If anything, them women’s side is much more balanced than the men’s.
Here’s a thought experiment: how many WPros could win without it feeling like it was a shock or a surprise upset? How many MPros? For me, at least until a month or two ago, the list was longer for the women.
I’m cheating a bit by adding in Ryf and Knibb obviously (but being generous also with Gustav), but if you’re asking the question of who could realistically win a WC, the women’s side is far more open. Once you get bast the list of favourites, the Men’s side becomes more competitive and there’s probably a higher chance of an upset, but in terms of who the “tier 1” favourites are, there are more of them on the women’s side
2 day event should be done where ever champs are. Men supporting women and vice versa. Makes for a bigger expo with all the tech honestly Kona should just be a luxury event, for those stuck in the past trying to live a dream
We did model the course. What I see, without having seen her power file is that her first 60km climb was good, but probably a few watts less than Laura. If I get her power file we can tell how many more Laura put in. She lost 6min to Laura up that 60km climb. The “flat” was good. If we assume Laura continued to put more watts in, Chelsea lost less than 2min on that 60km. Is she more aero or did the delta in watts close ? Her power file will tell. Where she fell back was the last 60km and the descent. She did not spend the time she wanted to practicing on the course for a variety of reasons.
She climbed well, her w/kg helped. I think there is room for more W and I think a guy like Neal is the man for the job here. On the flat her W/CDA seems better than before. If Neal gets that W up, she is in an ever better position. I suspect if she got the prep time on the course that was planned she would have saved some good time on the descent.
Transpose a lot of this to Kona and she would have done well.
Hopefully she will do some kind of race update and fill in all the reasons for things. There were bumps in getting to the start line.
Overall, I’d say it’s pretty impressive and more importantly the path to the top step is clearer (at least IMO).
Sam left his mark on the world as being the guy who can very likely go on to win the next 5 world championships! In front of a predominantly male audience that geeks out about the kinds of things Canyon is selling. How is that not a perfect fit?
Laura and Kat are both awesome in their own rights. Kat as this gritty fighter who can be put down no matter the setback and will claw her way to be at or near the top. Laura’s persona seems to me more similar to Jan’s actually (no idea, just outside looking in) of confidently focused on performance and getting the job done on the day.
Either of those can be marketed with the Canyon brand in my view. But that’s not the point. The point is, how many people are buying a Canyon because of them.
Here’s the kicker, I’ve talked to Kat’s husband about Canyon bikes, and not her! I’m more likely to buy a Canyon bike because of him than her in a sense. Not because of anything he’s done, but he’s out there talking about bikes while the all-too-common response from the better-halves (Lagerstorm, Matthews, etc) is “I’m so thankful I’ve got someone else to handle that.”
Now that’s obviously true about the team the men build. But the guys still talk with credibility about their bikes, probably because that more male tendency to geek out over objects. Female tendency to be more relationship oriented might suggest there are some serious untapped avenues of sponsorship for female athletes and trying to do “what the boys do” and get paid the same might be leaving different opportunities and money on the table.
Of course Ironman had difficulty because of the Covid interruption (by definition anyone running live events did). But the sport surived without Kona and it can again or Kona sucks it up and welcomes a two day format or Ironman can take the championship elsewhere,.
You live in the Western US so you’re likely more biased towards Kona. It is not too far away. I had a friend at Ironman Tallin last summer and they could not pay people enough to take Kona slots from Eastern Europe.
In terms of getting women to Nice most of the North American qualifers were last fall. Only Texas and Placid this year to have the option of going to Nice. Whereas Europe has more qualifiers for Nice and the women from half Ironmans had to be top 5. Nevertheless 1300 is plenty big enough in that Kona only had that field size for a lot of the first two decades and it was still a good race.
Ironman has reliance on Kona because St. George and Nice were done when people have the option to wait for Kona “next year”. if you take the championship away from Kona, then people will go to other venues. There is really not much magical about Kona other than folklore and tradition.
