Great course, if very remote from NA and Europe. So many fans around the run course! cough T100 cough
Really boring racing though, except for the surge by Gentle and Wilde’s slight implosion? Things were decided pretty quickly on both days - who was where; gaps were never going to close (again, except for Hayden’s lead and Gentle’s deficit). It was clear Matthews would finish second half way into the bike (given Simmonds’ and Matthews’ run prowess).
Quick racing, too, in terms of aggressive tactics. I get amused when people are angry about middle distance being referred to, together with long distance, as “long course”, but for the first time I thought maybe Crowie had a point when he said “this is like Olympic distance”. On the other hand, Geens showed Wilde that maybe it still wasn’t?
Athlete of the weekend: Matthews.
The broadcast had great visuals of the course and the athletes. It had a working leaderboard (not without glitches). But everything else, especially commentary, was comically bad (even here in Europe, without Outside commercials). The role of the T100 in triathlon this year and of WTCS stars in the race made it impossible for the commentators to speak cohesively about triathlon while ignoring the T100 and the WTCS circuits, but I also suspect that they do not follow triathlon outside of watching the races they commentate on. This reminds me of the time that the commentary in Polish (on TV) during PTO races was performed by a professional commentator not familiar with triathlon. It was like “they will now go on to the run, and look, X has a 2 minute lead over Y and Z, but they look really determined, quick cadence there”. After all those years Lovato, Griesbauer et al aren’t far from that level. Polish TV meanwhile got their shit together and hired a triathlon coach to help. IM did not. And it’s also not a matter of stop complaining about free shit, and this ain’t F1. They fielded 6 (six) commentators! The budget of this broadcast, if anything, must’ve been too high
There’s nothing there but speculation on what JG could do because the results I said…are just the facts of his year in 70.3. Didn’t say LS owned him, did I?
Honestly wondered if it was because of the run course and JG proved me wrong. Also - I believe he is working with a new coach? Same one as PL? I love Jelle, honestly just a great guy, super friendly and happy, and will be a great champion and representative. I think backing up the Vegas result truly was great and totally changes the way he is seen. That was a world class performance. And don’t lie - 5k into that run we all would’ve put money on HW and most of us (me too) that Leo would run up to JG. But…this is more evidence on what he and Ben Rezel are doing. Between PL and JG this fall…we need to know more about this guy. Euros, help us out because he is pulling all the right strings for the last 6 months.
His moving to Australia with his super hot Aussie yoga baby momma is hardly anything but performance enhancing hahaha all of the above…sets up for an incredibly likeable champion for us to follow.
Also, @synthesis had a post about successful athletes turning to social media being their downfall…JG has a really good YT channel developing. Especially with the commentary - his intro with the 1700 ways of saying his name is pretty epic!
ETA - Leo has a really good youtube too. Really enjoy it as well.
Results, for the record (with PTO Ranking points).
Matthews fails to go into #3 ahead of Derron by hundredths of a point. Simmonds goes up two places to #7 (worth $10,000!).
Geens jumps to #4 in rankings, above Long (worth $52,000!) and Nieschlag to #12.
Interesting in the men’s race that the the top 9 places all had the top 10 bike times (Ruben Zepunkte was 8th). Can’t help but wonder, with the men specifically, what a 20m draft would do.
So I learned from Ari Klau’s instagram that Jack Kelly is indeed a coach, and is his coach!
I then learned from Jack Kelly’s hitherto-dormant personal Instagram account that he had also coached Penny Slater to 7th place. Sliding from the domain of probably-true to gray area between fact and fantasy, “we [Slater and Kelly] did a training camp together in the French alps leading into the World Champs where we were training 30-32 hours of swim, bike & run every single week”. So is he really using the products he’s advertising, despite ST mocking that assertion?
20m zone would change the game for sure. I don’t know why Ironman does not do it. My wave was late enough that on my out leg I got to watch the first bunch of pros coming back. Everyone looked quite legal, but when you’re riding at 45-55kph, the meaning of 12m becomes kind of less impactful from a non draft angle because you’re moving in the range of 15 meters per second so you are in the other guy’s spot in sub 0.8 seconds at the high end.
We know from the velodrome in team pursuit how much the draft of the other team makes a difference once you get into the last quarter lap on a 250m velodrome. Once the leading team is rounding the final turn in sight of the other team finishing the lap its game over and that’s around 40m back (and yes, you’re chasing a pack of 4).
All that to say, if you were in the front pro pack riding legal, you’re going fast-er (than someone on his own) and arriving at T2 with less TSS
PTN was talking about this - how JG took one pull on a climb and then sat in 4-5 spots down - smart racing for sure. But it’s really hard to break up those groups when you are the strongest riders. Same thing in the women’s race - Paula said she couldn’t break up the group with the girls behind holding on. And yep - RR makes it easier to ride close legally than more difficult for the “drafters” in the pack.
It makes no sense why they don’t change. Jimmy R literally just seems to be the curmudgeonly old man saying get off my lawn, with no real good reason other than he doesn’t think it will change the racing. It’s silly.
haha, I was hanging out with Jimmy at 7:15 am 7 minutes before he got out with the moto crew in Taupo with the pros and I was walking over to my swim start:
I really can’t see why it stays at 12. The course was not hard not easy, but at the pro level no one is dropping anyone that easily because the climbs that pitched up to 10 percent (very briefly) were not really long enough.
Perhaps one way is enforce the 12m on the climbs. at 25 kph, it is half of the 15m per second that I cited above, so the person ends up cresting at 1.6 second behind. Now you have 1.6 separation cresting, to a strong rider can then break the bungee chord right after the climb?
There has to be a reason why IM won’t move to 20m that’s not Jimmy. Jimmy was the guy when he raced pro who needed a strong bike leg to win races without drafters (Jimmy was also a small guy so really needed the benefit of the power to weight segments to break tthe accordian). So he is sympathetic. He took this job with IM BECAUSE he detested the free ride to T2 when he was a pro.
You can ask him - but it seems that he’s the boss and refuses to discuss it. I can’t remember direct quotes but even with Lance Armstrong’s podcast he basically says he doesn’t think it really affects the racing and they want everyone to have the same rules (although they aren’t the same anyways with no slipstreaming).
I know he’s been around forever and wanted the job for the right reasons - but after years and years your motivations and focus can change too.
hahaha all of the above…sets up for an incredibly likeable champion for us to follow.
