Actually, your point doesn't stand. In fact you pretty much blew up your own point by saying you'd rather race slower people.

You're being called a whiner because the point you're trying to make is nonsense. If you'd rather "race" people more like you, then that's not "racing." You should stick to fun runs.

At the end of the day you are competing against yourself. You have seem to lost sight of that.

You're misinterpreting.

My post pretty clearly says and means I want to race people near my ability that I can actually compete against. If you want to interpret that as only racing people I can beat, that's not what I meant - I clearly meant I'd rather race slower people than pro/elites like Thomas Gerlach or Craig Alexander, who I'm obviously not even racing against in reality anyway even if we're in the same race.

And my own performance/ability has little to do with this, even though I fully expected 100% that STers would pretty much come down hard on me as a whiner and someone who's just out to win soft fields. Anyone who's' done tri for like 10+ years like me knows where they stand, regardless of whether they win, podium, or come in dead last. At the same time, you're lying through your teeth if you say you don't appreciate even a little bit, getting onto a podium, even if you're like me and don't even stay for the awards, ever, even if you know you got one.

My posts is more meant at the commercialism in amateur racing, and noticing how that it can even affect large portions of AG podiums, and whether the concept of a sponsor sending recruited fast amateur athletes to dominate local AG events is fair - clearly a lot of people here say it's plenty fair, and that's fine. I happen to think a bit otherwise, and think if you're ponying up sponorship to send or support recruited a large number of fast athletes to represent you, it is more in the spirit of pro/elite racers, not AGers.

But of course, as per ST, this comes back down to making assumptions that I'm a whiner, I'm a weak racer, and I only want to race slow fields, even all of those assumptions are completely on your part, not mine. And that's cool too - I know ST well, so nothing new to me on that front. In fact, I'd be pretty shocked if you guys didn't jump to those conclusions!

My posts is more meant at the commercialism in amateur racing, and noticing how that it can even affect large portions of AG podiums, and whether the concept of a sponsor sending recruited fast amateur athletes to dominate local AG events is fair - clearly a lot of people here say it's plenty fair, and that's fine. I happen to think a bit otherwise, and think if you're ponying up sponorship to send or support recruited a large number of fast athletes to represent you, it is more in the spirit of pro/elite racers, not AGers.

+1 on this post. It's obvious which team he's referencing and i echo your statements. Just a bunch of regular Joe's that happen to be good at triathlon and show up to the same races to race against their buddies. These guys are paying to race just like everyone else. Complete non issue....

You live in one of the three most competitive triathlon markets in the country - Boulder, San Diego, and San Francisco. Most of the EMJ guys you were referring to have been here and racing for some time. The guy who started the team owns the "commercial" product you reference so I frankly don't blame him for putting it on his kits. I can tell you as someone who trains with these guys on the weekend I can say without a doubt they work their asses off harder than most triathletes and they all are some of the nicest guys I know hands down.

With regard to your reference to Craig Alexander, the guy who won Vineman Amateur overall last year is the guy who started EMJ, and was 25mins back from the Pro winner. That is a MASSIVE difference like Gerlach said.

Don't condemn people for working hard, get out there and chop wood.

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I guess it just felt to me kind of unsportmanlike to recruit the fastest racers from the region, give them perks to show up to represent your product at the race, and then crush the AGers as opposing to racing elite/pro, as I'd be most of those team racers wouldn't even be there if they weren't sponsored to do so.

Anyway, just wondering out loud about it.

With regard to your reference to Craig Alexander, the guy who won Vineman Amateur overall last year is the guy who started EMJ, and was 25mins back from the Pro winner. That is a MASSIVE difference like Gerlach said.

Don't condemn people for working hard, get out there and chop wood.

If I wanted to get crushed by pro/elites by racing the 'fastest people possible', I'd enter the elite divison (I can't anyway, I"m too slow!) and get crushed.

People give a lot of lip service to 'racing the fastest people possible', but for the majority of us AGers, that's just not a recipe for enjoyment. Elites are so fast that I don't even see them on the race course, and the BOPers are so slow that similarly I don't see them.

And if I wanted to just race against "team sponsored", I'd rather sign up in a specific race to compete specifically against team sponsored. If I enter my local tri, I'd much prefer that it would be representative of a typical local tri. Now, if all local tris were dominated by 'team sponsored', then ok, that's the new reality and tough (competitive cycling is like this as people have suggested above). But when the vast majority of tris are NOT dominated by 'team sponsored', but all the ones in my local area are, it gives grounds to at least consider whether something is off.

One of the main joys of smaller local tris for us middling AGers, is yes, the fields are softer, so we have a chance to pass and be passed, and get that thrill of excitement as you hammer toward the chute, and even wonder if you're lucky enough that day to creep onto the podium, or just better your AG placement from prior years especially against 'rivals' from prior years who might be in the same race. It's a somewhat different consideration than a strong pro triathlete who would be bored racing soft local fields, and who really needs to challenge themselves against the best of the best.

So the answer as an AGer to your question "don't you want to race great athletes?", my honest answer is really NO, I don't. I have no business racing them! Craig Alexander raced Vineman 70.3 two years ago when I did it and even my non-triathletes friends would have a good laugh if I even said "I raced Craig Alexander at Vineman!" because that's so far from reality that it's ludicrous. I enter races to compete against similar-abilities folks, and see how my fitness stacks up against a field of competitors on local,regional, or national levels. I definitely am NOT remotely, or ever considering racing "great" or even "good" athletes - that's already out of my league, and in fact I hope there are not so many great ones that I get left all alone on the course! (Happens to me at times, as I'm sometimes too fast for the MOP crew but so far behind the podium guys that I'm stuck in 'no-mans-land' during a race, all by myself.)