A very valid reasoning, except for the fact that this is 10 day notice.

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Exactly,this is something people don't seem to understand or don't think is relevant.

If I am a top ITU pro from half way around the world and two months ago I am told about all the hassles of COVID travel I would be thinking, " It's only the regular Hamburg event,Nah I won't go and maybe I'll shift my training in preparation for next year or have a go at some 70.3 races while I have a rare opportunity" (for those in Oz).Then 10 days out they change it to a world champ's and those athletes are like "WTF,you could have told me two months ago and I could have sorted out my training and travel.Thank's for that!"

Yes., but its the year of Covid19, so everything is kind of out the window....so this year, its the world championships of all the athletes who are allowed into Europe with 10 days notice and who can get there. The kid from Rwanda, for her, she's still not winning a medal compared to a regular year. World championships are alway about who can show up given the challenges of access. This year, its a different challenge, but its just a different version of who gets locked out from competing and on the outside looking at those who get to compete. Its actually nothing new, for most of the world, its just new for those of us in parts of the world where we always have access to compete in whatever sport we want.

I don't think it was a surprising move to make Hamburg the WC.
The elites were continuously told that ITU was doing ALL IT COULD to have a WC. And Hamburg was the only race that really fit the mold.
Montreal (had a 0% chance) and Bermuda (Personally I thought it was a low chance) were the only other races on the WTS schedule.
This left an unnamed race or Hamburg. Personally I figured it would be Abu Dhabi in October, and maybe Hamburg.
Either way, If you had any aspirations of racing in 2020 for the WC, you needed to be in Hamburg. Anyone who says otherwise wasn't paying attention.
There was a real chance of a 2-3 race series. If that was the case, would you really skip one of the races? The answer is no, you wouldn't skip.

Does it suck that a lot of people won't make the trip, 100% yes. But that happens every year.
Is it weird it was named so close to the race, yes. But at the same time, no one has raced for months and this was the only WTS on the schedule. I'd think athletes would prioritize it over the 3x upcoming world cups.

I was watching a track meet from Sweden yesterday. It had athletes from
USA
Australia

So I am not sure I se a problem here. Unless triathletes are totally different than track athletes.........

Time, this wasn't going to be an individual world champ event a few days ago. The organising takes time.

So your suggestion is that all other athletes from all other countries should suffer just because some countries have politicians and governments that have no clue how to deal with Corona???

If the USA has a problem that is is USA problem. Why should the rest of the world be on hold just because some countries have no clue???

Also, what is the problem. When I am seeing the president of the USA on TV here in Europe he is saying that the USA is handling this better than any other country in the world.

You want athletes from many countries to suffer just because some countries cannot deal with a virus.
That is a snowflake approach

Actually, you have this very wrong Halvard. The countries I was referring to are from the Southern Hemisphere and some of these areas have handled the pandemic very well. The big problem is that being so far away they have to travel to countries who are still not doing well just to get there. As so many international and even domestic flights are no longer flying it is way harder and takes a lot longer, with more stops than usual to arrive in Hamburg. Might leave home with a negative test but with up to 6 airports to step foot in there is a much higher risk they will not arrive the same way.

As I said. Yesterday you had Australians running in a track meet in Sweden.

So why can track athletes compete but not triathlon athletes?

We already have Australians competing in Europe in endurance sports.
They ran i Goteborg. That is not far from Hamburg.

Why should the rest of the world be on hold for these.
Please give me a reason why??

what are the contreactual obligations the Itu president speaks aobut , that were only known to her 10 days before the event .

i think 10 day is too short at the end of the day isnt it kind of logical that if there is only Wts race in the year that is the world champ race then .... especially if it was already the team really world champs .

at the end its still better field that any LD duathlpn or aquathon itu world champs will ever be. its not great but better than nothing i would say.



halvard as a bit of a fact check i believe usa is sending a full team .

I expect France to have a great weekend. Grand Prix racing is up and running.
If the USA is sending athletes, that is great.

With only one race, making it the world championship is just logical.

I found it interesting that it is in triathlon where people are just trying to find reasons to not make races important.

Any other sport is trying to make 2020 count.

Because it all changed too close to change anything. This race was said to have NO Olympic points and NO wts points, so was just a race for money not for or towards titles. 9 days before the race it suddenly becomes a race for the World Champion. Big difference. Now for the Aus track athletes competing, they had no choice as needed to achieve Olympic qualifying times to compete in Tokyo. Therefore it was imperative the federation found a way around the travel restrictions and hardships to allow them to do this. They had plenty of TIME to do this though as the first race was announced a long time out. Hamburg Individual changed from a race with no olympic or series points, (not worth the huge effort and all the risks to travel for southerners) to something extremely important way too late.

Once more, the problem is the short notice. Not only for traveling, but also for training specifically.

