To me there were some interesting comments in there where he said one thing but WTC does something else for it's pro's. Especially when I compare what Challenge or Rev3 is doing for pro athletes. Sponsors love the WTC brand, but outside of a few races, most Rev 3 races are more competitive than a WTC event.

WTC is a huge driver in the industry. Many businesses may have disappeared over the years if not for WTC. They do a great job with the LC races they do.

If you've ever seen them assemble or tear down, it's f*cking amazing how much work goes into the production. Whom ever is in charge could easily be in charge of the Grammy's or something like that.

They've managed to grow the world wide triathlon pie more so than any 2 RD's or orgs. ITU should step back and see how they could emulate what WTC has done.

One the other hand there is a doping problem in AG racing. I think they are more hesitant to take drastic steps to fix that. There are also drafting problems that they often seem complacent about.

All in all, the triathlon participation market is shrinking a bit in the US, the color run is posting 4 figure growth year over year. I think he's focused on growing the markets where WTC can see double figure growth and not single figure growth.

Just some random thoughts based on the interview.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out if Triathlon is truly on the downward slope. First of all, what does that mean for WTC's owners? Private equity builds and sells at a peak. Did they miss it? Second, what happens to the Rev 3s, HITS and Challenge if the pie starts to shrink? It would be a shame to lose some of those races, but does anyone think Challenge AC survives if it ends up with 300 starters this year? Rev 3 seems to have already scaled back its full Rev in light of limited participation. Finally, what happens to all those companies that make a living from the white middle aged male obsession with buying shit to make them feel faster at IM? All those power meter companies, wetsuit companies, bike companies and triathlon coaches? I doubt Color Runs generate much ancillary revenue for equipment providers.

Still, I doubt anyone entering the water in that first "ironman" in Hawaii some 30+ years ago could have even conceived that there would be an "industry" surrounding their little dare. Kudos to every single person who ever took a step to make this an "industry" by organizing a race, completing a race, or selling something intended to help triathletes reach their dreams. I personally hope it all lasts well past the final Color Run. I won't care whose banner flies over the race, as long as the race is well run. The Darwinian in me thinks it likely will be.

DD,

Is there doping in age-group tri? Yes. Drafting? Yes. Neither are unique to IM events, however.

What organization does more than WTC on either front? From my perspective, we're confronting both issues.

If you ask me, complacent isn't the right word.

Where's the love for my draft marshals and for IM's anti-doping program?

Sincerely,

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

I heard IM Melbourne was a massive draft-fest. Were the draft marshals in the pub?

Is there data on the IM anti-doping program that the public can view?
Number of tests? Who was tested? When? What types of tests? What is being tested?

what draft marshals? what anti-doping program? No love, either from us OR your bosses.

drafters and dopers are where the double digit growth potential is for the sport.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Blasphemy!

From my vantage point at Cozumel last year, they were enjoying the race up close on their mopeds. They had a perfect view of the massive draft trains going up the east side of the island but didn't do squat about it.

officials/marshalls have a tough gig and asymetric payoff profile for doing their job. so i'm grateful to those who help monitor and ensure a sense of fair play.

but in the end, it's a basic cost benefit analysis problem.

what is the optimal number of bike marshalls on course to monitor pros vs AG, how much does it cost to hire/pay for their services, vs revenue for the race.

at some point, it simply isn't worth it.

i'm not saying it's right, but by my estimation, that's the way it is.

my sense is that they will monitor pros and pointy end of AG closer as those are folks that have the most risk/reward/reputation at stake.

You also have to take into account that those are your customers you are cutting out of the race, if you marshall them too aggressively. This isn't like an league where teams cant just quit. Obviously we the consumers are ok with the draft packs. If we weren't, we wouldn't continue to fill races that constantly have these pelotons.

What is yet to be seen is if you are ok, with an 8 min penalty with groups of 500 athletes getting 8 min penalties and likely eliminating yourself from the race (if you were trying to go top finish).

