Starting a thread 6 days out to get the men’s race day in this one place. Started a separate thread for the women’s race so their race does not get buried in 1000s of posts about Laidlow vs Blu vs ….
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Looking at the splits, KB only lost at Nice due to the Vence descent. There is no descent to lose time in Kona. Was the 40km run last Sun (13 days out)? What’s the latest smack talk between KB and Sam Laidlow?
Of course there is, and he will lose time on it to Sam, Magnus, and probably a couple others. He has twice as may k’s to lose time on the bike vs Nice. Of course he has twice as many on the run to catch up too. Should be a great race all day I suspect, figure maybe 10 off the front in the swim, and then maybe those guys breaking into two groups for the Blu/Iden/lange group to chase..
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He will lose around 2 min in the water, another 5 on the bike, so if Laidlow runs 2:40 he needs a 2:32. That will be tough!!!
This course is more oure aero/power than Nice, so the big guys like magnus and ditlev will love this.
He can hope magnus/gustav from behind can pull him up though.
The reason Sam laidlow is so fast in kona is his descent speed with power Hawi and back.
Interesting on the Ironman YouTube Kristan saying “ Sam make sure not to pull MVR to a championship “
Pretty sure kb and Gustav know the only guy that can be a run threat before they get to t2 is MVR , I think a few others could be but that would take a perfect day out of them.
Johas if infront could be a problem , if infront.
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Ya I would hate to have those two guys chasing me, twins with all that power!! (-;
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Just for clarity there are no technical descents in Kona like where he lost time in Nice. Just straight line descents. I don’t recall him losing time on those any time in Kona in the past.
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Ok, but he still lost minutes on the long fast decent to Sam, Magnus, and a few others. Kind of doesn’t matter if it twists and turns if you lose time anyways. And if they finally get the big wind the race has lacked for the past dozen years, it will be even worse for him.
Why?
Don’t forget Menno Koolhaas only ran a minute slower in Roth than Kristian. Unfortunately he lost the front group quite early, bleeding minutes on the bike. If there’s a bigger group out front he might be a real threat.
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I’m rooting for KB and I would say that if he is anywhere less than 8 minutes behind at T2 the race is his to lose. I don’t think even MVR can run with him with the run form that he is currently in. That being said, I don’t like the 40K workout that he just did. It feels very Lionel Sanders - desperate to me. Not a good omen.
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x2
And it’s not that he just did a 40km workout. It’s that he did one. A week after 70.3 worlds. Then another. Then another.
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I am with you. I just feel he is using up his best 35km+ performance when. It does not count. I really hope I am wrong and he kind of defies conventional physiology but eventually he too is human just with a stratospheric VO2max and that VO2max gives his organs tons of recovery capacity when he is doing nothing but recovering …until it doesn’t and he carries enough accumulate fatigue that a less trained and lower VO2max peer comes into the race with a bit more related muscles
Appreciate the intent but it seems it’s already gone south…
Hard to bet against KB or Laidlow?
MVR, Iden and a fully fit Magnus making up the top 5 spots?
Not that hard. Triathlon is unpredictable enough even without their respective histories of various mishaps: mechanicals, puking, cramps (Blu), massive meltdowns on the run (Laidlow, who had to leave the Challenge Samarkand course recently for the bushes - official explanation: needed to fix his race number belt 
)
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Yah, Kona is different! Don’t disagree
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So in KB starting his taper on Wed, Thu or Fri for the Sat event? Or will there be a 2500m swim, 90km bike with 1300m climbing and 10km run 48 hrs out from race day like he had for Nice?