Has a draft legal Ironman distance race ever been done? Watching someone TT for 5 hours isn’t exactly “TV worthy”, so why not take a play from cyclings books and make it a peloton.
This would also help in the struggling triathlon pros bank account. Lance said it best in the Empfield interview comparing world tour rides salary to Jan’s. Granted holding the untrained eye for 2 hours of an ITU race is tough, but wouldn’t this be a step in the right direction for Ironman TV/ Athlete Salaries/ Sponsor Cash Flow?
Best for TV coverage: ITU DL supersprint, and DL SS relays, to hold excitement, etc.
Best for audience engagement: 2hrs edited of Kona. Maybe.
Watching the 2hrs of realtime Olympic tri coverage was a lot to handle. Same thing w/ TV broadcast of WMM events like NYC and Boston.
And men’s GT stages are generally not shown start/finish, unedited (in the USA, on TV). They are just too long to hold sponsors’—and fan’s—interest.
Here’s an RD trying some different things. Draft legal, point to point, race with a friend discount. And you can literally race side by side with a friend the entire day without getting penalized, which I can see being very appealing to a large no. of current long course participants. I’d be somewhat concerned that aero bars are legal but I assume it will be a small field.
This is cool. And you’re allowed to ride a TT bike. Apparently they try to educate people about not being in the aero position when on someone’s wheel. I hope this is successful.
This wouldn’t make for a good race for fast age group triathletes or for pros.
If I am a fast swimmer - I need to wait around for the bunch to form. Then I will get out run
If I were a fast cyclist - I need to hope I can find other fast cyclists, and can then figure out a way to drop the fast runners.
This will almost never happen!
Instead fast runners will draft off me and out run me.
“Draft legal” works well for ITU and the Tour de France because:
It is a series or cumulative race
Courses are designed to break up packs
Small fields mean that people can work strategically to minimize randomness.
If you come up with scenarios where it is “bad” for people of all strengths, then everyone is in the same boat, no?
If you are a fast swimmer, you can hook up with the other fast swimmers and work together on the bike.
If the slower swimmers but fast bikers catch you, then it comes down to the run. This is a triathlon after all!
And so many other possible combinations - you will have to make snap judgements about people and create alliances on the fly. It will be much more strategic.
Great swimmers in an aronman would always get caught by the peloton. A strong cyclist would not get away from the peloton in 112 miles unless there were major climbs. But iron distance races are almost always about the run anyway.
That was the point I was getting at. Swimmers or strong bikers hardly ever ever win Kona. You have to back it up on the run whether DL or non-draft.
ETA: great swimmers like Frodo, Potts already get caught on the bike every year. But then again the pros currently aren’t really racing “non draft” either it’s really a hybrid legal group at this point in world championship level racing.
Fast AG swimmer:
There are very few good swimmers in the AG ranks. Noone to bunch up with.
A fast AG swimmer (sub 55) - would end up getting caught by the 1:00-1:05 cycling pack. But this pack would ultimately get caught bu the 1:10-1:15 pack.
So NO BENEFIT in swimming faster than 1:15!!!
Fast cyclist - this would only be a benefit IF you can find other fast cyclists and drop the rest.
But the fast cyclists will be spread out!
They won’t know each other!
And will be riding a course without good break opportunities.
Great swimmers in an aronman would always get caught by the peloton. A strong cyclist would not get away from the peloton in 112 miles unless there were major climbs. But iron distance races are almost always about the run anyway.
Substitute the word “triathlon” wherever you have “Ironman/iron-distance-races”, above. IMO: the strongest AND most-talented athlete wins. Kona proved this. And, so did the Olympics. Both races, both genders.
It seems as though there are few exceptions to this… like I bet no woman will let Flora Duffy get too much of a lead after her performances last year on the bike and the run.
And Spirig knew that if the race came down to the run, Jorgensen would drop her—which is what happened—so Spirig was taking digs on the bike and early in the run.
The same can be said of the Brits (or the Spaniards) on the men’s side, right? Maybe Mola could have kept w/ Brownlee on the run… until he didn’t…
A fast AG swimmer (sub 55) - would end up getting caught by the 1:00-1:05 cycling pack. But this pack would ultimately get caught bu the 1:10-1:15 pack.
If the sub 65 group which is alot of strong athletes get caught by the 70+ min group, they suck,no offense. Because if you have 10+ min out of swim, you dont understand the game if you let up on an advantage of that much. No way in hell the sub 65 elite group gets caught by the 70-75 min group.
ETA: I think the sub 55 group gets swamped, but the group that is 70-75, no way in hell they catch the firepower of the group of athletes that makes up the sub 65 group. Just wouldn’t happen that way. Maybe stragglers or stud bikers but as a whole, no the 75 min group is not biking up the the front of the race.
Seems hardly possible to organize. Mostly, it is not possible to ban other traffic totally, such that you have to keep right (or left). How can that be done with big groups, especially with hard wind? I think it would just be too dangerous.
