Some of those juniors might be better than the seniors at the shorter distances in a relay though...

Again, what juniors from Norway are you talking about?

ETA: If your talking in generalization, that's completely different than the specific federation I was discussing with Norway.

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

I was speaking in general. Have seen it in relays before.

I think it is a very smart move for countries to target the relays. The Olympic qualification system prioritises the relay teams so by performing well in the 6 qualifying events and finishing in the top 7 countries you can qualify 2 men and 2 women. There is also a second chance in the "play-off" for 3 more slots. If you take the examples of the Netherlands (5th in Nottingham - 0 men/1 woman in Rio) and Denmark (8th in Nottingham - 1 man/0 women in Rio) then that is a significant incentive both for the athletes and the federations. Even if you look beyond participation to medal-winning potential then the Dutch were only 5 secs off a medal in Nottingham and the Danish won the European champs last year so they can make a good case for being competitive. They've been able to achieve these results without teams loaded with highly ranked athletes. The Danish have only one man in the top 200 and their best women are ranked outside the top 250. The Dutch are a bit stronger but apart from Klamer their rankings wouldn't make them obvious automatic individual qualifiers.

since the total number of athletes in triathlon won't increase, what this all means is that legitimate individuals are going to be excluded from the individual race in order to fill out relay teams that very well might be getting lapped out. the individual race at the olympics already is thinner than a typical WTS race, so it will be even thinner than normal. i don't see why there is so much focus on filling out relay teams that will be fighting not to get lapped to the detriment of legitimate individuals.

Or maybe not having a pre-determined f/m/f/m order at all, and let teams decide the order on their own, like the MTR in swimming? That could be interesting, and brings a lot of strategy and game theory into play.

I actually don't think that weakening the individual field is so much of a problem. Getting the relay added to the programme is widely seen as a positive move by athletes and federations alike. It keeps triathlon relevant and up-to-date with a mixed-gender spectator and television friendly event. Only a limited number of the individual field are genuine medal contenders and a number of countries have been reluctant to select athletes that haven't shown medal winning form. In the last two Olympics for example the British team selected their 3rd man in a support role. Countries can still qualify 3 individuals if they have 3 people ranked in the Top 30 and remembering that they don't even have to select the athletes that earned those slots then this means it is unlikely that any genuine medal contender is going to miss out on the opportunity to race. In fact thinning out the individual field may be seen as a positive as it means there is less chance of big groups forming and neutralising the bike. It is all new at the moment and we will see how it pans out but I think the ITU have done a decent job with the criteria and it should lead to an interesting and competitive qualifying period.

Also I'm not sure that there will be much of a problem with teams being lapped out in the relay. There will only be the 10 best teams there and they will only have made it by avoiding being lapped out in the qualifiers. If you anticipate being vulnerable then you'd front-load your team with your best athletes on the first 2 legs. Probably the critical thing is having a woman good enough to stay in contention on first leg.

Back to Norway, they have 3 legs already covered by athletes who have top 15 placed in WTS, look at France, they had to put in a female athlete who lost them a lot of ground but the strong athlete after her was able to make a lot back up. Many countries had world and conti cup level athletes competing, not all have a strong all round level to field 4 WTS. A strong first athlete, and a strong final leg can do wonders. Look at the Hamburg race won by Aus, they weren't always in front, during the 2nd leg they dropped to 7th place, with a lot of chasing to be done. Their final leg was handed over in 5th place and was solo with 2 groups a fair way in front of him, he was able to catch the group in front during the swim and then worked very hard on the bike with some assistance from the other 2 athletes they caught the front and he ran away with the win.
Any country who has a couple of strong athletes is certainly missing an opportunity if they don't at least try to field teams, their Olympic level athletes may actually miss out on individual spots if they don't, for some reason, finish in the top 30. Illness and injury at the wrong time could potentially cause someone to slip outside the rankings.

I'll strongly disagree and I'll explain why

A) You guys have yet to show me the 4th leg (2nd female). Seriously go look at even junior cup races and find another female if that is going to be the athlete.

B) If they would have field a compotent team they would have. Which to my point, there is ZERO incentive to burn matches 3 days before a WTS event if you have ZERO chance of qualifying. Please don't compare what Australia did in an MTR and suggest Norway can do the same. That's hogwash to even try and compare.

