the current AG model assumes that everyone in the same age bracket is around the same speed.

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I think it's the opposite-there are no assumptions in the current AG model. You race against your same aged peers, nothing more, nothing less irregardless of ability.


That may not be the best model, but in that model you are racing your same aged peers. In the cat model you are racing the same "speed" peers.


(Just wanted to make a clarification on the difference)

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

Whatever you have 5, 12 or 25 categories per gender, you will need to bring a part of each to Kona (or 70.3 worlds, or Xterra worlds, or Xtri worlds, ....). Preferably same percentage. IMO.

Because this is how you can motivate different ages, levels, genders, to participate IMO.

If you don't do that, forget high participation, IMO.

Of course you will always have the people who are there for experience, but bringing this dream "relatively available" add to the experience, IMO. Identification ?

IMO, increase number of categories, and dispatch qualifications possibilities, can only help motivation to participate. especially to young / competitive peoples. But also to older experience oriented peoples.

I don't think either age groups or categories are based on speed. While I'm not knowledgable enough to speak about triathlon, I've raced in both categories and in age groups and used to hold a USAC Official's license. Can't tell you the number of folks I've met who believe that because they're fast enough (and train with cat 1s, 2s, and 3s) they should jump right into the cat 3 race. That would be dangerous and as an official, our first duty was to put on a safe race.

Categories, as a previous poster said, are about experience and skill (both handling and racing skills). Cat 5s don't move up until they've completed 10 mass start races. The local Upgrade Coordinator has some discretion, though. A new Cat 5 who's lapping the field right from his/her first race isn't gaining experience by continuing as a Cat 5 and may be upgraded. Once you're a Cat 4, upgrading is about points. Points are based both on finishing position and on field size. Crits often come down to mass sprints. It's not uncommon to have more people finish in a pack than there are positions that get points. After an hour of racing, a few yards isn't about speed. There is also an exception for upgrading to Cat 3 if you have enough pack finishes in a large number of races. I apologize for not remembering the details, I haven't been an official for quite a while. After Cat 3, upgrading is purely about points. When fields are small, fewer points are available and they don't go as deep. A win could be worth more than 10 points and as little as 3. This tells me that categories are about more than just speed.

Although USAC places no restriction on it, many local associations (think local representatives of USAC) do not allow Cat 5s to participate in age group races.

As a previous poster mentioned, for most people, it takes a lot of races to accumulate enough points to upgrade. For USAC, one day licenses only count as a race if you buy an annual license before the end of that day. And, iirc, other than time trials, one day licenses are only good for Cat 5.

Triathlon and bike racing aren't the same thing and likely shouldn't be managed the same way.

I don't race all that much, so I'd be one of those guys who gets thrown into the lower category. I've averaged less than one race every 2 years for the last 15 years. Last year was my "big" year, I did 3 races. If I did "win" my category, it would be completely meaningless, I'd still be evaluating my times against the overall. But even though I don't race that much, when I do race I absolutely do care about competing and where I rank. The guy who is finishing 121st out of 357 in his AG at a big race probably cares, and maybe has a goal of cracking the top 25% eventually, even though it might take him 10 years to get there.

Part of racing is that I want a benchmark against which I can evaluate performance. If I'm consistently top 20% in my AG, that's a benchmark I an use to gauge my relative performance over time. If I'm moving categories constantly, I can't really use that as the benchmark, I can only use the "overall" standings (guess what, I'm getting older and slower over time. Big surprise there). In swimming, I can use my national rankings in my AG to evaluate where I'm at (and even cross reference to USMS ranking tables). If it was category based, then I would just know that I'm gradually slipping categories.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

If you don't do that, forget high participation, IMO.

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I'm actually in favor of forgetting high participation if we have to artificially create categories so everyone can be a winner. That's actually the opposite of competition. So I'm actually ok if we can get back to the basics of creating a culture that all racing within triathlon is important not just IM. And that if we do that and participants still are lacking.....I'm ok with that because at some point- your sport is what it is. And triathlon is actually an limiting hard sport. We can't really get around that, we can try and make things easier but at the end of the day you have to put some effort into triathlon unlike say running (walking "running" events).


So I'm actually more for improving the culture of the sport, and I don't think that's with revamping the categorization of the sport. I think it's revamping what we prioritize as a sport and pushing that culture on the sport. But as I said, I think "we" as an industry have to sorta sit on our own stink for a while because we've been so focused really on one specific segment of the sport...it's going to take a while to see if we can get a culture change and it sticks, not just 1 year of "hey try sprint racing and support local events"....no it's going to take 3-5+ years to see if that mindset sticks.

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

I was more responding to the poster who scoffed at the idea that a 80 year old can compete against a 50 year old and that age—without any regard to actual speed—should be the only dividing factor.

But regardless I disagree with you. The age groups are established to allow you to compete again similarly situated individuals which assumes they are, in fact, similarly situated.

The age groups are established to allow you to compete again similarly situated individuals which assumes they are, in fact, similarly situated.

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Except that's again incorrect. The AG's are established to allow you to compete against your same aged peers. That's it......nothing more, nothing less. ETA: That process takes out race/economic status/living conditions and simply makes you compete against your same aged peers. Your the one that keeps making assumptions that likely don't need to be part of the conversation within AG divisions.

