I think I've read somewhere that once they publish the start list, they'll not backfill. Maybe the 'waiting list' comes into play after all? Who would USAT nominate?
There are already several USA athletes in the 8 wildcard invites (Chura, Hering).
One assumes that going down the ranking list the PTO have invited and been refused all those above Kivioja and Diedericks (#48 and #49). Sanchez got an invite after her win in Pucon and Stimpson is a top performer and won Challenge Miami in 22. Maybe Ecuadorean Bravo after her Salinas win and second to Sanchez at Pucon.
Byram won in 2023 and after Haug and LCB has to be one of the favourites next Saturday (see her Milwaukee breakthrough).

Will suck of they dont fill it, by race day there is a reasonably high probability to be another have to withdraw due to last minute illness. It is also likely someone will start to fulfill contract but withdraw after start, ultimately blocking another wildcard starter.

I disagree with most of what is below. The short course draft legal racing can be amazing - BUT you need courses that showcase the athletes abilities.

Take a look at Alistar Brownlee launching an attack up a mountain a few years ago in a WTS series race where he destroyed everyone and broke away. You simply cannot get that with the current 16 U-turn boring courses that dont allow breakaways in todays short course world.

I’m a mid 50’s Age Grouper and in the past 5 years have done quite a bit of short course racing when and where available and it simply does not compare to non-draft racing. SO intense from the gun and so much drama and decision making.

I love non-draft as well but the SC drafting racing is not dead at all. It’s tactical, spirited, fun and demanding.

Watching it is great fun - Super League is great.

We just need better course for the ITU stuff.

Not necessarily to Brooks, just broadcast related.

Watched F1 Bahrain kick off this weekend. I don't watch a lot of Formula 1. Verstappen is great - but it's boring. Honestly - he was so far ahead they really could have made it boring AF. I would LOVE to know how much they actually showed Max, instead it was big battles, pit things, who was battling at the back. Verstappen won by 3.5 days but honestly - it was how things went in the rest of the race that kept my attention. Hopefully we don't just get 100 minutes of the person at the front and really get a feel for the battles going on during the broadcast - but F1 gave me a huge lesson this weekend.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

That dude is killing it in F1 that all the socials are showing just how big his leads have been in various races.....13s or 16s type of lead in a moto race is as you put it "days" ahead. I think with the racers and dynamics that it's going to sorta be the standard broadcast of 75% front group, 15% "chasers" and 10% in race "interviews" that they normally have been doing.

I'm not a huge F1 viewer, but I'd be curious if the years when it was MV vs Hamilton racing each other hard, lap after lap, race after race, how much they cared about the battle for 13th place, so I think it's all a bit relative to, MV destroying the comp is a terrible tv product *currently*.....he's that good.

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

While trying to disagree with me, you actually proved my point.

The race you are talking was not "a few years ago", it happened 10 years ago and featured an 11 km mountain pass climb in the Austrian Alps in Kitzbuhel. You remember the race because the bike section was exciting as gaps were created...as the geography took care of the drafting ;-). How many WT venues are around 11 km mountain passes? How many SC races since then had so many gaps on the bike?

I raced juniors and a bit of u23, so I am familiar with draft legal racing. I also did a few AG draft races in my early 30s (was out of the sport in my 20s due to my career). No disrespect to your AG races, but you have no idea whatsoever how good the top guys are. Not even close to any draft legal AG race intensity. Hence, a "hard course" as you imagine it... unless it features an alpine pass, will not be enough to separate these guys consistently.

She give a reason?

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Let food be thy medicine...

Rolled her ankle

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

The solution is going to end up being sprint and super sprint formats. WT already asked for 3 additional races for Paris and it got turned down. But when a sport governing body wants to change it's format, it's almost assured to get changed. By 2028 or Aussie '32, the olympic format is going to almost assuredly be super sprint prelim/finals w/ potential sprint distance final or even SS distance for all the races. In that type of distance, even a small gap is "exciting", so then it truly will become 20-30 min exciting racing over and over.

That's going to be the solution to the current WTCS issue (again we already race as many sprints as olympics these days).

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

Off topic, but I can see two half field (28 athletes) super sprint 'heats' (The OG (tri)athlete limit will not shift (stay at 110, 55+55).) And then a sprint final the following day. And the MTR the following w/e.
From an athletic PoV this would significantly reduce triathlon's 'endurance' aspect. It would also align the distances better for the MTR.
From a TV time PoV this'd be about the same as a single standard distance race and offer a longer narrative. Reduction in 'air time' was, iirc, a downside Gemmell highlighted in an interview when addressing simply going to sprint distance for the Olympics (and by implication everything else 'short course'/drafting.
Such a move will switch attention to long course triathlon even more and the T100 Tour is set to benefit and offer proper (over an hour) endurance athletes an opportunity to excel.

Yeah, she rolled it and then diagnosed with a "grade 2 tear".....something like that.

I am surprised there hasn't been more conversation about this over here as it seems to have caused a fair bit of uproar on IG. Of course this is all coming out in the wake of Youri winning since he's not in a Registered Testing Pool and his coach's former team all got busted for doping at the last Olympics. This does seem to be a major oversight by the PTO and I hope they sort is out ASAP as every single athlete, especially contracted ones, should be tested out of competition. Take the money from the prize pool if necessary.

PTN did a recent podcast episode on it.

While they said over and over "we don't think anyone is doping", I can't help believe that one athlete in particular is causing most of the commotion.

I think the site rules play into things here. But yes there was a unexpected Chartier-esque rise in Singapore.

