There’s an athlete to challenge Matthews who has the 4th fastest Ironman in history with a 2500 point 70.3 (in 3:53) in the bag, heading for IMLP (?5000).
Sanchez is contracted T100 btw, otherwise she’d be right up there. Maybe she’ll still try.
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Yes and I heard PTN hype this possibility up a little bit, but thinking in terms of odds, how likely is it that Solveig has the kind of talent to pull a triple stellar IM in her first season of full distance racing?
Not to take away from what she did in Hamburg; doing it three times is a different matter, and experience really counts…
Entirely: massive stretch. But race IMLP and see how it goes. Who else will be there? Sodaro, Hering, Findlay? Lawrence? Alberts.
She ran 2:46 in Hamburg ffs. Well faster than even Sodaro.
Sodaro raced Hamburg in 2022 (in 8:36 but with a 3:00 marathon), and then won Kona (in 8:33 with a 2:51). Experience really counts; mostly. See other Norges for inspiration.
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if kat faints again at Kona… I mean otherwise we, could write her the check right now.
mark obivuoulsy tries to put the pressure away form kat , and rightly so if you watched the swim in Hamburg, where you could see she was close to crack.
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The other top IM women are either too fragile (LCB + T100), or get sick (Sodaro, Haug) or have T100 (Knibb) or have Roth (Philipp) to campaign an IM Pro Series.
Loevseth is the most recent arrival at top table and is ‘70.3 capable’. I expected her to go better in Taupo but I guess that was lack of experience in such a congested high calibre field.
She’s clearly had a great winter and spring build up, coached by Iden.
I guess we might see Matthews and Loevseth go head to head again in Zell-am-See at the end of August (that’s the last IM Pro Series 70.3).
Actually Matthews is supposed to race Swansea on 13th. July which, as a local, makes sense, Zell could only be an insurance race if Marbella goes wrong, but truth is, she may not even need this.
Recall that she had a mechanical in Taupo that left her on the side of the road about 5mins. She might reasonably have been fighting for a top 5 placing.
I didn’t recall that. In Taupo I note she was well down out of the water and then had the 10th fastest run for #13 finish. Still suggest her two 2025 results suggest she has stepped up a notch (or two).
She and Philipp might be a potent pair (pretty even swim) chasing on the bike along the QK (LCB and Knibb up front). And Philipp will be motivated to share the effort.
So much can go wrong in a race and a season. We were pretty much pencilling in Hayden to the T100 title and bam, half the season is over at least. Pre season I picked Kat to win the series by a wide margin, still have her there barring a black swan event. But should that happen, Loevseth should be there to pick up the title. She now knows she is made of this long distance racing, and she seems pretty indestructible at the moment.
And so many landmines at Kona, that it is not a low probability that favorites have issues there. If she can work on that swim of hers, she could be a huge threat in 70.3’s too in the bigger races…And unless she encounters that black swan event, or Laura all of a sudden decides to be all in on the series and chase it hard, those should be your top two…
Loevseth brings an interesting new dimension to the ladies. I am also eager to see how Holly Lawrence performs in LP.
This years ladies IMWC will be far more exciting than 2024 if all of them can get there healthy and fit!!
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Anne Reischmann interview. Leading the IM Pro Series.
Just another nit pic here, she is not leading the series, unless every race to come is cancelled, or at least a half dozen athletes all get in the same plane or car crash. The same goes for PTO, leader boards, they are so irrelevant until at a minimum, the required number of races has happened and your contenders have done most of them…But hey, good for her, perhaps she can convince some sponsor to pay her for this top of the heap privilege, really has nothing to do with her personally.
For in season rankings in leaderboard series, perhaps they could do some type of division into points of the finished races. Suppose that would also be difficult, but something to get a sense of who is actually leading your series and not just who has done the most races…
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She is leading the series though - the statement is factually correct - but no one actually believes that she’ll hold that lead until the end. Just like Danielle Lewis last year.
And it’s not like she’s done twice as many races as everyone else, most of the top ranked women currently have 3x races counting, so she’s on a level playing field, for the most part.
To their credit, IM lists how many races are counting in the point series in their socials, so it’s easy to see who’s on the same level in terms of number of races.
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If she is on top of the series rankings she actually is leading. Nothing says she has won the series, for now she has the highest points so she is leading the series. There is no way that can be argued, as that is where the rankings stand at this moment.
As I said, I get that part of it, just numbers. But like in bowling or other point scoring sports, you wouldn’t say so and so who has bowled 12 games is leading the tourney against everyone who has only bowled 10 games, there would be some sort of average to determine who is in front. But it is what it is, I only threw out a possible example like the bowlers would use to make it more relevant…
Not a big deal really, just seems weird to promote someone that has no chance of a podium just because she has done one more race than the real contenders. Fair play to her for getting her races in early, just how our sport operates with the new series formats that are so new to the pro side of things…
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At the moment it is meaningless. Kinda the sprinter in the TdF that wins the first stage and gets to wear the yellow jersey. That being said, with three IMs scoring, we’ll probably be at Kona/Nice before anyone has a full scorecard, and they want some publicity before then.
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The beauty of the series is that every second counts. Perhaps a better way to present the rankings would be by how many seconds/minutes each athlete as lost for all the races they’ve done. Laura Phillip has not lost a point in her single race, Kat Matthews has lost only 2 minutes in two races, Reichsmann has lost around 40 minutes in 3 races. That probably is more representative no? The men’s rankings is even more absurd with Cam Wurf now having 4 races but has lost 52+ minutes.
But the only issue is when the season ends, points earned will not be equivalent to seconds lost since Kona/Nice/Marbella have higher earnable points.
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You need to ‘up’ your “nitpicking” performance (as others have also implied). If you listen to the interview Reischmann discusses this in a depreciating manner but notes the welcome attention. Think ‘season narrative’ here: not quite sure why your negative take.
I estimate Reischmann has a shot for #3 in the Series (likely top 3 = Matthews, Loevseth, Hering).
“Meaningless”? See comments above.
The last two IM Pro Series races for athletes are Nice/Kona and Marbella. After Zell-am-See (end August) by looking at how many seconds have been lost from their best 3 scores, typically two IMs and best 70.3 (max points = 12,500 for those heading top 10) we’ll have a useful Standings metric. If an athlete hasn’t Q for Marbella, add 500 to their deficit.
Too bad Haug is in limbo and Philipp will race Roth. Otherwise women’s field could have been as good as Men’s pro series battle so far.
I knew someone would come up with something better, that makes perfect sense.
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