Again you may think that's not the best method, but it does in fact take out almost all assumptions and is pretty basic "competition" at the most basic level.

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

I’m not suggesting we adopt the precise cycling model; Actually I think more a golf-like handicap would be best. It would allow anyone to “compete” against pros. Think you had a good race??? The results will show whether byou outperformed your “predicted” time.

Haha, I’m sorry but I just I disagree about the reason they are established. The
AGs assume that it’s not fair for an 80 year old to compete against a 20 year which implies that dividing us up by ages will equalize the playing field amongst competitors

I don't think in our region they need a distinction between 4/5. There aren't enough racers here to have separate fields. It's always 4&5 together.

It sounds lame, and I'm a 5 so it would affect me, but I'd be okay with a big yellow sticker on my helmet indicating I'm a newbie.

From my very limited participation, it would seem the combined 4/5 fields suffer from a mob mentality that the P/1/2 and 3 fields don't. Why? No teams really in 4/5. When you get teams, you get guys who ride together all year long in a race. Not a bunch of guys who don't know each other and are bashing around.

You can disagree but you can't make inaccurate assumptions to prove your point.

AG systems allowed similiar aged peers to compete against one another. (so yes a 45 year old rich white person is still the same as a 45 Indian person who can't train the same if you base it on AGE categories).

Cat system allows similiar "ability" peers to compete against one another.

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

From an execution standpoint, think about the effects on crowded courses and drafting in wave start races. Instead of taking a relatively broad cross section of abilities and sending them in one wave, you're grouping people by speed. In the AG model, people have the opportunity to spread out as the slow people fall behind the bulk and the speedies get ahead. In an ability-based wave, you have much narrower range of abilities and less spreading out on course.

I think the AG groupings are dumb, but overall less dumb than other options. I do wish they were 10 year increments, though.

Of all 3 hour racers I’m the closest to three hours!

Sounds dumb.

There are calculations that can be made on a recent race if not Olympic.

I have a feeling those against this enjoy shooting fish in a barrel with their current AG

Did someone say cats????? Racing cats??

You would be wrong.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Maybe the case but not for me. I'm under 35 so likely would benefit from categories rather than AG. I just think it's reasonable to race against your age / gender and if you're not as fast as your peers you won't qualify. Seems fair enough to me.

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Triathlon Calculator

Not scoffing at all! What I'm saying is if an 80 year old comes close to beating a 50 year old they are a far better athlete and more deserving of a podium place or KQ.

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Triathlon Calculator

4/5 races happen a lot in smaller areas. Women are often all lumped together and scored separately for the same reason. There often not enough women in a race to technically have upgrade point, but that's a whole different discussion. I think you're right about mob mentality.

Nah I just think there are pros and cons for every method and I'm all for saying that instead of just cycling has it figured out...that Tri may have it figured out too for our own sport.

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

The penny-farthing cats category would certainly work under Pyrenean Wolf's "make more categories" approach.

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

No, they allow similarly accomplished/experienced riders to race each other. Almost all 4/5 and many cat 3 races are won by people who are rapidly rising to the cat 1 ranks. Their ability is not remotely similar to the guys that are pack fill. And then even in 1/2 races there are guys that have stopped training like they used to and have no business being there. Usually these guys end up never racing again, rather than downgrading to cat 3.

Golf handicap has the same problem. In order to obtain an official handicap, you've got to play a minimum number of rounds of golf on a rated course. And even then, until a person has played enough within short enough window to make the measure statistically meaningful, the handicap system can be subject to a lot of manipulation and wacky results.

Maybe you can get what you want by splitting off all the people who enter fewer than 10 triathlons per year and make them the ubiquitous and enormous "Cat 5." (You may as well have no categories at all for 95% of triathletes.) Use your Cat system for those who enter 10 or more per year. But then again . . . as in golf . . . no two courses are the same. Golf has a sophisticated ranking system that determines the relative difficulty of official courses. (Otherwise, again, the handicap is meaningless.) If you're going to "handicap" triathletes, there's a lot of groundwork to be done. Ranking the courses against each other is just the first step.

Sure but your talking more semantics of the difference betweeen "ability" vs experience/accomplishment. I think we all get the understanding of what the category system does; it puts similiar athletes within the sport's results/ability/experience in the same category, which is the point of the category system vs an "age group" system, that doesn't rely on anyone's results/ability/experience, but only on your age.


So as I said both have plus and minuses and both have very specifics for their different guidelines.

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

I agree. I just don't see the benefit. Trying to sell this as something that would benefit beginners is a farce. There will almost always be a few rookie smashers who have "Cat 1/2" fitness, just not the race experience....or maybe just not the sanctioned race experience, and end up in the same category as the middle-manager who had a mid-life fitness crisis and is trying to shoehorn in just enough workouts in between his/her 45 hour/week job and family obligations. You know what's more discouraging than getting your ass handed to you by somebody in your own age group who's just really fit? Getting your ass handed to you by somebody who's 20 years younger than you and FitAF but in the same category as you because they didn't have time to do triathlons until recently because they were running XC and track as a DI scholarship athlete.

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