In the Slowtwitch report on the NYC tri Greg Bennett says “I think you have a Big Three right now with Matt Reed, Andy Potts and myself. Between us, there aren’t any better guys in non-drafting triathlon.” Is that true? If there was decent money in the race wouldn’t some of the ITU guys show up and do well?
From personal experience of racing the ITU World series (draft legal) for over a decade, winning the ITU World series twice, with numerous World Cup wins and from winning the LTF series (non-drafting) for the past three years, I feel I’m in a pretty good place to determine what athletes are superior in which forms of racing.
For the last few years LTF have put up over a million in prize money each year for the series. Many of the ITU athletes have come across, some with good to great performances (Whitfield at Minneapolis 08 for example), but most have struggled with the consistent power on the bike and the fast run off it. Which ITU athletes would you like to see racing these events? I’d love nothing more than to have them all come to the States to race this series. I’m not sure we can say decent prize money has stopped these ITU athletes coming over.
I am not saying that the ITU athletes aren’t extraordinary athletes, they have massive power and speed and I’m sure if they dedicated time to Time Trialing the bike, some of them would be great non-drafting athletes. But for now, they are not practicing Time Trialing and for that reason they would struggle in a Non-drafting event against Matty, Andy and myself. Just the same as the three of us have not dedicated our time to training for draft legal events, and we get our butts handed to us in those races.
Amongst the top athletes of the world it is often simply what you train for!
This is my first ever post on Slowtwitch, so don’t be too harsh!
GB
Welcome to the board Greg. Congrats on your race and good luck on the rest of the series.
It’s great to see more pro’s coming to the board.
Not having seen the report in full, the only issue I can see is that there are a bunch of non-drafting guys CA, C Mac Terrence Bozzone who go allright over longer distances. His comment could have been made in the context of Olympic distance racing.
I would suggest that he is right on the money about the Olympic distance stuff and the big three for non-drafting, have a look at the time he put out and then have a look at the ITU times and they get to draft
at the very moment you were racing nyc, the final stage of the tour was going on, and the last few laps around the champs elysee were, as usual, very fast. yet all the climbers had no trouble sticking. if you’re an ITU racer who has “climber” bike skills there’s no trouble riding in the pack.
brad kahlefeldt and javier gomez and the rest are putting on a pretty exciting show, and they’re marvelous athletes. but of them i really only have full faith that simon whitfield would give you the battle on the bike that you three are giving each other. i’m sure there are others who have the bike ability to ride with you, but i don’t know who they would be. and, it takes more than the ability, it takes a knowledge of timed race equipment, and how to ride it.
while i know you honor the skills of the guys on the ITU circuit, i think what you’re doing is giving a shout out to the draft-legal world to come over and prove they know how to race when they’re not in the comfort of a pack. i’m with you, brother!
I would have loved to have seen Brownlee at LTF.
Waldo is another prime example of a once dominant draft-free Olympic guy that faired less well in the ITU. Nothing more exciting to me than to see a guy crush the swim/bike and run his heart out to avoid being caught by the stronger runners…
Having watched these guys race in both ITU and non drafting events, I tend to agree with this assesment. In ITU racing they are often the ones trying to make something happen on the bike to seperate themselves, sometimes it works, but usually pay for that effort in the run. In non drafting that effort has to be matched by the others in an equal manner, and it is their runs that suffer.
I would however add one more person to make it the Big 4. Rasmus is another guy I have watched, and like the others he makes things happen on the bike in ITU, but has the ability to hang on in the run more often. HE is moving to Ironman now, and I think he is going to have great sucess there. But if he were to picth up to some of these olympic non drafting races, he would be right there sprinting with these guys. I actually thing he will have a rookie race similar to what Craig had two years ago, perhaps even a Luc Van Leirde debut…
Greg: Thanks for your post and congrats on your recent victory (and great career). I was not challenging your statement - I was looking to get a bit of discussion going. I would love to see big money non drafting races become more popular outside the US, although that seems unlikely at the present time.
You are a beast for sure in that LTF series…keep it up and they will re-name it the Greg Bennett series. 
Here you go, for discussion. The drop in prize money at the events has definitely reduced the competitiveness. If I posted the top-10 overall, it would be more dramatic. I don’t think the race is any less difficult to win, but there is certainly not the depth there was when the ITU guys came, which also means it’s harder to say for certain that it’s still as difficult, because with a bigger, deeper field, there is always someone pushing the pace. Certainly the finish for 1-2-3 was as close as ever, but was that because Matt, Andy, and Greg were just that much better than everyone else, so none of the other guys was really a threat? Maybe. I think you can see that in NYC, especially. Matt said he felt terrible on the bike, but didn’t ever seem to panic. Do you think that might have been different if it was Simon Whitfield, Hamish Carter, Hunter Kemper, and five other guys that were disappearing up the road instead of just two, one of whom (Yoder) is still a relative unknown?
In stark contrast to Dan’s comments, if you look at the results from the early days of this race, I think the ITU guys don’t have any need to prove they can crossover and be successful. Every year that the prize money for 1st was at or above $200,000, the top-5 is dominated by ITU athletes, including then ITU-focused Greg Bennett. The ITU guys may not, if you had a race “right now,” be better non-drafting racers than the three you’ve mentioned. But there also is no longer any incentive for them to be. When there WAS incentive, I think you saw the talent come out to play. There is no need to prove cross-over. Greg, Andy, and Matt have all won draft-legal races. And I’m sure they can/will/would win them again if that is where they choose to focus their energy. And the same can be said of many of the top-ITU athletes.
