Nothing makes me shake my head at the screen more than “and here’s our top 3 swim leaders, all wearing Green caps, can’t really tell who any of them are” or “and this athlete here in the blue has lost the feet, it could one of 3 similarly skilled swimmers”
All they’d need to do is just pick a swim ranking system (Thorsten, PTO, PTN, whomever) and then systematically go through the list of featured athletes and rank them by swim skill.
Gold - Always the returning champ from that race, or maybe give it to the current pro series leader
Green - top swimmer amongst the featured athletes
Yellow - #2
Red - #3
….
Green - #8
Yellow - #9
Red - #10
etc.
You can also do the same thing with the bike stickers. Not all of them need to be black text on white background - I’m sure we could come up with some different colour combos that work well on screen.
I said this before and I’ll say it again. Make them wear country caps.
That’s what they do in OW swim, and it’s much easier to spot. It’s a hassle to remember which colour corresponds to what athlete when they give coloured caps, and they always mess up the colours (“is that red ? no I think it’s orange. Or maybe pink ?). Sure we’ll sometimes have a doubt if we’re looking at Geens or Van Riel or Blumenfeldt or Stornes. But with a little knowledge of their presumed swimming ability and knowing their swimming styles, we should be able to clear up that doubt.
Baffles me why they haven’t done it yet, T100 nor Ironman nor World Triathlon.
Right now the swim is so frustrating to watch, almost impossible to know what’s going on.
I know behind the scenes in itu, the athletes have talked to officials “unofficially” about swim behavior and athletes being targeted in the water, etc. Which of note, “swim behavior” has probaly been more closely monitored by officials since likely post Tokyo than ever before in the previous decades.
IM swims and even 70.3 are likely a little less aggessive simply with the different starting dynamics, length of swim, and depth of fields so there is that caveat.
I wonder if full use of the gps device the pros all have in the back of their suits will allow info on at least lists of who’s in the FP and chase pack to get to commentators in near real time, to inform their identification/calling.
Correct pronunciation of names requires only pride in one’s work; help from producers in pre-production would be…helpful. Cycling commentators generally do a very good job.
World Triathlon uses caps with giant numbers on them, plus large number stickers on the shoulders. Much easier to ID swimmers than only with cap colors. Surprised T100 isn’t already doing this since they merged with World Triathlon, especially with only 20 athletes.
World Aquatics open water races feature two things that work very well: 1) giant numbers on both the shoulders and then also on kind of on both scapulas. 2) very distinct nationality caps - Florian Wellbrock’s Germany cap is very distinct with the flag. Paltrinieri’s cap is some dark color with ITA in giant letters.
T100 commentators (Vicki mostly) are better than Ironman at using other criteria as well, including stroke style, swim gear brand, body size, etc.
and eight more.
Ruussell wears #1 as last year’s winner (in 4:16, 1:16 swift run, beating Sodaro and Metzler)
IM Pro Series: This is Berry’s 70.3 she needs. Thek, Hering and Lewis look to drop their Oceanside score and/or likely not race Nice. Jewett surely hopes to improve her Geelong score.
Several have IMLP to race in July for their ‘second’ IM (but not Berry).
What an odd career she has had. She kinda rubs me the wrong way, but I hope she can come back in top shape. @Ajax_Bay she would just need to validate to make it to Kona, right?
She is an “odd duck” ( as the saying goes down here) for sure but you gotta admire the way she has worked her Ironman World Champion title into a successful Wellness Influencer/Podcaster career.
The power and mystique of winning Kona lives large in her and she has quite the following as she rubs shoulders with some of the USA’s top female athletes doing sponsor gigs and pimpiming the “Unlocking Yes X Mom Forward Movement”. Rinny has even jumped on the bandwagon .
Im not into the “Happy Clappy, Hippie Guru” stuff but give her Prop’s for what she is doing away from the races.
She was a founder of Peakers AI or maybe their first Ambassador…it was meant to be a high end triathlon coaching and running program. I figured being AI it would have been inexpensive and when it launched it was’t actually AI haha. I was on one of their first club calls as they were using her to sell their wares. Then we had people from our club join them as coaches. This was Heather Jackson’s Wattie Ink Hit Squad.
I went into this thinking we were going to get a super good deal if not a free period. But then they’re like well it will be $500/month or some outlandish figure. That was in 2019 or 2020.
But like Pete Jacob’s, she practically didn’t win anything meaningful after her Kona victory. Ironically I believe both won Kona the same year. fun fact
Off topic!
But as said after that purple year winning both the 70.3 and the 140.6 she never regained that level. Was that because the standards stepped up after London? Can put some down to injury (2013) but. Also I read distracted by returning to SC.
Very off topic lol
I shadowed one of her coaches for a while and have seen a few lab tests of hers ,it’s a good while ago ( short course ) but given it was the first lab test results I saw of a world champ, I even rember her running economy numbers.( Oxygen up take at certain speed over a few years)
Personally ( and I do not know very much and have never met her ) I think she got everything out of her body she had , she was also 36 when she won Kona
And yes in a way the sport got a bit away from her as she was a very good swimmer and cyclist but she was pushed out of ITU as the run got faster. I never met her but was told she was a hard working athlete and a world title in 2002 and Kona win 2012 is a pretty long time at high level.
And I mean Pete also did quite well I saw him racing for the first time 2004 and would never have thought that guy would win Kona what he did to his run was quite exceptional .
I remember Malaysia 2006 I saw him on the run and he was struggling and slapping his face really hard to will himself on. Some say he was a bit soft and for sure some of the things he did were a bit funny after his Kona win , but for sure he worked brutally hard to get up there. And the same goes for sodaro. ( I don’t like her IAM the first Tri mum branding but still winning Kona is winning Kona )