Yes. And if someone misses out on the "World Championships" big deal.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

again, anyone who races WTS knew all summer that at best the series would consist of hamburg plus montreal, bermuda and maybe a 4th unknown race with hamburg being the only definite and montreal almost certainly being a no. you keep on whining about the hypothetical athlete who was planning on competing for a world championship but who was planning on skipping the only definite race of 3 races. there is no such person because anyone who was planning on competing for a world championship had long ago planned on going to hamburg. you also are pretending that it's impossible to fly from australia to europe but there are flights. team usa figured out a way to fly the team there (and avoid a 2-week quarantine) and europe treats americans who fly there nothing short of lepers so where there's a will there's a way. yes, it's unfortunate that birtwhistle and wilde won't be there but be happy that ITU is hopefully going to be able to pull off 2 WCs next weekend. i think the much bigger issue is the extreme variability of who had pool access since march but this is an anomaly year so just enjoy the free streams next weekend and hope the athletes don't pull a florida marlins afterward.

World triathlon announced some time ago that if they managed to hold races they would give no Olympic or series points. Meaning they don't count towards a world series champ. Athletes weren't expecting to be racing for world champ this year. You need to go back through the information from earlier in the year.

Clearly not a USA problem as our best athletes in Hamburg already for this, but they did have to jump through some extra hoops. (As per Tim Carlson's front page article)

The issue is that is not fair to anyone just having the lightbulb go off in your head to say, let's have a World Championship in 10 days even though it will be a relatively weak field.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

No olympic points, yes. That is true.

ITU always stated they would do everything they could to hold/crown a World Champ.
They were super vague and made it sound like there could be a series or maybe a one day event.
Either way, it seemed clear to me that there would be a World champs one way or another. And Hamburg was the only race that was clearly going to play a role in determining the champion.

Where was it stated that there was never going to be a world champs? That is not the information I was receiving.

You can at least acknowledge that 10 days is brutal. Nevermind that any type of training around the race is out the window, but just luck in getting travel visas, flights, etc. When's the last time you started planning a major international trip 10 days out?

So, who would've been the World Champion if this was the only ITU race to happen? I could be wrong, but if this was the only race that awarded points then by default the winner is the World Champion. I don't understand why you are continuing to get upset because they are calling it a World Championship now. Everyone knows that this year is going to go down with an * in EVERY sport. So, stop complaining that ITU is just trying to do it's best to salvage anything from such a disastrous year.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/23685202

In their statement on the 17th July they stated that the elite, u/23 and junior world championships were planned for Edmonton which was postponed. On 26th June Montreal was announced for Oct 5-6th. Why would anyone assume a race before that would be a world champs. On the 25th of may when new dates for chengdu, Karlovary and Hamburg and Hamburg wc relay were announced it stated "These events will not be included in the Olympic qualification rankings. These events will not count for the Olympic qualification rankings or the World Triathlon rankings."
Now put all this together and it seems we are still holding out for a new date for Edmonton to be announced as the stand alone world champ race. 26th August in the southern hemisphere we awake to an announcement that changes everything. Hamburg will now be the World Champs.

Well, Montreal is cancelled. This is the only race. So, it's the default World Championships. No need to cry over spilled milk. 2020 sucks, Covid sucks, and they are doing their best. Complaining about this is kind of ridiculous at this moment. I'm glad that some athletes will have a chance to earn a paycheck. I'm sorry others can't, but it's not ITU fault. It's better than nothing, which is what apparently you are advocating for.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/23685202

Not at all advocating for nothing, Hamburg was always going to be a paycheck, great. The more paycheck opportunities the better, it's just the title that now goes with it on such short notice that I don't like.

Its the title of those who were fit enough and who could show up for a 2020 Covid19 limited world championship. I think everyone will understand it was held in imperfect conditions, but its a win to have a race, and have a championship no matter how different it is from other years. Let's just accept that its better than nothing and roll with that.

My guess is that when Montreal was moved to Oct 2-4 this was the last ditch chance of having a world championships with enough "notice". Except last week the Canadian government extended the international travel ban all the way to Sep 30th (at least anyone traveling to Canada from abroad has to quarantine for 14 days). Even with no quarantine, you can't have people arrive on Oct 1 for an Oct 2-4 event (inclusive of officials etc etc). So Monteal just cancelled their entire event last week.

As it stands, Oct 2-4 was a kind of ridiculous weekend to have a triathlon in Canada. I have been racing this sport in Canada since 1985, and I am not aware of a single outdoor tri EVER in the entire country in October in 35 years. When the travel ban got pushed its not like there is any hope to have this race in Canada even a week or two later.

So ITU is left with Hamburg. Seems like "better than nothing".

I don’t think ‘better than nothing’ is a cogent argument.
Plenty of sports living with no world champs/main event this year.
IMHO ITU looks insecure and reactive, effectively saying that they can’t keep going without a WC, so a WC that excludes decent prep for many competitors through travel, short notice, and inability to train effectively ain’t a real WC and will always have a what-if applied to it.

Like the early 80s largely boycotted Ironman...