I just read a thread by leegocrap or someone about his Aqua Bike USAT jersey issue…anyhow, here’s a poll…IF you won a USAT National Champion jersey at some championship race (USAT seems to have a ton of them…) would you actually wear that jersey in races or just frame it, put in a closet or what?
Would you feel like a dork wearing a Nat Champ jersey at your local races (then get your butt kicked potentially…) or just wear it with pride?
Maybe it’d be different with a World Championship…but some of the sports there are USAT champs for are so thin with depth/quality in the fields it almost seems (to me anyhow) like it’d be less “clout” than winning an Ironman age group like Lake Placid or something, Texas, whatever. But would YOU wear it? What do the ST’s pollsters say?
If it were me, I’d frame it. I’ve never raced in my Team Canada kit outside of the worlds, framed them both. I suspect if I ever won something I’d frame it too But if I saw someone wearing one I wouldn’t care too much, good for them. Just because the depth/quality of the field is thin doesn’t take away from the fact that you won the race. If someone had a problem with that they should have shown up to the race.
Agreed, congratulations to anyone getting a Nat Champ anything, hard work, just wondering about it because I’ve only seen ONE person wear one of them in a race ever. Not sure how long they’ve been handing them out. But you don’t see them often.
I (did) frame mine (err…not mine) but I’d think of it like this…
In the distance you won it in (sprint, olympic, aquabike, whatever) it would be “ok” to wear it… not in any other distance. Classier move (imo) would be one wraparound of USA (or whatever your country is) tape at the end of your bar tape… again… only in the distance you won at.
Bad form to wear it in any distance/race you aren’t national champ in.
But I guess I’m not a good person to ask… as I am not a national champion
Not that this will ever apply to me, but I’d wear mine in training. I’m too frugal to purchase new jerseys so I’d put it in the rotation. At races, I wouldn’t wear it around. I have my preferred racing gear and, IME, jerseys aren’t that comfy to wear after the race. ymmv
If I’m ever lucky enough to earn a stars-n-stripes suit of any sort with my name on it and USA at the same time - I’d wear it for a month straight. If it were national champ - that’s a tossup, in that I might just have that one framed.
Not tri, but with my 24 Hour Solo championship, I have the podium jersey USCA awarded hanging on my wall. That ones staying neat and clean. I did however have a special Stars and Stripes jersey made to with my team/shop kit, as well as one with star bands on sleeves and collar. Those two I wear - although “technically” I can only wear my Stars and Stripes at 24 hour races.
My feeling is that if you’ve done the work required to win a national championship race, then you can do whatever you want regarding jersey or kit. It’s your race, your title and if you want to and feel comfortable wearing the jersey, do it. If you don’t feel comfortable with a special jersey, then don’t - but don’t let others deter you if you want.
Old thread, but having just picked up a National Champions jersey at the Redman 2015 Long Course Nationals, I can speak to why you might not see people wearing them. (Which I too thought was odd. I always figured if I won the jersey, I’d wear it all day, every day; and absolutely race it.)
I will not wear mine, ever. The issue is that the jersey they gave this year is just not of the quality that I expect of race apparel. Mainly, the seams under the arms are prominent. The fabric is also not a very nice material; plastic feeling.
It’s too bad. I come from a cycling background, and the National Champions jersey is a very big deal. It drives a lot of attention to state championships, which is where you qualify for Nationals, and to Nationals itself.
I think USAT is doing non-WTC racing a huge dis-service by: having zero or low qualifying standards for Nationals, and not providing a good race jersey OR the opportunity for racers to purchase additional (race worthy) kit. I think if they setup a strict qualifying standard, Nationals might have smaller fields for a few years, but it would eventually pay off with greater athlete demand for a (then) prestigious race. ITU worlds is the same way; given 25 qualifiers per age group for next years long course worlds, there are some age groups where merely showing up Redman got you a worlds slot. Better to have fewer athletes, and prestige. Let the organizer run separate waves with non-qualifiers to fill up the numbers until the prestige of the events increases the depth of the field.
WTC figured out that athletes want that prestige of the selective big event; USAT hasn’t yet realized that is the formula, and now have a National Long Course Championship which doesn’t even require anyone to qualify for the event.
Old thread, but having just picked up a National Champions jersey at the Redman 2015 Long Course Nationals, I can speak to why you might not see people wearing them. (Which I too thought was odd. I always figured if I won the jersey, I’d wear it all day, every day; and absolutely race it.)
I will not wear mine, ever. The issue is that the jersey they gave this year is just not of the quality that I expect of race apparel. Mainly, the seams under the arms are prominent. The fabric is also not a very nice material; plastic feeling.
It’s too bad. I come from a cycling background, and the National Champions jersey is a very big deal. It drives a lot of attention to state championships, which is where you qualify for Nationals, and to Nationals itself.
I think USAT is doing non-WTC racing a huge dis-service by: having zero or low qualifying standards for Nationals, and not providing a good race jersey OR the opportunity for racers to purchase additional (race worthy) kit. I think if they setup a strict qualifying standard, Nationals might have smaller fields for a few years, but it would eventually pay off with greater athlete demand for a (then) prestigious race. ITU worlds is the same way; given 25 qualifiers per age group for next years long course worlds, there are some age groups where merely showing up Redman got you a worlds slot. Better to have fewer athletes, and prestige. Let the organizer run separate waves with non-qualifiers to fill up the numbers until the prestige of the events increases the depth of the field.
WTC figured out that athletes want that prestige of the selective big event; USAT hasn’t yet realized that is the formula, and now have a National Long Course Championship which doesn’t even require anyone to qualify for the event.
i think we all know that the age group winners at the prestigious redman long course nationals are hardly reflective of who the best long course athletes in the country are. but i’m sure their fb friends who have no clue on are impressed.
General rules for wearing champion jerseys (in a race) is that only the reigning champion can wear it, so you only have a 1 year window.
Likwise, the jersey is event specific, e.g. if you are the national TT championship, you can’t wear the jersey in a road race or CX, only TT.
So I guess, the carryover for triathlon would be if you are an aquabike champion (which is a joke, this event is not worthy of championship status), you could
wear your jersey only in aquabike races, not tris, not duathlons, etc. Same thing for Olympic and sprint champions. So I think you would pretty quickly find there
would be very few opportunities to wear the jersey that would fit within the established rules.
Depending on the age group, it’s about as competitive at the FOP as any IM 70.3, but without the same depth. As just an example, I placed 21st and 22nd at 2 IM 70.3’s this year. At nationals, with probably my best race of the year, placed 24th.
The same can be said for many sports, at many levels. Is the US Pro cycling champion the best US cyclist? Most World Tour guys skip the race. Is the Olympic marathon champion the fastest marathon runner in the world? There were 100 Kenyans left out of the event to make room for slower people from other countries. (No, not an exact number; making a general point that fast athletes get left out to make room for more countries.) You could even argue the Kona champion is likely not the fastest triathlete. After all, Richie Porte is not going to race, and that guys is super fast. There are likely others who could be fast on the day, but missed with the KPR qualifying system.
So this leaves one logical conclusion: the champion is the person who negotiates any qualification, shows up, and wins. It is not someone at home, who thinks they could have been faster. Or someone who had a “more important” race to do. Or someone with any other excuse.
Not recognizing that is disrespectful to those who actually show up and race.
