.5

Overall Totals: EUR 38 INT 36.5 USA 17.5
This could easily go down to the last match.

I have been in a number of races where racers lose all of their ability to read the room when their blood sugar is low.

I recall after a race seeing a racer yelling at a volunteer for checking race numbers before retrieving bikes. I told him that the volunteer is just doing their job and he knows that he needs his number. He threw a fit and told me to fuck off, told the volunteer to fuck off and told everybody around to fuck off. I was hoping that he'd post on slowtwitch later.

Triathletes....This is what it looks like when we are in a calorie defecit and we can't hold our shit together. It seems really important to us, but to everybody else, we look like the damn bitch.

Somebody get Sam Long a Snickers Bar!!!

Really cool of Lionel to take the elder statesman role, but again this doesn’t look the best for Long. Does the “strongest legs in triathlon” need someone to hold his hand through this?

Whether it is fake/Intentional or whatever this is shaping up to be must see.

Lol, probably true. I certainly get that way myself.

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My Strava | My Instagram | Summerville, SC | 35-39 AG | 4:41 (70.3), 10:05 (140.6) | 3x70.3, 1x140.6 | Cat 2 Cyclist

Thanks for the clarification

From that scene I just figured Laidlaw was a lot better than Sam and Lionel

Side story is it possible Lionel had covid in his last race? I thin the day or 2 after Edmonton he tested positive

That was so cringe inducing that it had to be staged.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Gotta agree with Talbot that the the pile onto Sam Long shouldn't have been shown by the PTO. They just endorsed bullying.

And before anyone else recommends toxic masculinity (suck it up! it's boys being boys!), think about how many kids might have seen this who are bullied at school -- people, it's a lot these days. A LOT.

Rap that Laidlow authored also pokes fun at Sam Long for wearing pink -- and, fellas, we all know those references are dog whistle for pink representing soft femininity...because the world thinks that women who can push a bowling ball out of their bodies and then return to elite level athletics are "soft." Laidlow just wore toxic masculinity all over that. Thanks to the PTO for normalizing bullying [slow clap]

@talbot you have an inside view of the PTO. Can you send this back? I know that every single one of my women friends are cringing at this display by the PTO. It's not helping draw women into the sport.