C) At some point if you can't field a compotent team to finish top 7 or top 3 at the wild card, you save your legs for your pro guys because they have to finish so high up. So for the exact reason you are saying they have a strong 3, is exactly why they won't ruin them in a relay when they have zero 4th athlete potential.

D) Jim talked about Japan doing an "development" relay...that's great. Guess what, they can do that because well they have a spot. So they can use that to gain experience. These races really are so rare that it's important that you nail each event, and even more important if using MTR as your entry into the races.

E) You said any country with a few strong athletes isn't missing out, because it's a game of chicken. Because now the "fringe" teams it's even more important to either go all in on the MTR or push for the top individual rankings and skip the MTR. Norway imo doesn't have the ability to do both and risk burning up legs 3 days before big time events, because with the MTR, it now makes the individual points even more important...You can't have off days in the individual races anymore.

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

I'll also add...France's "slow" leg athlete was ranked top 250 in the world. Norway doesn't even have a 2nd ranked athlete in any continental Junior or U-23 ranking let alone the itu points list....like I said a few days ago, they don't have a team because they don't have a 4th member to field team....it's pretty simple.

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

Because they rarely bother racing U/23, go straight to senior racing. Besides what was Casper Storner ranked before his win.. ? Super sprint racing can be quite different set of skills to Olympic distance.

Check the Hamburg WTS start list

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can you point me to the multiple Norway women on the that start list? They don't have a MTR team listed, and I just checked the women's start list.....no Norway women.


That had no 2017 MTR at Hamburg.

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

For reference all 4 of the top ranked Norway athletes both male and female came up through the junior/U-23 ranks. It's rare for a European country to have them skip the jr/u-23 route and simply go into the seniors. That kinda doesn't make sense as it is more of an U.S. centric move due to the single sport athletes making the national level teams post college.

So like I said, Norway would field a team if it knew it could be competitive. You still have yet to show me how that can happen. So as mag said earlier, the MTR is now going to affect the individual race because it's taking spots away. So if your Norway, it makes no sense to burn matches 3 days before WTS event when those individual spots are now even more important because they dont have a relay team. This is a complete high performance decision, nothing more, nothing less.

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

Ya, i don't understand why the "mixed team" relays in tri and swimming have become so popular. They just seem like a gimmick to me. I would think that the individual race would be the top priority for most athletes.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The 1st time I heard the concept like 9 years ago, I thought it was an actual "relay" that did 1 swim, 1 bike, 1 run, as that was what I was sorta used to. By top swimmer back in the day who could swim with T. Gorman many junior years back was so bummed when she realized she had to do the whole thing. I remember that got a good laugh.

I think it's far more gimmicky for swimming simply due to all the events that sport already has. I think this simply makes it more mainstream with almost all olympic sports....almost every sport these days has some type of "team" event.

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

Agree that it is more "gimmicky" in swimming since they already have 3 women's relays ans 3 men's relays. I can kinda sorta see your point about making triathlon more "mainstream".

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Sorry, my mistake, I deleted that part ages ago, I had been looking at a few start list and obviously got confused between a couple.

A few things.

In general the IOC has been pushing for better gender equality, so many of the events they recently added were some of these co-ed relay type events. MTR's may be a gimmick, but they are action packed, very dynamic, and very spectator friendly. I've been at a few MTR events, and they are very exciting.

If anything, I think MTR is going to bring up the level of triathlon in general, for a few reasons... Transitions are so important... Having been at many ITU events, it's mind blowing how many elites absolutely suck at getting on their bikes. In the MTR, they are so crucial, so athletes my finally have the push to up those skills, or risk not getting an olympic slot. Same with the swim, ITU racing has become more balanced (need to be good at all 3), but the MTR again puts your team in the shits if you pooch the swim, so again, this is one more push for people to work at upping their swim game.

I enjoy the format, again, I would prefer that the teams be 2 men 2 women, no prescribed order... make that a strategic angle into the event...

In term of the Norway/South Africa issues... Norway has Lotte Miller on the ladies side starting to up her game, but they need one more woman who starts to be more competitive to really be viable. South Africa has super strong guys and decent women they are at least in the range, but they likely need another woman to develop a bit more to put them in contention.

