Spain will be a scary nation at the LCQ.

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Yes that's who I was thinking specifically of- keeping mola in the bullpen until the final race and then race the "Best of the rest" and get a spot. And with the MTR 2nd in the Olympics, it really wont matter how they did in the individual race, they can then go all out and play whatever cards they have to play.

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

Spain has always been cagey with the MTR, I don't think they really took it seriously... but given their depth on the men's side, and an extra olympic medal in play, it's hard not to see them take a run at the LCQ... Similarly, GB can get in without them, but come Tokyo, double Brownlee, with Vickie Holland and one of Non/GTB, Sophie Coldwell/Jodie... It'd be a hell of a race with France, Aus and the US.

The interesting approach has actually been the countries like Switzerland, who have been fielding a team of young guns, along with Nicola Spirig, to not only inspire them, but to thrust them into contention, and see if they sink or swim... Not sure it'll pay off for Tokyo, but in terms of long term development, it may pay dividends for the next olympic cycle....

[/quote]
I don't disagree here, although realistically some of these nations can put those 1-2 developing athletes up front, and put the studs on the back end, because there's a good chance that they're lapped out, before the studs even get a chance to race... But I suspect this mentality is why we see a lot more teams racing Hamburg because it's the day after the WTS and a smaller field in Nottingham, since it was a few days before Leeds (Edmonton if memory serves, the MTR was the day after the race, but it was only a couple weeks before WTS Montreal, so there was some leg saving strategies in play for some national federations)... The teams that are going to be scary in Tokyo are primarily those countries with the depth that they can use any combination of a number of athletes and still post a result (France, GB & the US seemed to be that way this year, and to a lesser extent, Australia had success with a few configurations), because these are the nations likely to have 3 athletes per sex at the OG anyways, and if someone is tired/injured, they won't be completely screwed (or even have the ability to sandbag an athlete in the individual race to save their legs for the MTR)... Some of the coaches are all in on the MTR, I was standing across from a couple of the coaches on the bike/run courses in Hamburg, and you could tell who was all in and who was mailing it in...
.[/quote]
Interested to why you listed GB and only had Aus as to a lesser degree, GB only made one podium 2018 Aus 3. Aus more than comfortably beat them at comm games also.

.[/quote]


As for the comment about the Danes, that is a bit of a weird one... They tend to put up monster results in Euro events, but then as soon as the rest of the world comes in, they tend to struggle. They have being pushing hard to develop some younger athletes to surround Schilling (who appears to be a lock, as long as something doesn't come around to derail him...). I think the most interesting element in the MTR may be the Norwegians, they have stayed away thus far from racing, but they've started to have a few women put up decent results on the WTS/WCs, and with the strength of their men's program, they could potentially impact the order of things...[/quote]

The world rankings have Lotte Miller as the only Norwegian female who races ITU. She has some good results but there seems to be no others as ANY ITU event in the last couple years would achieve some ranking points, unless they continually finishing outside the points, which doesn't signify decent results.
I am surprised, as I assumed they would have a few women moving up seeing as they appear to have successful systems with developing their guys.

This is correct. Only countries where 3 athletes are all inside the top 30 will be allowed 3 country spots. This number 30 will not roll down. It is fixed.

Qualification in general will roll down in the following way. The 10 relay positions will be selected first. There will be 2 spots per gender per country awarded. Then Japan is guaranteed 2 spots per gender. Then the individual race will select 26 more athletes. These 26 spots will roll down the rankings list until all 26 spots are filled. If a country has already been awarded relay spots, that position rolls down. If a country is over its quota (either 2 or 3 athletes as described above), that position rolls down.

Good catch....and in regards to how McElroy can move up the rankings, he has so few races that he can move up much more than guys who will have all their races maxed out in the 1st period, and then only slightly moving up if it's a better result. So McElroy has only 3 races on his sheet while 37 athletes have maxed out their race scores for the 1st cycle of qualification (only 5 or 6 races can count 1st year; 7 or 6 can count from 2nd year for total of 12 races). So he will be adding to his total, while some may only be offsetting if they max out. So if your offsetting you likely aren't going to change a ton with your points total. But adding a full 3 races to his 1st qualification total and he imo will get to top 30.

So the rankings right now are only "half truths" and really best to take an assessment after the 1st qualifying period. We have 2 WTS events to count in the 1st year along with 4 World Cups. That's imo how McElroy gets to top 30, cus when he raced last year he finished 3 times inside the top 21 in WTS events.


But again the rankings as of now are still "floating" as it really will continously get changed based on maxing out scores, etc.

