Thank you, though really a ‘dealing with transition to real life’ paper.
Which other vigorous sports have got a natural step up/down yet remaining for years at competitive pro level? Triathlon is pretty special in that respect. I guess middle distance plus runners have the longer road scene. Yachties have the various longer keely hydrofoily craft to take them well into middle age.
What? Let’s see Lionel sanders get to do wtcs race with no swim start just for him and try hang on the bike and run
Ya, it was weak sauce TBH. I did find one on comparison post-olympic performance for professional hockey players I thought was a little interesting. But nothing that really fits the bill with triathlon.
Wrong thread!
The issue is what each SC athlete thinks/knows wrt their cycling strength or running strength (off a hard full on 2 hour bike, no swanning around in the pack). They’ll only discover their possible capabilities/potential if they try it out. The successful ones do so while still in the SC game.
If Athletes were willing to share those we 100% would. But they don’t. Atleast not enough athletes to make it a story.
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simple
the top earning price money atheltes of 2025. and I think we agree that is a significant difference.
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Whose resources? National governments pay for the training of promising short-course triathletes because short-course triathlon is where Olympic medals can be won. And promising young triathletes take that route because it offers them to get access to resources and support to maximize their athletic potential which they can’t get anywhere else.
I would also add to this one strong cyclist, which the bike rides can absorb. Recently GTB and before Knibb fit that bill, although GTB wasn’t forced out of ITU style, she jumped for the fun and money something different offers..I would say more uber ITU bikers move over than weak ones..
Yup I home stayed a itu athlete, about 2k a month… guaranteed income for the year. They have to be under military status for some countries
I’m looking at the broader market perspective, not who owns and who pays what. If employee A is doing one thing and worth XX, and then they start doing a different thing and get paid XXXXX, wouldn’t you agree there was a misallocation of the most important resource – ie the human capitol of that employee? You can debate that if you like, but clearly the economic potential of those athletes was not being maximized.
It doesn’t change if you look at it from the broader market perspective. Resources are said to be efficiently allocated in a market if no change can be made which would leave every market partcipant better off. If national governments value winning Olympic medals for their country more than helping athletes make as much money, these governments would be worse off if they spent their public funds on long-course athletes instead of short-course athletes. The athletes, on the other hand, would have to decide that they are better off chasing prize and sponsorship money in long-course triathlon than getting the support they can get from being on their nation’s short-course squad. It’s rather difficult to put a concrete figure on the monetary value of that support, especially since it would vary from athlete to athlete, but that doesn’t mean we can assume it is less than an athlete’s income potential from racing long course.
On top of that, the fact that long course triathlon is increasingly dominated by athletes who have gone through their nation’s short-course talent development programmes suggests that the true choice young up and coming triathletes are facing may not be ‘short course or long course’ but ‘short course or neither’.
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Here’s this year’s New Years’s Eve present:
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I think this is way too binary. The options and therefore choices change with an athlete’s age and time in the sport. Certainly pre-24 SC is the more attractive option at whatever standard an athlete is. Breaking into higher echelons of SC is disproportionately dependent on (getting on for) uber swimmer standard, which btw is a barrier to our sport for so many: you don’t have to be an excellent runner or biker to jump a similar hurdle. Thank goodness Potter had extraordinary staying power.
After 24yo the “true choice” top echelon SC athletes (if they’ve “made it” by then) “are facing” is when to go long course (or never).
You have examples like Philipp, LCB, Matthews, Berry(Wells), Sodaro, Byram who never spent time in the genuine PRO SC stamping grounds. I’m not so familiar with the men, but Lange, Laidlow, Ditlev, Noodt, Margirier, Sanders, Long, Marquardt come to mind.
Like a few other folks have commented, this is a fine start…if there is a budget in the ST kitty for a more time-consuming more investigative piece of tri-journalism to reveal how these folks (and more importantly, all the pros who are earning less, as they are they 98% of the field) are able to sustain their tri-lifestyles rolling around the planet, living in Euro-Chateaus, sipping Dom Perignon, nibbling on ethically-sourced Beluga caviar, that would make for a fun read. The prize money is right there - easy to access for all to see + judge but what about those other deals? Appearance money? Sponsorships? You-Tube earnings? Connections to well-financed Middle Eastern benefactors (Bahrain Victorious 13)? We all remember Team J David, don’t we Slowman?
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out of interest what is the reason not to include the 600k price money for world cups in 2025
I got some time on my hands, maybe knock on some doors, maybe get some doors slammed in my face, maybe not. Maybe that’s the story itself, that is to say “what is that secret stream of $ that keeps pro triathletes afloat?” Based on the feedback on the forum there’s some passionate interest with the topic. I delved into this sort of thing when I wrote for Kevin M at Triathlon Magazine Canada. How to build the perfect professional triathlete - Triathlon Magazine Canada
Mainly because my focus is on “long-distance” racing 
Welcome back to the forum @Thorsten
How does Blummenfelt get PTO money? I thought they blackballed non signers of the contracts?
AFAI (but I don’t have “special” insights here), he was never offered a contract .. at the end of 2024 he was only ranked #63.
Different situation to Kat or Laura ..