Yes - but the exclusion from the Contender List was confined to athletes who were T100 contracted in 2024 but then if offered refused in 2025 (from memory Laidlow, Ditlev, RvB, Philipp, Matthews). The payouts to those (like Loevseth too) who didn’t touch T100 with a barge pole but were in the Contender Rankings depends on whether or not the PTO are following the criterion for end of year Contender Rankings payout shared by an athlete on insta (requiring inclusion on a T100 wait list at least 3 times in 2025). This was not a publicly published criterion but I assume all athlete members of the PTO received this message.
I’ve found my copy of Becharas’ message:
lisabecharas on a @triathlon.insights post "Per the rules we received at the beginning of the year (weird that they aren’t on the website) "4. Contenders must enter the World Triathlon Waitlist for a minimum of three T100 Events during the season. This means they are eligible for Wildcards based on the criteria in the T100 Wildcard System. "a. [] "b. A Contender who receives a spot in a T100 Event via the Wildcard System and is notified no later than 4-weeks prior to the event, is expected to accept theirspot. “c. Contenders who do not accept their spots if point b. is met will have their end of year T100 Contender Rankings Bonus reduced by a third (1⁄3) per event they decline.”
These criteria imply that athletes currently top of the Contenders like Loevseth, Blummenfelt, Hoegenhaug, Stornes, Hering, who sfaik have not appeared on T100 waitlists (I cannot check this) let alone raced T100, are not eligible for the $16k15k/14k . . . payments. Which seems entirely fair, btw.
The list is accurate within the limitations that @Thorsten has articulated. Why would the/your expectation that that source of income will increase in 2026 have a bearing on the 2025 list?
Add value! Which athletes in that top 45 have won more than a negligible amount (>2%) of their total from World Cup races? Are there athletes (name them) you think would promote into the list if World Cup race prize money was added?
on top of my head Lehair had a first and 2n place at world cups thats 6.5 ish percent , Lehmann 7,5 k thats 5 ish percent and moves him up 3 places, Lisa tertch also about 5 percent .
Lehair goes up to 12th with 221 161 plus 7.5 k and 6 k
Tertsch goes up 24th from 27 with 152200. plus 7.5 k for World Cup win
Lehman goes up to 26th with 145 611 same
I did a deep dive with jolien vermeylen and there is 25,450 us to her price money missing that brings her up to 101.475 k and gets her in the overall earning ranking european chmamp title 10 k 2nd world cup 6 k sprint european Champ title 2.725 winning holden 3125 , 4th place e games world champ 2100 7th indoor World Cup levien 1500
and the reason its likely 850 k is that there will be 17 world cups 2026.
so I would suggest that it would be a good idea to acknowledge the missing data and point out its focused on long course. ( ie its totally fine to have limitation but given how accurate Thorsten works it would be good to point those limitations out )
Thanks for the link. There’s a glimpse into the $ here but nothing more. Furthermore, Lemieux represents the Sanders/Knibb tier of athletes - that 2 or 1 % of pros with perhaps some name recognition outside of triathlon.
I decided, for fun, to see what the difference in athletes’ PTO earnings might be if they ‘campaigned’ T100 in 2026, with the same performance levels as 2025 (but restricting their 2025 earnings to 4 regular season races).
Revision below (to the 2025 totals) with estimate of contract fee added.
Those figures seem wrong. Are you only including your guess at the contract fee? It doesn’t look like you’re including the end of season T100 ranking bonus?
Yes,
Having another go!
The 2025 $k column includes my estimate of the contract fee given the $50k mean. Those finishing high in 2024 (and a poor 2024 performer with high profile (eg LCB)) will have got more and the mode will have been $40k e.g.: 80 70 70 60 60 60 50x4, 40x10. Set Knibb’s to 0 and non contracted to 0.
I decided, for fun, to see what the difference in athletes’ PTO earnings might be if they ‘campaigned’ T100 in 2026, with the same performance levels as 2025 (but restricting their 2025 earnings to 4 regular season races). Obviously I made a number of assumptions to extrapolate last year’s performance standard to this year and limited it to the top 13. I’ve included an estimate of the 2025 contract fees (which varied between athletes depending on their 2024 final standings / hot shot status). All figures $ thousands. The differences are driven by 2026’s doubled race purses, no contract fee, and the final standings bonus which which will be far smaller (<1/2) in 2026. 2025: >2M contract fees (so mean $50k), 2.25M race purse (8+1) races, $3M final standings bonuses 2026: Races: 4+4+2 - $3.5M, $1.45M final standings bonuses.
Observations:
For these top 13 +13 the totals earned are:
2025: $2548k and $2626k
2026: $1980k and $1938k
No contender rankings or bonuses for the 21-40 athletes btw.
PTO Rankings (slight changes inbound btw) will determine who gets invites for slots 11-18 in the T100 races next year, from race #2.
Updated table is almost correct, a few are higher numbers than actuals given contracts but close. Nice work!
What is “enough” is a fair question and hard to answer… I think the main takeaway is that most athletes outside the top 15-10 are racing for love, surviving on side hustles, and quietly doing the math after every finish line!
Isn’t Norway’s tax returns for all its citizens published to the public each year? I suppose one can estimate KB, Gustav, Casper, and Solveig’s sponsorship money from that.
that might be more or less correct for the ones that chase The IRONMAN circle but athletes that are able to think outside the box can make it work. ( Ie coming 8th at ironman races makes no sense really, not sure what meagan was expecting at 70.3 worlds … I mean that was always going to be a loss maker , otherwise (I would say she did rather well 2025 )
most upcoming pros are way to focused on ironman while there is way more races than st Anthony one, just has to look a bit around.