And don’t forget all the race directors who don’t have to think about this anymore, and can just go about putting on their courses without their top performers bugging them..
2 Likes
Sort of… What they didnt tell you is that those pro’s also had follow up’s to those “YES”
”Yes I would like like 20 meters.. Assuming it’s better and I can see the data”. They did in fact not chose to talk about the “Assuming it’s better and I can see the data” in the big old “PDF” that was released to the public..
Sort of like how Ironman chose to NOT include the all the data either.. Just some 1/2 filled graphs. Will we ever know?
Amazing 
1 Like
@talbot shared this slide (post #81), which is where I sourced the “>300”.
And of those athletes who have raced with a 20m draft zone - so could reasonably be judged to have an opinion informed by experience - 91% preferred 20m with 3% “open to data” or as you put it: “assuming it’s better and I can see the data”.
Or is a proportion (unrevealed) of the >300 and 91% in your “not chose to talk about” category (idk, @talbotcox )?
That is so true. Unlike local race organizers and tri clubs, companies like IM and those podcasters do little for the sport. 12/16/20m zone for a small group of pros does not change the fact that it costs almost $1000 to enter an IM.
Almost 1200 Pro’s raced Ironman last year.. Who really knows who took this survey and what the real findings where..
Jelle Geens said on All in Triathlon that the survey was not anonymous, and he was “pressured” into giving his vote. From 27 minutes into https://youtu.be/GZmsd5UN-Rc?t=1628
Not the most robust survey methodology if you really want to understand a cohort’s opinion, as Jelle goes on to say.
3 Likes
Haha this is GOLD.
Pressured? I would strongly disagree with that.. We can post the receipts if that helps? It was a one time request that I sent in the groupchat with Jelle and Aaron that said “ what would it take to get jelle to fill this out” to which he jokingly replied “$5k” so yeah I wouldnt say he was pressured…
Let’s just say your study has as much validity as an Ironman bar graph 
2 Likes
". . . we also said like it should be 20 m. Yeah. Cos it is more fair. I thought we both voted. I mean, I’m sorry, but like they still Yeah. Yeah, I voted. I was kind of pressured into voting though. Kyle and Talbot messaged me a few times to put my vote in. For me it was more that like: I don’t think when you have to give your name . . . that it’s really a fair voting that way. But anyway, I voted and I just vote on what I thought should have happened which is 20 m.
Geens perceived he was “pressured” into voting As opposed to NOT “voting”. He clearly was not pressured into voting for 20m.
Electorates world/nation wide are ‘pressured’/aka encouraged to vote: in Australia it’s ‘the law’.
PTN said that 182 athletes who have ridden in races with a 20m draft voted so that will include the majority (probably most) of the athletes who have raced T100 races this year and last. That’s a fair (and informed) cohort (with a high % wanting 20m), irrespective of who the other 170 pros are.
1 Like
If you want to trust PTN… go for it dog
1 Like
dont trust anyone
1 Like
So, that’s just who was surveyed. There are way more people with pro cards than that.
Its a mute point now.. grab the popcorn.. 20 meters is the new trend
Damn mutes are to blame for the boring draft zone now too?
But in all seriousness, why won’t the 20m change just make most races more like the T100 where the big swim group becomes all the more important, and those swimmers capable of doing so drastically up their swim game, leaving the Sams and Lionels of the world even further out of touch?
It appears, at least, once the T100 crew figured out how to play the game to make Sam irrelevant to racing they did so.
Now the swim will get hammered even harder, the gap blow out more and the swimmers will up their the bike game too. Which might just mean 20m is a moot point for the difference it makes for Sanders, et al.
4 Likes
Firstly 356 is the number who “weighed in” ie were prepared to offer an answer. I suspect @Kyleglass91 and @talbotcox between them reached out and encouraged higher echelon pros to give answers and maybe weren’t as assiduous to get preferences from elite athletes who have taken a pro card so they can start in the first wave but for whom the length of the draft zone is a minor philosophical detail.
For @E_DUB - I trust Slowtwitch and its authors, in the same way as I trust the fearless foursome (plus Steph who seems to have been blackballed). I’m sorry you have boxed yourself in in a way that seems to have undermined your trust in others (well those who take positions you don’t agree with (see also the tire safety thing)).
2 Likes
Steph will be back in Avengers doomsday. I mean 2026 PTN episodes
2 Likes
I’ll hold you to account!! I tell everyone and their mother I wrote Steph in for PTN host of the year 
1 Like