I can respect that people feel Kona is the place to go, but 70.3 Worlds shows that you can have amazing racing around the world at a championship level that enough people care about. 70.3 worlds has been rolling and building up since 2006. Its done that without Kona in the picture.
Wouldn’t you also need Laura’s power file to see these things you’re talking about? Once Laura got to the front maybe she lowered the power and that why Chelsea didn’t lose so much on the flat but therefore also why Laura ran well.
L
So many factors in an Ironman . Especially x bike result leading to x run result.
The guy was 2nd in Kona, 1st in Nice. That’s pretty dominant consistency so far. His other races he’s likely not building for them like he does for Kona, which is a wise strategy considering he’s not invincible. He needs people to think he’s inconsistent. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s not trying to win everything out there getting injured in the process.
Short of some new information, knowing how he’s done in the past with his season approach overall, it would be pretty crazy to bet against him in Kona this year. BUT, I do also have the mindset that he seems to be a bit of an emotional roller coaster, and wonder if he can actually hold it together. Either way, that’s neither here nor there. He’s the champ, and he’s done it by dominating the swim and bike and having a pretty solid run too.
and of course hindsight is 20 20
but you where hoping she would come of the bike with anne and laura and that did obviously not happen not even close to be fair .
so thats seems to me a 10 min gap between what you were hoping for and what happened. and her run was the slowest in any championchip race. on a coolish day.
anyway lets wait for data.
but this is what you said before the race
She has a w/kg advantage on a lot of her competitors for the first part (climb), She has worked a lot on her position for the 2nd part (plateau). She can descend as proven at 70.3 worlds in Nice.
so it would appear you are correct on 2nd part and cda is improved
you seem to have changed your mind a bit on the first and made a 180 turn for the third partx since now you say she did not have enough time to test the course
anyway i agree it was a good race for her ,and of course every athletes has bumps getting to the start line its part of the game. but she did deliver.
so basically kat is selling you a cannyon as without kat you would have no idea who mark is ie is an employee of kat . so it works for canyon to sponsor her to get access to her team. as even the guy who talks against female sponsorship is interested to get a cannyon because of team kat
Well, ya, of course. But if he wasn’t there I wouldn’t be interested. He’s answering questions on instagram about her bike because he’s a cool guy who seems to like bikes. So, if Canyon hired a bike tech who did that, it might help. At the end of the day it’s still the dude selling me the bike. I actually think a female athlete could be very good at selling bikes to men. Very very good. They just don’t seem to be as interested? Dunno, can’t answer that one. Although, for instance, I do appreciate that Paula does seem to have pretty strong bike opinions, she just doesn’t seem to geek out in public about it like Eric does.
but he is there only because of kat, so the strategy works 100 percent. and i am sure canyon would be smiling reading your post . and think good choice to sponsor kat .
“I would love to see Annie and Chelsea come off the bike together with Laura a little up the road. Those 3 are my podium.”
First of all that is what I would have liked to see as a fan of the sport not a prediction of what would happen. I have 0 data from Laura but she is a strong cyclist. As I said, I expected her to be a ahead, which she was.
Yes, I thought she would descend better relative to others based on past performance. Obviously everyone upped their game. Kat for example has been their a while. Unfortunately Chelsea got there much later than others. Could an extra two weeks have made a difference ? I think so.
As a fan, with no special knowledge, I thought a 5 minute deficit on the bike could be overcome on the run. Before the descent she was close to that 5min. But the run that could make up a 5min deficit was not there especially with Laura’s run.
She obviously didn’t have the run everyone expects from her. The reasons are related to the reason she didn’t come earlier and I am sure she will provide a better explanation than the bits and pieces i got. I don’t have all the details.
I also applaud Laura’s run. She deserved that win and I change my opinion that even a healthy Annie could have run her down.
I am happy to see Chelsea on a good trajectory. I knew little about her before the aero test session I did with her. Now I am a huge fan based on what I learned about the person, the athlete and her team.
Have not figured out how to apply the pink text in the new forum…