hard to say i guess if portugal is still in the race after the first athelte they could do well . they have the best male athletes and tome was 11th or so at the oly games.
Godd to see Cook fighting Vermeylen who tried to cut her off round the second buoy!
thats more lavendar room stuff or maybe the brexit forum would like it lol
Leg 1 done and its Germany, Ireland and Japan trailing the rest of the field by about 10secs.
Belguim, USA and Spain lead by about 5 secs.
Germany 43 secs back, I was a bit premature posting that last update, seen them on the blue carpet and thought they was about to hand over, when they did another 200 meter loop.
Milner has the last leg for Britain, had the worst leg I’ve ever seen in an MTR, please be better!
Portugal and Spain have a penalty!
Front group 2nd leg with a 20 sec plus lead all crash! Stapley never got back up, Britain look DNF.
They’re stopping the race.
Edit, they’re not stopping the race.
Sounds like theres three injured athletes causing a safety issue.
Britain, Swiz and Portugal DNF due to the crash. (Stapley, Vilaca)
Cantero is the new Mola!
Onto leg 3, Spain has a 9 lead on the Dutch
Belgium +17
USA +30
I like the idea of this course side reporter, but we’ve had 3 athletes DNF, he’s gave 2 reports since the crash and not mentioned it, how about telling us how the athletes are doing?
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Beth Cook is the daughter of Glenn Cook, she is currently studying at university in US.
What happened to GB? I was listening until the sound went off just after Cook finished leg 1.
Crash in the 2nd leg, the whole front pack went down, Stapley, Vilaca and the Swiz lad all DNF.
Watching the replay so won’t read results anytime soon but I am really enjoying the mixed team relays entrances by all teams. The Japanese team’s Dragon Ball or Street Fighter 2 mimics were awesome.
Really hope short course finds its way to be cool again. Brooks hates me for saying this but #getridofthedrafting ;0
Unfortunately no choice these days, seems the admin want to put race spoilers in thread titles, good luck trying to avoid them all the same.
Get rid of drafting for what alternative though? The stupidity of rules and officials and lacking any consistency of what we call “non-draft” today?
Hell to the no…Keep stupid rules and inconsistent officials as far away from top level racing as you can!!!
I wouldn’t be opposed to an actual true “time trial” format though, but that would be BORING as hell watching athletes go off every 1 or 2 mins apart. THAT would be even more boring than hand holding in groups that we see now. Although would it create more drama because you’d have to wait the entire race to see who actually wins and ends the “1st across the line” winner narrative.
Triathlon by it’s very nature can’t be properly “officiated”. Non-draft racing is essentially officiated with 1 eye open, 1 eye closed, so if your only going to be able to do it “best you can”, fuck it…Take out said rules to make it easier. So until you can figure that out to me, the less rules the better, in a sport where you aren’t in front of officials at all times. I mean we literally have now a device that can tell you when an athlete is and isn’t drafting, yet we have all these caveats of why we don’t then bust them. Oh well it is going into a turn, it’s uphill, it actually makes less and less sense that way. So tell me again why we want THAT?
Which is why you’ll see me say- if the issue is the actual rules that we seemingly can’t officiate and race under properly…Stop bashing your head with trying to figure it out. Simply take out said rule. Now obviously we’ll never get rid of non-draft.
And I’m way less pro actual DL and way more that we as a sport can’t actually properly operate/officiate non-draft fairly and thus if that is the case, then remove said rules by which we can’t fairly officiate. I’m more that.
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What a thoroughly excellent and dramatic race. MTR racing for the win. Will World Tri kill the stupid standard distance already 
The broadcast has also been improved (as promised) vs. last season. Doug the on-course reporter brought extra energy into the broadcast, we saw different groups on a split screen, wider angles and generally this felt like an important sports event.
What I can’t forgive World Triathlon however is accepting courses where sand could easily be blown onto the tarmac, resulting in unpredictable, fully “undeserved” and race outcome shaping crashes on corners that would otherwise have been completely innocent. We had enough of that in Supertri (Malibu previously, now Neom) and it’s the one thing that Supertri does that nobody should agree to.
Do not sacrifice athlete safety for money. Just don’t.
Since you ask, ‘we’ want a ‘non-draft’ bike leg because we want athletes to ride without advantage. But the rules have to be practical so there must be limits on gaps and overtaking time: so this is moderated to ‘with a limit to any’ advantage. Race Ranger helps refs judge this, and helps athletes judge distances too.
Going into a turn, an aid station or as the road turns up hill, any advantage gained by being in the draft zone diminishes and the following rider’s advantage is less than it was in ‘steady state’ at 12m/20m.
And up a significant gradient (?<10mph say), the benefit of being in the draft zone similarly diminishes, but the specified gap should be maintained - steady climb. Neither the rider in front nor the follower gains/loses much either way, but for race discipline and management: respect and enforce the draft zone.
So I’m in favour of refs using common sense aided by good guidance.
What the no-drafting rules seek to prohibit/deter is gaining benefit ‘too much’ when just riding along. You know all this, of course.
There are also safety aspects aplenty, given athletes are down on their 'tri’bars: 12+m gives time to get to the brakes.