Bwahahha that social media person at IM is getting a raise!
Richard Varga starting at Vitoria-Gasteiz, is he gonna pull Laidlow to a super fast swim time?
Richard Varga starting at Vitoria-Gasteiz, is he gonna pull Laidlow to a super fast swim time?
Will certainly help, is he still as fast as used to be though?
Will certainly help, is he still as fast as used to be though?
He’s still got it!
Broadcast announcing that Laidlow has been DQ’d. Drafting penalty, which he failed to serve at the first available penalty tent.
Have replied/commented on the race day thread.
Bleymehl goes to #3 in the IM Pro Series and Matthews to #4.
On the IM pro series, I have not tracked how the points work but I assume the IM’s are highly weighted. . . .
This way if you do a lot of 70.3s and kick butt you have a chance to do well in the overall series. Thoughts?
Doing anything more than 1 Ironman outside of Kona if you name is not Cam Wurf basically torpedos your ability to do middle distance racing well. There is just not enough room in the season between three ironmans to go race a bunch of middle distance and train and recoverA 70.3 win is 50% of an Ironman win, so yes, HEAVILY weighted. https://proseries.ironman.com/...t-ironman-pro-seriesIf I was Ironman, I would allow for as many 70.3s as you want to count (not just three) . . .
So in the pro series allow for top 3 in 70.3 to get 85% points, 50% points of Ironman for the rest, but allow infinite 70.3s to count for points.@Dev to help you, since you “have not tracked how the points work” an athlete can count up to 5 scores of which 3 can be IM. Clearly, to be near the top (ie first 10) (#11-#50 get $5k) an athlete really has to get results in three IM plus two 70.3s. And including IMWC and Taupo in those offers a bonus of 1000 seconds and 500 seconds respectively, mitigated by the fact that the very best (maybe Haug, Knibb, Lange and Wilde) will set a ‘world championship’ benchmark and every second behind is a point lost.
There may be some highly ranked (PTO rankings) athletes who might get into the top 10 with two IMs and 3 70.3s (including both the IMWC and Taupo, probably). Why “infinite 70.3s to count for points”? (No limits!) Are you encouraging athletes to chase around and over race?
The IM Pro Series, as I’m sure you actually realise, is deliberately IM (full distance) heavy by design. Its October 2023 genesis had as its main context the less than 70.3 distance race series the PTO had been developing. One of the PTO Tour weaknesses (from a full distance capable athlete’s PoV) is the lack of a T200 (or two) which was mooted early on to be integral to PTO’s tour architecture.
IM want to encourage full distance racing: hence the weighting in the scoring system. That’s why Laundry raced yesterday, with underwhelming results.
“Doing anything more than 1 Ironman outside of basically torpedos your ability to do middle distance racing well.”
Well Ditlev seems to be doing OK (Florida and Roth this IM calendar year so far, and two T100 results (including a win)).
Most top full distance athletes are not also top 70.3/100 athletes (like Ryf and Frodeno were), certainly on the men’s side: Laidlow, Lange, even RvB, Chevalier: have a look at this list:
https://stats.protriathletes.org/...onships/2023/results . On the women’s side, Matthews is attempting both T100 and IM Pro Series (Tallinn, Nice and Taupo to go), and Hering looks set to be the challenger (though Nice will be a shock after 10 years away from full distance, though at least acclimatisation v family will not be an issue to grapple with this year).
“There is just not enough room in the season between three ironmans to go race a bunch of middle distance and train and recover.”
You may think so. Ask Dr Visser. An athlete attempting succeed in the IM Pro Series doesn’t have “race a bunch of MD races” do they? This year, just one plus Taupo.
So a sensible entirely doable race schedule this year might be:
70.3 Oceanside
(3 weeks)
IM Texas
(6 weeks)
IM Boulder (as a spare)
(5/6 weeks)
IM Vitoria or LP (Men have Frankfurt if preferred)
(6/5 weeks)
70.3 Tallinn (as a spare, option, for an athlete not racing Frankfurt)
(4 weeks)
IMWC Nice
(months)
70.3WC Taupo
70.3WC Taupo
Standings seem to be clearer after Placid.
It looks like 2 to 4 athletes are clear favorites to win the Series with 2 main contenders, with 2 other lesser favorites
1- Foley, he won 9 945 out of 10 000 (max possible pts) and would ‘only’ need 4 460 points, so within 9’ of the winner to take the lead before Kona-
2- Marquardt, 11 856 out of 12 500, no bad results and in Kona he should benefit from being with strong swim-bikers especially Laidlow to try to gap other contenders like Foley
3 -Mignon yet he would need 4785 to catch Marquardt.
