It's hard AF to transition from 1 world class sport to another and be world class. There's another world class cyclist who rode for world team for 6+ years, that is going long course triathlon....we'll soon see how it goes for him as well.

I think for any athlete to come to a new sport at min you have to do 3+ years before you can make any judgement whether it's working or not. Anything less than that imo your not being fair to the "process" of transitioning to a new sport......


It's just fucking hard to putting it all together in IM's and the issue is, you don't get another shot at it next week. You have to recover and learn and then apply what you learned a month from now at best. But even those that race "a lot" it's not really all that much at actually learning/racing. So you better nail it or else.....

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

I used to agree that it must be hard to pick up swimming or running, or in particular elite ironman racing, . But Csm Wurf became a pack one swimmer and a sub 2,50 marathoner after retiring from pro tour cycling by doing more (back to back) ironman racing than any pro triathlete. Sound like a recipie for injury but somehow he was able to race lots at pro level, keep improving and stay injury free

+1 To go from world class at one sport to even another similar sport is unrealistic. We are talking world class and not AG level performances This and other athletes could be cautionary tales for all considering it, especially if they are used to the money and fame of the sport that they are leaving.

Look how it went for the gal who was the world class performer at ITU and then wanted to narrow it down to just running. That didn't work so well either.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

He picks the wrong races. He must be thinking the harder the bike the better for him but the reality is that if you have a weakness on the run a hard course like Whistler or LP will crack you.

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What's your CdA?

It's completely different for Cam Wurf and Talansky.

Cam Wurf spent his whole career riding 300watts on the front of the pack for hours at a time chasing breakaways and such. Talansky sat in the wheels for the most part as a GC contender and only expended energy when he absolutely needed. So their physiologies were built to do different things over the years.

That's why Cam says that it really doesn't affect him to do it many times a season, because he used to do it day after day. So it was probably much easier for him shut that aside, and learn how to swim/run as he's talked about.

Wish Andrew the best and hope he keeps trying, but guessing there needs to be a change in what he's doing.

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Carson Christen
Sport Scientist , Coach
Torden Multisport

So, is your answer to the question posed “nothing”?

All indications are he blew up on the bike and slow-trotted the IM shuffle to the finish.

At 71 miles he was with Matt Russell. By 112 miles he was down 14 minutes to him. 4:27 on that bike course is out of control, so my guess is he went over the limit and paid the price. But who knows.

Funny you mention GJ because if you read my comments when AT announced his move to tri....I basically summarized they changed sports for the wrong reasons to actually succeed in their next sports.

It seemed like they both wanted more family time and thus quit successful sports to be in situations where they don’t travel anymore and get to be a daily family member.

And I’m not faulting that type of move, I’m more suggesting when that *seemingly* is reason why they are changing sports to me it’s never going to be successful. I saw the GJ move not as an actually step in successful direction, I saw it as move to get paid to train for an Olympic sport while being home every night. I never saw it succeeding.

Your essentially giving up an “grinding” career to make it easier on you and your family in a sport you may not even make....you better hope you keep that “grinding” mentality and don’t go “soft” with more family friendly environment. That’s the dangers imo when your a top pro in another sport and then change for “family” reasons.

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

I did the course yesterday. It was my first Ironman...so I have no idea if it was harder than normal (or any other course) or not. The weather seemed completely fine to me. Others complained about the heat. I can honestly say that Ironman is harder than I had expected.


Looking at the pro results:

• 8 Pro DNF
• 5 of the pros that did finish ran above a 4 hour marathon (2 more were like 4 mins from doing so)
• 2 of the top 7 bike times went on to DNF

This seems like a larger "blow up" percentage than normal. So maybe it was just a hot pace.

Also, I met Marc Duelsen the day before and he basically stated he was desperate for a Kona slot for the sake of his sponsors (he got that slot). Im sure the compete level was pretty high with two slots available.

Basically. I said this in the day 1 AT to tri thread.

Based on his comments that he wanted to be w family more- I knew this was going to be a hard transition. I almost got the sense that triathlon cus it had a 5 hr bike as part of its sport had cyclists eyes getting real big. But there’s also a swim that you have to learn or else the “draft” pack is just going to chew you up and then the run.....running a marathon post 112mi bike.....yeah

So this to me was never going to end well. So imo there really isn’t much wrong other than he’s likely here doing this sport for the wrong reasons to begin with.

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

That’s an misguided approach if you are saying cus CW did it, it should work. I can name you 10 guys who had successful single sport careers and simply couldn’t hack it cus they couldnt get just the technical aspects of tri- swimming.

Hell GJ made it and in her same “recruiting class” 6 others never made it to successful careers. And these were 20 somethings with no family obligations- they just couldn’t put it together.

Alan Webb failed misreable at coming to tri. Actually he only failed cus the bar was pushing for Olympics in a very accelerated timeline.

I hear it all the time from these single sport athletes look at the splits in tri and think “I’m faster than that” but tri isn’t about going as fast as possible. It’s really being able to handle the load of 3 sports and that’s very different than what their training is used to.