They are trying but you also have to keep in mind this is a business more than a sport. "Fair play" only goes so far when the consumer is the one being picked on by the officials. And that's going to be the reality whether it's Rev3 or WTC. They wont go full on Nazi officiating with any race that is full of 98% AG'ers.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Your first paragraph above is a lot of what Dan wrote about in Stakeholders. There are a lot of 'triathletes' who don't race anymore. They have either grown tired of it, don't want to pay for it, or just enjoy the lifestyle. There are a lot of us who were here before and will be here after the boom. Some coaches will make it, some won't. Some companies will continue, others won't. There is a long line of dead bodies along the triathlon road, I don't think that they'll stop appearing any time soon.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

we are on the same page.

course marshal = asymetric payoff profile

yes it's a business - the simple logistics of keeping a couple thousand people moving on a course likely > trying to fit 500 people, per your example, in a penalty tent.

like I said - at some point it simply isn't worth the bother.

i am fine with it. it's a hobby, not a job.

if I wasn't, I wouldn't participate (or I'd HTFU and race at the pointy end!)

There was but the draft busters were still busting heaps.

It's just a shame that athletes are happy to cheat.

Jimmy you need to increase the time in the BINS to 20 minutes from the crappy 4 minutes.

Leave it at 4 minutes for the Professionals.

But it has to change for age groupers.

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Why? You all hate drafting, yet you'll still sign up. Until you stop filling these races, I see no incentive for them to do stiffer penalties. This being from the business prospective, obviously.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Jimmy,

I'm glad you and the marshals are out there. I watched 3 WTC races last year (IM FL, IM AZ and Cozumel 70.3 - I posted video of Cozumel 70.3 somewhere if you want to go find it) If I didn't know it was a triathlon I might have thought there was a bike race going on, at all three events.

Yes you do deserve some love, a hug, a kiss, maybe even some tongue. But no grab ass. I've seen a WTC race with 20-25 draft marshals for the AG race and very aggressive enforcement. Once. In Europe. I saw more penalties and DQ's in that one WTC race then I've seen in the rest of the WTC races I've done which is > N=10.

You and I had a conversation about drafting in 2006 after the first Clearwater. Now it's 8 years later. Do you think AG drafting is overall more or less prevalent than 2006? WTC's known about this problem,and has known that it's a growing problem for many, many years. Is that complacency?

WTC, USAT, ITU everyone has drafting and lots of it. It's a low risk activity for the racer. It's, imo, now ingrained as part of the culture of age group racing. Since the majority of growth has been at WTC events, one could argue that WTC has a larger responsibility to control drafting. Where WTC goes, others follow, even USAT and ITU. (And let's face it, ITU worlds events are basically the equivalent of draft legal AG racing)

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Where WTC goes, others follow, even USAT and ITU. (And let's face it, ITU worlds events are basically the equivalent of draft legal AG racing)

_______

Mike Reilly, come to the finish line, we need your help in a Charles Barkley type rant: "We arent triathlon's role model..just because we out-sell everyone else doesn't mean we should be the one changing the drafting penalties".

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

This is the truly, truly sad part of it, that the athletes are considered just "consumers". Contrast this with masters swimming, wherein your average weekend regional meet, with perhaps 20 to 80 swimmers, has a general entry fee of about $10.00, plus $2 for each event you want to swim. So, you can go to a 1-day meet and race 4 times in an 8-hr day for $18, with timing mats accurate to the 0.01 sec. The swimmers are thought of as athletes first, not consumers, and obv no one is getting rich off of this:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

There were also a lot of penalties issued in Melbourne (ask participants), so drafting was affected by draft marshals.

My point is that while drafting is a problem in triathlon (has been since I first toed the line in 1984), we're not ignoring it. In fact I would argue with anyone, that we're doing more to police it than any other organization - many of whom have simply thrown in the towel. It's a tough battle - at some venues more so than others.