Those 3 are all qualified to Taupo so the Serie may be decided only in December !
4- Lange could potentially still win it but it will be tough, he will need 2 very good IM AND a better result at a 70.3 to make up for his gap to Foley and Marquardt. I expect him to race Zell Am See on 1st. September, it is only 2 weeks after Frankfurt but only kilometers away from his home so 2 races without flights/time adaptation.
5- Rodriguez Hernandez IF he races well in Frankfurt and scores 1 good 70.3. The fact that he did not race since May raises eyebrows.
Some contenders are out of the race, possibly out of top 10 after Placid
Skipper, Lieferman and Hanson. For Hanson the current rankings are misleading as 5 results are taken into account and Kona will replace Oceanside and his 2 IM score of 8 045 is quite weak compared to 8 922 for Guilloux or 8 726 for Kallin for example
In my standings Guilloux who currently ranks 3rd with 11 154 can be used as a measuring stick as he has raced 2 IM and a 70.3. With the same criteria Hanson has only10 585 pts
We will have to wait until Frankfurt for many contenders. Again trying to compare apples to apples, looking at athletes with 1 70.3 + IM
Lange 6620 with a win in FRA would jump to 11 620 (so still behind) and 4 535 to ‘catch Guilloux’
Currie 6 852 points - winning 11 852 / needs 4300 to ‘catch Guilloux’ TQ
Hogenhaug 5 846 needs 4300 to ‘catch Guilloux’ - no KQ but TQ
Weis a T100 athlete struggling on this circuit who would factor more on this distance, but i haven’t heard that he is racing Frankfurt
Barnaby 6 691 like Hogenhaug still chasing his Kona slot but is TQ
Teagle 6 687 NO KQ or TQ
Wurf 6 543 KQ
Schuster 6 525 KQ
Petersen 6 420 but not sure he will racing Frankfurt as he has his KQ
An interesting fact is that so far the 4 winners were real outsiders and their seeding by trirating before races : Rodriguez (not seeded), Burton 13th, Benito Lopez 4th and Foley 23rd
Updating this thread for WPRO after the transfer hiatus
Matthews (lost points at Tallinn (to an amazing run by Pohle) on the ‘perfect’ 12500)
Hering 131 seconds behind (to be made up in combo of Nice and Taupo relative performances: every second counts and #2 → #1 is worth $70k)
Wilms 540 secs (9 mins) behind, but this assumes she races Busselton (and scores 2200) and then goes on to Taupo. She was on the start list for Zell-am-See (and was there) but sick and did not race. Provided she races OK at Nice, it’ll be worth $$$ to get that extra 70.3 score and could finish #3.
Berry - same as Wilms and with two IMs only 89 secs behind her.
Stage Neilsen 1475 secs (25 mins) behind (Matthews) (to be made up in combo of Nice and Taupo relative performances: every second counts and #5 → #4 is worth $20k)
Visser 1542 secs (26 mins) behind (same as above)
Alberts, Lewis, Bleymehl, Langridge, Simpson all in with a shout for a top 10 place.
#11 - #50 pays $5000 - a good egg 2024 bonus from IRONMAN
|—|—|
|1|$ 200,000|
|2|$ 130,000|
|3|$ 85,000|
|4|$ 70,000|
|5|$ 50,000|
|6|$ 40,000|
just to say 70,3 zell am see was class
skipper who had ridden the course was a great addition to commentator team
the course is just class and the graphics were pretty good , my favorite race i watched this year . besides san fransisco t 100 which obviously had a better field but i really enjoyed zell am see . and some pro series commentating has been brutal this year , so this was a positive surprise
Yes - great to watch and Skipper provided authentic insights on both the bike course and the tactical options and likely considerations of the players. And then banged out to run the half in a relay team.
And a common factor between T100 SF and Austria was the scenic bike course (euphemism for a decent amount of climb, but aesthetics as well).
Dead impressed that Pohle was able to back (to back) up Tallinn. She moves up to PTO #12 with that, I think. Will be intriguing to see how Ibiza goes, against the non-Nice athletes.
Again a race which benefited those not racing. I find the rankings very misleading. Guilloux had a pretty bad result at Zell am See and has lost most of the benefit from his ‘decent’ IM results.to Hanson and Lange yet he has jumped to second place.
