Great tool for USAT if they want to look for doping. Look at some of the ranking "trends" of 40+ year old guys....

10 to 15 point increases in 4 years from a "good" score to a "great" score.

Did anyone else notice that USAT is now giving away our zip codes and home address on some of the race results.

Not cool.


Look up the results for the Williamstown Badgers Autumn Lake Triathlon from 2017...you will see what I mean.

Nothing to see there.

Four years is about the length of time it takes to maximize your abilities in the sport. Legally.

If the "good to great" leap was a year or two, I would agree, there's probably some monkey business going on.

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

Many older competitors have transitioned to being empty nesters and now have more time to train due to less family obligations. And many 60+ competitors are retired giving them much more time to train. So you're going to find a significant number of apparently suspicious increases having nothing to do with doping. Ranking trends could be used as one of several factors to evaluate in doing targeted testing but I think testing is so limited now that USAT would be better to focus on anonymous reporting of suspected dopers as the best source for targeted testing.

All true. More time, more money offset by natural "old age".

It just seems very fishy to see people above 40 (above 45, above 50) moving from the mid 80's into mid / high 90's as they age. I can easily see a 10/15 point improvement if they were going from a mid-60 to high 70 or even mid 70 to high 80 score, but high 90's.

Holy crap -- thanks for posting this. I never really looked at the results through the USAT site before. Definitely not cool, and seemingly at odds with their own statement.

"If you register for an event using the USA Triathlon service, some of your personally identifying information may be provided to the event manager, who may not use or disclose the information except as necessary to manage the event. USA Triathlon does not disclose any personally identifying information to any other third party except when required to do so by law."

I just sent an email to complain/find out how to keep my information from being displayed...

I assume it is because of the scheduled dates/times of the sprint and Oly races at Worlds next year. In Rotterdam last year the sprint and Oly were on the same day so this type of condensed format for Worlds has a recent precedent. I like it. It gives more athletes the chance to race at Worlds.

ITU Competition Rules 2.5 Eligibility i. Athletes may not compete within 36 hours (as determined by the start times of the first wave) in more than one multisport event (see Appendix I) when one event is of standard distance or longer. Exceptions will be for the PT5 guides and team relay events at the defined super-sprint distances (see 16.1.a.);

Thanks for sending an email and looking up their own statement to use in your response to them. Thats more time than I had to do this morning.

It caught me off guard too. Especially since one of the racers on that list I referenced is the biggest local race director in the Philadelphia/South NJ area. I doubt he wants locals knowing exactly where he lays his head at night. I could be wrong though.

Good point. Rather than focusing on a certain percentage improvement, as the improvement from lower rankings to MOP rankings are much more easily explained by improvements in training; focus on those competitors that make large improvements to move up to FOP rankings, that would make for a much more effective target.

I am 33 and started doing triathlons last year. I have gone from the upper 70's to the upper 80's in less than one calendar year...so far.

I expect to break 90 before the season is over. It can be done with nothing but hard work (in fact, I don't think I work nearly as hard as I should)

I agree.

At 33. I’d hope so. My post was not about people in their prime. It was about old guys.

As well as guys just getting started in their 40s or getting back into it after being out a decade or so

Just this week I think there were 4 posts by people doing exactly this

I feel old

Maybe you just don’t train hard enough. I lost to him so he must be doping. I started triathlon when I was 35 and I keep on improving. There is not a special formula, it’s just day in and day out of busting you ass. If you think you work hard there is alway someone out there working harder.

I am one of those 40-44 guys who have improved 13 points in three years. Hired a coach, training smarter, and entering more competitive races that give you higher scores when you podium. All clean. Quite a leap of logic taken with the doping comment!

Dan - You clearly missed my point and are clearly not the group of athletes I was referring to and clearly better than 99.9% of the people reading this thread.

But, please look at your rankings for the past 4 years. Have you improved 10-15 points?

No - you have remained consistently at the top with a 1-2% variance over the years.

Would you honestly believe some-one who was near your level 4 years ago is now scoring 15 points better than you simply by training harder?

Thank you for this. Using it as motivation for my M17-19 junior in both sprint and oly. As a swimmer, he is accustomed to psych sheets and is always motivated to beat his ranking.

Both sheets have been updated with the latest entry/ranking data - a few hundred more people have entered.

I've updated the sheets with the latest entries as of July 16. Also, based on the wave start times and predicted finish times, I created a "Finish Density" chart to give an idea of how crowded the course will be during your race. This is the current chart for the Olympic distance race:

I am competing next year at Duathlon Worlds in Spain and they were running into the same problems as well. They are hosting the Sprint Duathlon on Saturday (AM) and then Standard Duathlon on Sunday (PM) to cut the 36 hour rule close. Looks like we will be racing very early and very late to make this accommodating. Don't quote me, but I believe I heard that they got the times confirmed by the ITU to be able to do this. Doesn't give us much time to recover and race again, makes you think whether one will race both races or just one. Heard Penticton was ran perfectly for those events to give enough rest time and not break the rules.

A huge issue you are going to run into is ways you can get a better score simply by picking different races.

If you pick small flat races, you're not likely to get a big enough gap on the field to produce a high score even if you win overall. If you pick a race like Nationals or Worlds, and just finish in the top third your going to get a pretty decent score, because everyone in the field has high scores from last year.

Also, if someone gets a flat tire in their A race, and they don't do too many other races, they would have an unusually low score, and then look like they were doping the following year when everything goes right.

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I swim fast because I'm afraid of sharks.

People above you will generally have higher USAT scores and people below you will have lower USAT scores. I calculated a "normalized" score for each year (subtracting points for years in the past and if it was calculated with less than 3 races). The predicted time is calculated using the athlete's USAT score relative to the predicted winner's score (I just assumed the winner's time to get a baseline). I think a score of 100 is calculated to be around 2:03 in the Olympic distance race. If your score is 80, then it's going to be 123 minutes / 0.8 = 2:33:45. That's how USAT scores normally get calculated. There may be some individual outliers, but the placings/times should be relatively accurate when comparing between athletes (if you trust USAT scores).

Got it.
Thanks!