2009 ($20,000 for 1st)
- Matt Reed 1:49:15
- Andy Potts 1:49:15
- Greg Bennett 1:49:17
- Paul Matthews 1:50:50
- Craig Alexander 1:50:59
2008: ($60,000 for 1st):
1 Whitfield, Simon 01:48:01
2 Potts, Andy 01:48:04
3 Bennett, Greg 01:48:07
4 Reed, Matt 01:48:54
5 McMahon, Brent 01:48:56
2007 ($60,000 for 1st):
1 Bennett, Greg 01:48:46
2 Pais, Bruno 01:49:10
3 Alexander, Craig 01:49:21
4 Kemper, Hunter 01:49:47
5 Henning, Rasmus 01:49:56
2006 ($200,000 for 1st, chase format):
1 Kemper, Hunter 01:49:44
2 Polikarpenko, Vladimir 01:49:57
3 Carter, Hamish 01:50:03
4 Ospaly, Filip 01:50:10
5 Johns, Andrew 01:50:17
2005 ($200,00 for 1st, chase format):
1 Alexander, Craig 01:50:01
2 Whitfield, Simon 01:50:26
3 Kemper, Hunter 01:50:35
4 Polikarpenko, Vladimir 01:51:29
5 Carter, Hamish 01:51:57
2004 ($200,000 for 1st, chase format):
1 Walton, Craig 01:49:35
2 Kemper, Hunter 01:49:41
3 Bennett, Greg 01:50:09
4 Docherty, Bevan 01:50:30
5 Llanos, Eneko 01:50:42
2003: ($250,000 for 1st, chase format):
1 Whitfield, Simon 01:26:56
2 Bennett, Greg 01:27:01
3 Docherty, Bevan 01:27:22
4 Lessing, Simon 01:27:31
5 Walton, Craig 01:27:37
2002 ($250,000 for 1st, chase format):
1 Walton, Craig 01:27:38
2 Bennett, Greg 01:28:07
3 Robertson, Peter 01:28:30
4 Stewart, Miles 01:28:46
5 Carter, Hamish 01:28:50
You should mention that in those first few years of the big purses, I think it was the women who were winning in the Equalizer format. The gap was pretty big so the guys were realistically racing for quite a bit less than $200,000 or $250,000.
I think we can all agree that there are many great athletes in the sport. Some specialize at the drafting, some the non-drafting and some but not many, can swap between the two styles.
I look at who is the best, not by the many many titles that are given out these days but rather, who are the athletes I think about in my training and my preparations. Who are the athletes that make me go beyond what I ever thought I could possibly do.
I mentioned to Potts the other night that I honestly believe peer respect is number 1 in terms of “who is the best”. It is not who has which title (of which we have - Ironman Hawaii, Challenge Roth, Ironman 70.3, ITU Olympic, ITU aquaman, ITU Duathlon short, ITU Duathlon Long, ITU team, ITU long, Olympic Games, ITU World Series, and yes finally LTF series championships) but who has respect from their peers! My point of my statement about the Big three is that I respect Matt and Andy very much as they do me.
My respect for my peers always included Craig Walton who pushed me as hard as any athlete has ever done. So yes, if he wasn’t retired I would include him in this group.
Obviously I am speaking about power racing and not the long stuff. I would be out of place to speak about the longer distance athletes.
GB
That’s true, except they didn’t set the equalizer time until the day before the race, so everyone that showed up didn’t know whose side the clock would be on. And even for the first few years, since it was the abnormal distance, it wasn’t clear that the women had too much of a time gap. And, even with the Equalizer, the money was still on the line. I.e., the women had things in their favor, but it doesn’t change that the men had the chance to win that money.
The guys really never had much of a chance with Loretta and Barb racing…I was there. It was impressive.
I’d have to agree. They seem to win the Olympic distance races. They win the 70.3’s, (Clearwater, Rev3, Cali to name a few), Potts did well in Kona last year. Others may be better at the long course, but hopefully Potts will win Kona this year and change that.
They also seem to be great people and very approachable. I met Andy very briefly and wished him luck the day before NYC and his response was “thanks and will you be out there as well” Great ambassadors to the sport.
Craig Alexander and Terenzo Bozonne won the 70.3 world championships in the past few years so i would add them to your list.
But the original comment is referring to standard distance non-drafting triathlons. Iron-distance worlds best is a different list and that is non-drafting.
To keep triathlon interesting for the worldwide public to enjoy watching I think there needs to be more non-drafting races over the shorter distances.
A broader question to anyone who can answer it is :
How can a non-drafting triathlon be drafting free with alot of the top guys racing together??
Wide roads and a one lap course would be useful to ensure drafting was minimised I guess.
If you want a good wide open course then LA would be the pick. The first 11k are 4 lanes! The last part of the course have some honest hills. I would agree that Minneapolis has never been the best course to invite all athletes to, it has taken on a look of a drafting race with 10m gaps between athletes.
Once again, I am talking about non-drafting POWER/SPEED racing (otherwise known as Olympic distance), not the longer events.
GB
No way Potts wins Kona this year. The IM world championship will be in Canadian hands in 2009. 
QuoteIf you want a good wide open course then LA would be the pick.
Hmmm…and who’s won that the last 3 years?
You got me! It has been a kind course to me. I guess I am just trying to find events that have wide open lanes and I honestly don’t know of any others that have this open space to start the bike portion of the race.
… OK, I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough, Im heading to the pool!
GB