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

Sure it’s hard, but something specific must’ve happened to him, because that’s just a terrible performance on the bike. I suspect a mechanical a cramp or something like that. That guy is way too tough mentally and has way too much base in him to ride that slow.
His runs have all been just plain bad. Some blow ups but all are bad.
I am 100% rooting for him. Just curious what happened.

After listening to a few podcasts, and reading a few articles, I honestly think he got scared of road racing, and his perspective changed when he had a kid. There were a few traumatizing incidents in addition to him large list of crashes (I think he lost a close friend, and a few teammates had bad crashes) and was just done with the risk. I can't fault him for that; its a dangerous sport. The family thing was another aspect, he wanted to be with his baby and wife, in the short and long term.

I also think he jumped to full distance too soon. He should have kept to his stated plan of shorter races and 70.3’s for a couple of years.

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Let food be thy medicine...

+1. It's hard. Happens fairly often in combat sports - a world-class kickboxer goes into MMA, or an MMA person enters a big grappling event. Fill in the blank with other scenarios. A precious few can reach the top of the heap again (i.e. Henry Cejudo winning gold in wrestling, and then being a double champ in the UFC). But many more can't quite get there. Definitely not taking anything away for them for going after it.

His run in 70.3’s has been pretty terrible. But we in IMLP, something specific happened on the bike. He is way too good to ride that slow the lat 30 miles.
Curious as to what.

I had the chance to talk with with him while we were both laid up in the med tent and Ironman Canada last year. He was really in awe of how much people suffered out on the race course. He said he had never seen people suffer like that, not even in the tour. He probably had a bit of recency bias going on but you could tell he had a lot of respect for everyone out there getting it done. That respect probably played a part in him getting it done on a rough day.

When you look at Andrew's progression, it looks similar to a lot of high level single sport converts. He has had some ups and down and glimpses of greatness if he can put it all together. I think a lot of people had some crazy expectations for how fast he would progress.

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Website - Follow Me On Strava - Follow Me On Instagram

Could it be that this is a hard sport and he is not cut out for it?

56 swim at LP in the pro field is terrible. His bike was legit but not good enough to make up for a slow run if he had even run. RIP Talansky, triathlon aint for you.

If swimming was his main problem...He swam faster than the eventual winner!
And if he had been starting in the AG 50-54 he would have come out of the water in third place...and finished the race in 5th place in that age category. So that's a bit underwhelming for a triathlon pro, but don't blame his swimming for it.

Comparing his weak time to other weak times does not mean his is not weak. Have you raced LP? 56 is crazy slow on that course. If his bike and run were strong enough to overcome it he could be competitive but they are not. He does not have what it takes and will fade away because of this......

No, I haven't done IM LP, but I can see the results list. Both the race winner (Matt Russell) and the third placed Pro (Marc Duelsen), who KQ'ed(!) at that race, swam in the same group as Talansky. So if he wanted to KQ, he could hardly have picked a race where it was easier than LP. He only needed to

1. Swim with Matt Russell
2. Bike with Matt Rusell
3. Run a 3:07 marathon (the slowest time of the top 8 finishers of this IM with mainly 2nd and 3rd tier pros).

The only part he achieved was the swimming. So as much as I agree with you that his triathlon career will not be a success (or anything remotely close to it), do I disagree with you that his swimming is to blame. Even if he could swim like Josh Amberger or Jan Frodeno it would be hard to see him as a legitimate pro with the bike and run performance he has shown.

You seem to think that my point that his swim is what it is holding him back. All I typed is that his swim sucks, which it does. I will leave it to you to play out alternate scenarios in which this does matter.

The run is definitely his weakness now.

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Let food be thy medicine...

Anyone could do the "math" and see that Gwen is way too heavy to be an elite runner. She was delusional if she saw otherwise. How many 200 lbs linebackers are there in the NFL, or 200 lbs elite divers, or 200 lbs Ironman pros. The answer to this is zero because each of these sports requires the best of the best to not be 200 lbs for what is needed (an NFL linebacker needs to be way bigger, a diver way smaller, an IM pro 40 lbs lighter), Gwen is too big to be an elite marathoner for sure. Gwen is something like 8 lbs heavier than Paula Radcliffe who was already too large for hot marathons (example Athens and Beijing). And Gwen is around an inch and half taller than Radcliffe meaning she cannot lose the excess weight in her bones to become a "a heavy marathoner" like Paula.

I think Talansky is actually too light to be an Elite Ironman pro. He's barely 140lbs. He just does not have the weight like Cam Wurf to "diesel" it at the front of the bike without it affecting his run. As others said, Talansky could sit in as a pro biker and then burn high octane for stage finishes. Wurf had to drag the peloton around as a "heavy wind blocker".

Talansky does not have enough weight to store enough glycogen on him to run well off a hard bike. Lange and Welch are the only two exceptions who have done well at IM at 140ish lbs. Everyone else is 155-165 range for the pro men.

Talansky has the right body composition to be a good runner, but he can't bike that hard. He has to "strategic draft" like Lange and Welch to have enough glyogen left for a good run. The moment Welch or Lange have to push their own wind 100% they are not in the ballpark. Look at Lange in every other Ironman other than Kona where he gets a big train. He's off the back at the other IM's where there is no "peer group". Or he just magically "peaks" for Kona.