In terms of the cameras interfering with the races. I'm not saying the racing is clean, but remember the zoom lenses on the cameras, times where it looks like the moto is right in front of the rider, it can be deceiving... Most of the side shots, the gaps between the moto and the rider looked more reasonable. That being said, while not blatantly motorpacing riders, it did look like the motos were riding more at a bike draft zone distance, than a motorcycle draft zone distance, which still potentially impacts the race. The problem is that the pilot is facing away from the pack, and with the cameraman the one looking back, if they aren't communicating the gap, it's easy for people to ride up on the moto. Officials on the motos generally have a radio with their pilots to guide their movements through the field... I don't know what the solution is, maybe a proximity sensor (like the beeping you get when using your back-up camera on your car) alarm when someone enters their draft zone?

The "bug" going around after the Nottingham MTR, may be related to water quality. I saw a few social media posts referring to duck poo from several of the afflicted athletes...

I would like to see the relay order randomly determined right before the event. For the Olympics they could draw this at the same time they do draw for pontoon start order. Seems simple enough, would add some variety and gender equity. I don’t think that you should just let individual federations choose the order however. Compared to pool swimming there is far too much competitor interaction to make that a useful format.

I am curious if you have been given information clarifying Olympic entries beyond the single document from ITU: “Tokyo 2020 Qualification System”? After looking at it a few times I interpret it to mean that any NOC which has qualified 2 men and 2 women would be entitled to enter a team in the relay. It does not state explicitly any expected number of team entries for the relay. I base my assessment on the following statement, “All athletes are eligible for both individual and mixed relay events.” As well as the point that Japan receives 2 male and 2 female entries as the host nation whereas Brazil received 1 per gender. If this is correct the number of teams starting the race may be in the neighborhood of 13-15 compared to the 10 that automatically qualify.
Also, has USA Triathlon given you any idea of what their federation qualifying process will be this Olympiad?

That's a good point and as far as I can see you are correct that there isn't a definitive number of teams who could enter the relay. As a matter of interest in Rio there were 13 countries who fielded at least 2 men and 2 women plus the Germans who could have done. That was before the whole process was re-written to favour teams qualifying 2 + 2 so it could certainly be the case that there are 13-15 teams. I also wonder about the possible effect on the numbers in the individual race - I can't see a clause that says qualified athletes must race the individual event so potentially some athletes may only race the relay. Conversely it is possible that a country that qualifies 2 + 2 may choose not to enter a relay team.

I think it is a marginal claim at best that "bottom" of the MTR qualifiers are lesser athletes than the bottom of the individual qualifiers. There are only a handful of Haves, they are all going to the Olympics. How the rest of the field fills up is... just not that big of a deal.

But I agree 100% that the MTR in swimming is a joke. And now dressel can win 7 golds by virtue of being the best swimmer in...2 events (100 free/fly). Throw in the 50/200 free + 800 free relay = 10 golds? WTF.

The MTR in triathlon, though? Hmmm I think it is great. It is the single event I am most looking forward to watching in Tokyo.

https://www.endurancebusiness.com/...ed-relay-nottingham/

this article says it is fixed at 10 teams and that japan will be 1 of the 10 (i don't know how accurate the article is). japan will have 2 strong women but its men are nowhere close to making it individually. here are its top 2 ranked men:

https://wts.triathlon.org/...63982/makoto_odakura

https://wts.triathlon.org/.../31810/jumpei_furuya

those 2 (or comparable men) will be displacing 2 men from the individual race. we don't know exactly who will be on the wrong side of the cut line but it looks like it will be somewhere around a ranking of 30th in the world. i agree that there probably won't be a medal contender ranked there (unless one is injured) but you definitely will have athletes who can come in the top 10 and who can swim/bike with the front group and affect the race's outcome. moreover, there are many athletes who are much better in the MTR format redlining for 20 minutes than a full olympic distance individual race so it's safe to assume that some countries will be bumping superior individual athletes for better relay athletes, which will further weaken the individual fields.

I only count 5 golds out of being the best in 100 free and 100 fly: MTR, 4 X 1 Free, 4 x 1 medley, 100 free, and 100 fly, or 6 if we include 4 x 2 relay. There is only 1 MTR, correct???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."