If we take Messicks word at it, even when they catch a big name, it's hard to get a "conviction" to stick.

So it's not fair to just pick on the next Chartier. Indeed, that's the terrible component of this. Presumably the connected and well funded athletes manage to get away with it, while the lone rangers get hung out to dry.

If the story tells me anything it's that Ironman spends a huge sum of money on this and PTO doesn't want to pay the bills for what might just be smoke and mirrors of a mirage to cover for an problem that's everywhere and impossible to stamp out. Assuming that's true....which if so, that's terrible.

Yeah listened to the pod yesterday. Way too many athletes, & athletes who have been doing well, not in a registered testing pool. & then how much testing is going on even if they are in a testing pool? Could still have athletes rarely being tested even if they're in the IM or WT testing pool. They nailed it that it's rare to catch people at races. You need to test people while they're in training/no matter where they're training.

Can't help but notice Imo (swiss athlete) listed under ADSE (anti doping Sweden)... ;)

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https://besse.info/
https://www.strava.com/athletes/2012033

Kyle and/or Talbot spelling bee or cut and paste (from Bergsten). Swiss A-D is SSI.
In the insta comments, several not currently in RTP have been (National mostly) till recently.
The point is: it's not up to the athlete and there's no shade being thrown anywhere (listen to the pod) - this is an effort to get the PTO to do what they said they were going to do.
Quote from contract Q&A (December 2023):
"Q. What will the Anti-Doping process be for the Tour
"A. As part of our relationship with World Triathlon we are expanding our anti doping initiative to include an out of competition program for those racing. ....This is in addition to the in competition testing, including DBS (dried blood testing) we have implemented since 2020."
Still waiting.

Of course I agree in principle, but “oversight” suggests the PTO somehow forgot to include Keulen and a few others in an out of competition testing program.

But - since some forum readers may not be aware - the PTO doesn’t have one.

So, the oversight is that they do fuck all about doping other than in-competition testing.

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

Oversight was probably the wrong word. You are correct that they are doing fuck all about doping and that's a big ol bummer.

if they would actually implement drafting rules you would be able to cut them some slack ,as it is certainly not an easy task to set up a proper anti doping program or sort out out to pay and join existing program.
the issue is that this is stuff that does not really seem to interest the pto as much as is should if they want to portray a clean narrative.

Not sure how I feel about the HABS club take here. Antidoping is incredibly expensive. Considering how much Moritz and co are investing/pissing/hemorrhaging this year, a small anti-doping program would be cheap.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

We have been discussing T100 and 70.3 and full distance races and the pros that race them. As these distances transition from 'niche' to 'trying to be mainstream-ish' there is NO WAY that any of these distances will be successful, commercially. Too long, too boring, insufficient action/passing. I might love it, YOU might love it, be we are too small an audience to make this sport bigger. WT understands this and is redirecting toward events that can be completed in a more manageable time frame and with more 'action'. BD is on point here. Maybe, for a while longer, AGers will focus on these longer distance races (Kona!), but from a generational POV, long distance triathlon is 'on the chopping block'.

Golf is pretty long and boring. Nascar too. While I don't disagree with you on the formula, I suggest the real issue with the broadcasts being uninspiring is connection with athletes as they just do these time trial efforts.

When you are a big fan of an athlete, you obviously get more into the race.

How do you build engagement with the athletes?

Put audio on each of them and let them talk to their coaches while racing and let us listen in. Maybe go the next step and talk to them while racing.

Ironman got the attention of the masses with the Julie Moss. Imagine hearing an athlete break down in tears as they talk themselves back into a race in realtime, etc.

Does that "get in their way" and change the sport? Sure, it does. But I'm just saying how you make long course more compelling. Its not playing commentator roulette. They can race the same race with a microphone strapped on and suddenly the experience changes big time.

I just listened to the latest PTN pod and Jack Kelly's episode with Tim Hemming.

Talbot is risking his PTO gig here. I'm sure the PTO is pissed with the timing especially since it puts into question Youri Keulen's performance even if it was not the intention of the post. But PTN are right to highlight the issue since PTO has long promised to improve their anti-doping program following the Collin Chartier incident.

This is what PTO said more than a year ago: “Since late 2020, the PTO has worked closely with respected, independent Anti-Doping consultant Michele Verroken and her company, Sporting Integrity, to set up, deliver and then oversee the PTO’s Anti-Doping Programme... To ensure collaboration and transparency with its Anti-Doping Programme, the PTO works closely with World Triathlon and its relationship with relevant bodies such as the ITA and WADA.”

Talbot/Kyle, if you read this, the disclaimer in your intro does not help your cause. You've already released a mission statement anyway so you can probably remove the bit about the podcast being for entertainment purposes only.

Jack Kelly on the other hand has been showing his bias for the PTO too much in his recent podcasts. Funny that he even came out with a poll on what was wrong with the IM Texas coverage but nothing about Singapore even though that's where he has some influence. It was good that Tim Hemming was in the doping episode to balance out Jack's tendency to over-exaggerate. At one point he said something about how it took IM decades to come out with an anti-doping program and we can't expect the PTO to do the same in one year. But Hemming was right to point out that the PTO doesn't have to reinvent the wheel and that IM has invested a lot in testing and we can't expect them to subsidize the PTO by testing their contracted athletes.

This, or both Jack & Talbot agreed with PTO to speak-up now, knowing PTO has a drafted response ready to be made public. It'd then work as a "we listen to you & react adequately" message.