Here is some info on WTC's anti-doping program, written by Slowman: http://www.slowtwitch.com/...nti-doping_4080.html

But to answer your questions in case you don't want to read - here is some info from Dan's story:

1. The info is public (read Dan's story to access the link)
2. 515 tests in 2012 (compare to 163 for USADA)
3. Pros and age-groupers tested
4. In comp and out of comp
5. Blood and urine
6. EPO, HGH, Steroids, etc.

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

It's sad but I think it's probably pretty damn accurate. But that's the dynamics at play. This isn't like a sport league where the officials are suppose to be straight up and call it like it is. There is no backlash if one team is called for more fouls against the other team. It just is what it is.

But when you are the official and your over officiating may piss off that athlete (your consumer), then you have a mighty fine line you have to walk against. And as I said, we the athletes arent making this issue even more of an issue. We come to ST and bitch about every WTC race turning into an draftfest, yet we'll just as quickly sign up for the same damn race the next year. So we are giving WTC very little incentive to actually want to make drafting a bigger sticking point. If we all said, "no more races until we get double the officials (or however many we think would be adequate)" and actually didn't fill up WTC events, that would be when you would see more officials. All WTC is doing, is just enough to wet our appetite for trying to curb drafting without over doing it, and from a business standpoint, makes sense. They are trying, absolutely and I think you have to look at all the sides to understand why they make the decisions (or non decisions) they make.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Read this: http://www.slowtwitch.com/...nti-doping_4080.html


And count the number of draft marshals at your next non-Ironman event and compare that to the number of draft marshals at your next (or most recent) Ironman event.


Then get back to me. No love necessary.

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

Awesome. Thanks for the response.

FYI. The draft problem is easy to improve. Wave starts. 5min interval wave starts.
Challenge has this right, WTC doesn't. Yes, drafting still happens at Challenge events.

Second, the anti-doping programs sounds more than reasonable.
It goes a long way to restoring credibility lost during the Lance debacle.
USADA still does good work.

Jimmy, I'm judging you based on how effective you are at achieving your stated objectives. inputs vs. outputs. not how many draft marshals are present, although that's important, and not compared to other race series. I'm only concerned with WTC, which makes up the bulk of my racing. I'm not going to give you a gold star for just doing your job.

yes, draft marshals are "present' in greater numbers, but are they effective? I would challenge you to consider my point of view, or rather how your efforts are received/perceived vs. how you think they aught to be received. I would tell you that there's a disconnect. My peers on the bike course at Kona would agree with me I think.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Just some quick research on the 3 race companies price and athlete numbers.

Rev3 Full is at most $575 and $270 for a half and if I'm reading it right had 950 total finishers in their 2013 full and half triathlon (not counting relays and or aqua athletes)

Beach to Battleship is at most $550 for full and $259 for the half. In 2013 had 499+199 full athletes (m,f) and 605+334 (m,f) half athletes for a total of 1630ish athletes.

Ironman Wisconsin is $675 and from the 2013 results page had 2544 athletes.

So I would be curious what the ratios for each race company is with athlete to official. You obviously SHOULD have the most officials out on course, because you are catering to more athletes, and you theoretically should have a bigger allocation of funds to pay for the officials. So in that respect, yes yall get credit for having more officials.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Thanks for appreciating the effort.

There's merit to what you're saying, but other things factor in to the number of marshals used. The main problem is that there's simply a lack of certified marshals to staff all of the tris in the USA - especially with many events on the same weekend.

Then there's the task of finding enough (good) motos and drivers to pilot the draft marshals.

USA Triathlon (USAT) suggests 1 referee per 200 participants or 5+ for races with >800 participants (2013). We strive for (and get, at most USA events) 10-15 per Ironman distance event (25 in Kona) and at least 10 for 70.3 events.

Optimum would be at least double this (in my opinion), but that simply isn't practical and at some venues (regardless of the above fact that that number of certified refs and adequate motos and drivers is extremely hard to find), it would be dangerous to put 20-30 motos on the course with the athletes.

As you noted, it's tough, and to a certain degree it is "just the way it is."

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com