my picks:
paula
lucy
jodie
i'm guessing that stimpson's ride at daytona was distressed; she otherwise had a strong swim and run and will have the handling skills to manage the course and (let's be honest) the pack dynamics. paula will give up time to lucy on the swim, but should have a few girls to swim with, and anyway it's a short swim. paula should eventually be able to catch up near the end of the ride, or even finish a bit behind. on the run, lucy will put up a solid fight but all else equal paula should run a bit quicker. but both are northern hemisphere girls racing early in the season - who knows?
men:
frodo
hanson
sanders
some of the spoilers could be the guys who are able to essentially race it as a long olympic-distance race. cruz, dapena, butterfield, kanute, lagerstrom...
not really sure what to expect here. yeah, some strong swimmers will be able to make for a fast lead group, but it's only 1.6k, so they won't be putting massive amounts of time in. it's a huge field on a small course, so surely drafting or at least pack dynamics will be a reality. a guy like ditlev might try to get away, but how? it's not a 'head down and hammer' ride like daytona. for that reason i assume a fairly homogenous ride and then a running race. but again . . . who knows?
i do hope challenge has success with this 'middle-distance' type format and the cool venues. really fun to speculate about, and to watch.
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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/