from the St George race day thread
No chance. I’ve just looked for any women here that might be top 15 in the IM Pro Series and came up with just two: Hering and Wilms. The former is racing Hamburg (NB Matthews, Haug and Philipp making ‘every second counting’): not sure about the latter: I guess Cairns and IMLP would work.
A 70.3 weapon (eg Findlay) might be up there with 3 plus 2 IMs but that would mean a good result at IMLP (at the Pro Tri News live show I detected some wavering there), and then she’d have to race Kona ‘as well’.
As for Sanders or Long “wiggl[ing] into the [IM Pro Series] conversation” Long has T100s to race - so ‘no’. Sanders seems all in on IMWC Nice (NB both already Q). Whether he races IMLP as a ‘tester’ is a strategy he’ll have to discuss with his coach. IMLP is only 7 weeks before Nice, though.
Good results for Sanders at IMLP, IMWC and Marbella would net him (estimate) 17,700 points. That would’ve got him #6 last year, but there are several others in the mix this year, so maybe just into top 10 (on 2 IMs plus 3 x 70.3s). His sickness after Oceanside and thus inability to include Texas in the California-Utah sandwich has cost him big time, unless he travels to Cairns (echoes of Long’s 2024 flip-flop). I can’t see him losing focus on Nice for that, despite it possibly worth $50k.
Hamilton goes top of the standings, with Wurf second: transitory. I guess both will race Cairns for ‘easy’ points.
Findlay only mover in WPro top 10, but three IMs are required to be in the running (applies to Birtwhistle too).