Hanson now stands a better chance to get a good final result,
Here are my rankings + comments
1- Marquardt 11 856/11 952 (if Rodriguez score is taken out) still has the best chances with 3 decent scores and 2 WC to be added Kona+Taupo
2- Hogenhaug 11 355 3 scores+ 2 WC to come
3- Barnaby 11 308 3 scores + 2 WC
4 - Hanson 12 894 /12 990 yet he has never had a good Kona result. His current ranking of 16 730 includes Frankfurt which should be replaced by Kona. His excellent scores at 70.3 mean he should not race Taupo as he is unlikely to improve his scores there. Yet his ‘best result’ in 2022 in Kauna 15th put him 25 minutes behind Iden and would have given only around 4 500 points…
5- Guilloux - 12842 only Kona to be added, not qualified for Taupo
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Wrote an article on current Pro Series Standings + World Champs qualifying right before the switch to the new site so think it got buried somewhere. I think 19k is probably the right threshold to be thinking about for the series win. Lange, Marquardt, Hanson, Kallin, Barnaby, and Hogenhaug look to be in strong position on the men’s side. It’s roughly 8 & 16 minutes behind the leader at the World Champs that would run someone down to the regular 70.3/140.6 full points threshold. Someone like Hanson will want to race 70.3 Worlds because he can still add points to his total. He can get a 70.3 result above 2500 points if he’s close enough to the front.
Commenting on both
On form Marquardt has this sewn up: form suggests he’ll race well at both Kona and Taupo. I estimate him to finish with 19756 btw (no way will 19000 do it @dcpinsonn )
Barnaby and Hoegenhaug vie for #2 (but the latter seems to be less consistent) and both to score over 19000.
If Lange wins or #2 in Kona he has a shot at top 3. He can then decide to race Busselton and does well (>2100).
Guilloux and Weiss have a shot at #5 if they race well enough at Kona and then too go to Busselton, with Hanson snapping at their heels.
No need to be so sharp about it. Just adding context. 19k as a threshold means greater than 19k. People had been talking about amounts lower so putting that out there as a threshold to clear. To your point, you have three clearing.
I’m definitely not willing to crown Marquardt yet. He still needs two good championship results. He might crush them both. He might walk a lot of the marathon in Kona.
Threshold at 19000 is good: you interpret sharpness where it’s not meant. Unaware of informed “people talking about amounts lower” to win. I see only three men in reach of 19000.
Yep: decent performances at Kona and Taupo required to maintain relative positions for all those top three (same for the women at Nice and Taupo).
Of those you listed, I’d write Kallin off in your considerations: he has a fair chance of top 10 if he goes to race Busselton. Though #8-#9-#10-#11 are $5000 apart: it may not be worth his while (again he’ll know the score post Kona).
Marquardt “he might walk” has not maintained a steady pace in several of his races (though Texas last year was impressive: ‘just’ needs to replicate that). With a win in the IM Pro Series and $200k in clear view, I can see him taking a measured approach all the way to the Energy Lab rather than going ftw/top place. Then he’ll have splits to Hoegenhaug and Barnaby and know where he stands.
Weiss is qualified for Taupo which gives him more opportunities to score well even with an average result. 1631 points from Zell could really be improved at Taupo.
I see Marquardt as a potential 4th in Kona behind Blummenfelt, Laidlow and Ditlev as they all should be front pack given Ditlev recent improvement in the swim. There is even a possibility for Marquardt and Laidlow to be at the front of the swim pack and try to get away at T1. Anyways, i feel Marquart has decided that he can do more damage on the bike than on the run which explains why that he has not improved since his 2h 43 at Texas in 2023 but has really stepped up on the bike. This time he could hold down his bike and benefit from a pack and then run ok whereas he rode alone at Placid and almost solo at Texas.
I really cannot see Hanson improve his 2 309 score from Boulder. He was 25’ down in Lahti and 11’ in St George (which is a local race for him). Kyle Smith and Hayden Wilde are able to put quite some time into mid level athletes on a local race for them.
Next year could be more interesting if the Series keeps on as Chevalier, Mignon, Weiss, Kanute and RVB may not be in the top 10 contracted athletes which are to be kept in the T100 Tour. And they be eager to be back in contention rather than race as BOP athletes. Chevalier has pretty much said that T100 gave him a paid year to focus on his swim and that he would like to race the Series next year.
If Marquardt ends up winning this thing, what are the odds that he pauses med school for 10-15 years and decides he doesn’t want to train for these things in his spare time?
In this podcast he seems to say that he needs the balance and would actually rather stop triathon than his studies. I cannot say that his voice sounds great but his story is quite impressive !
Good on him for that kind of attitude, I suppose. But a World Championship podium and/or a pro series win might have a way of convincing him otherwise.
He’s got all his life to be a dr, and only the next 10-15(?) years to be a pro triathlete.
But then again, I’m not the one trying to cure cancer - so good on him.