ETA: Guy like Pearson has only 1 WTS score, the rest are World Cups, if he races 2 WTS races he likely can change his score. But a guy like Mola can only replace 2 2nd's if he gets 2 1st at WTS races. So I've not looked at the entire top 15, but most of the guys who've maxed out their scores were probaly from WTS races, so thus if they finish similiar to what they have done, they wont change all that much. But athletes who have scores from World Cups or no scores and then score either WC's or WTS points, they are the ones that will make jumps in the rankings.

As I said 2 months ago, I think the U.S. will get 3 men's spots. Pearson 38th with 1 WTS score, and he had a very solid finish to his season (motivation to keep plugging along). He also finished 14th at his only WTS race.

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

Miller is the most prominent of the Norwegian Women for sure, but if you look at the late season races, there were a couple of other norwegian women racing, for sure on the world cup, and I want to say that there was a second Norwegian lady at WTS Montreal, but I could be mistaken... They aren't necessarily near the top of the rankings (tend to be in the 20-30th place range), but solid enough that with Miller and two of Blu/Iden/Stornes, they could still likely score a spot in a LCQ situation...

Pearson probably has the most potential of the american guys in terms of climbing high in the rankings, McElroy has performed the most consistently recently, but with his injury woes last year, he has fewer points... There will likely big shifts in the rankings across the board this season as people make a serious run at olympic ranking points.

I wonder if maybe you are thinking of Icelandic athlete Edda Hannesdottir? But there are no other Norwegian women who scored any points in any ITU race last year other than Lotte Miller. But you know, there is always the chance there is some age-grouper waiting in the wings. Young women especially can develop a ton in 18 months. I won’t hold my breath though. Paris may be a better target for that federation.

At this stage Lotte is the only Norwegian woman racing any ITU, you were definitely mistaken. No others have points and couldn't find any in any of the later season results lists at all. If there was someone they have now been removed.
The Noweigan federation have just added a 19 year old (been racing local races only) to their high performance list to be racing conti cups now I think, if Google translate is correct.

Norwegian head coach joined JF on the RCP (real coaching podcast), basically said they want to have a MTR but just don't have the 4th person. So not ruling out completely but just not depth there.

Basically said that due to the Norwegian academic settings that it's very hard for the females to do education + high elite sporting, and more of a "cultural" thing where men dont "worry about stuff like that", while the women take the studies more serious.

Really good podcast on a variety of topics.

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

https://www.triathlon.org/..._triathlon_abu_dhabi

abu dhabi start lists are up. JB is on but no AB.

not a surprise, just commenting that it is nice that Duffy is racing again.

I'm even more excited about the World Cup in Cape Town. We're going to see the US young'ns (Austin, Smorg, Seth) along side some of the established (Schoeman, Murray, Silva, Varga, Polyanskiy bros). https://triathlon.org/...lon_world_cup/335149

Ian

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Ian Murray
http://www.TriathlonTrainingSeries.com
I like the pursuit of mastery
Twitter - @TriCoachIan

Agreed. I'm really interested in how the new gang of Americans go, as well as the new gang from around the world as we get full into this Olympic cycle.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Any opinions on how the ASU and USD girls will stack up against the other elites in the Clermont CAMTRI?

What was her injury? Was out for quite a while, I wonder if she will ever get back to be as dominant? A year ago you'd have made her an easy favourite for Tokyo, now I'm not so sure.

I'll be interested to see how Erin Edminster (Dolan) does in her "comeback" post having a baby. She's working with Jono Hall now remotely in Arkansas, she's usually a strong swimmer. We'll see how she holds up on the run.

Linn or Cymmerman would be my favorites, with a lot of gals growing into their professional careers.

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

Is there any news on what is going on with AB? I can't find anything.

Clearly he's had massive problems the past year or so - is there anyone on here who knows what has happened and what we are likely to see from him in 2019?

yeah that was quite a timeout she had

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I thought he said he was only doing standard distance races not the sprints.

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

I got quite excited when I seen the title of this latest vid, despite him warming up at the start, theres no actual footage of him running.

If I was a guessing man, I'd say he's still struggling for fitness here.

It appears JB is no longer on the list either:(

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Looks as if GB have subbed Alex Yee in for JB. May have been have been the intention for a while, they don’t have much choice of highly ranked athletes to enter for substitution purposes.

Good start for Americans w Summer Cook and T Gorman taking silver/bronze at Cape Town WC.

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

Alex Yee


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Looks like they are on to something. He's in the lead after lap 1 of the Cape Town WC run leg.

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