It’s in the app now
Take Lionel : In 2016 he was a .23ish CDA. Today he is closer to .20 ish. That is 10min on a IM at the same power
Add to that most athletes are pushing higher power in races, as we are seeing at the WT level. The 120g+ of fuel is part of that. Top guys are pushing 340 at IM. That was not happening 10 years ago
Add better tires, not in the above…and…and…add it all up, it is very considerable.
Equipment and nutrition are playing a VERY significant role in these improvements
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Saw that. Any idea how it went?
It’s not just race day nutrition either. Consistently fueling workouts with high test sugar drinks is allowing harder/longer workouts and faster recovery.
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The most attributable thing here is that you are comparing one of, if not the fastest course in the world, with one of the slowest historically. You know what, we have an actual comparison, the man who raced on the same exact course on the same exact day. And guess what, same delta between those two times as the men and women from 15/20/30+ years ago…And most of those guys broke 8 hours in their day, some well under…
But your point does stand, women today are closer to men of yesteryear. Pretty much every single sport or measuring metric would show the same thing. Hell, I can go back and beat olympic champions is just about any sport too, although some of them require a 100 years or more… (-;
Thorsten offers a data based insight to “the fastest courses in the world” (spoiler: Texas is not; further spoiler: Kona (aka “IM World Championships”) is mid-pack, no way in the ‘slowest quartile’).
He has about 75 IMs/fulls on the list.
https://www.trirating.com/course-ratings/
It you know is you know unbearable you know to you know listen you know to you know Welch you know and you know Carfrae.
At least Lovato can complete a sentence without saying ‘you know’.
At least
20 years ago was literally when Phelps won 6 medals in Athens. By 2008 Gebresellasie had gone sub 2:04 without Supershoes in Berlin. Phelps’ 2008 400IM world record was only beaten recently by Marchand (I believe in 2023). Hicham El Gherrouj’s 1500m world record of 3:26 is still standing…and Butch Reynold’s 43.29 400m world record from 1988 is the third of all time (Wade van Kiekirk’s 2016 43.03 beat Michael Johnson’s 43.16 done in 1999 to round out the top three).
My point is people knew what they were doing 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago
Triathlon was not a complete fringe sport 15-20 years ago. Look at the times that Brownlee ran by 2010. No way are there better genetics in triathlon now versus 2010 versus 2000 or even 1989 because Mark Allen ran 2:38.xx at Kona 1989 without supershoes when you remove the T2 that was embedded in the split.
It’s just better bike equipment, better shoes, better live metrics, and better depth of field (meaning more people legally draft and pace off of). Genetics are unchanged because it takes 100,000 years (or some insanely large number) for genetics to materially change for our species. Maybe we are drawing some better athletes, but most of it is equipment.
I’ll tell you why. The swim splits are basically identical to 1985. And there is no special equipment in the swim. If the sport was in the dark ages even 20 years ago the swim splits would move like the bike splits, but swim splits are largely static over decades,
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Here’s another spoiler for you, fastest time ever for a woman, Texas…2nd fastest time ever for a man, Texas…Perhaps Thorsten will be updating soon… And I believe I said one of the fastest, and one of the slowest too…Certainly if you compare what folks did here and what they did in Kona, we can agree that they are not that close?
We’ll just completely disagree. There are better Athletes in this sport today than when Mark Allen raced, that’s a fact. There is better nutrition than when Mark Allen raced, that’s a fact. Saying different is being willfully ignorant.
My comment was pretty clear, due to a variety of factors including equipment, genetics, and nurture…there are faster athletes than even 10 years ago.
How do genetics improve? Does each generation have a higher red blood cell count , I though t levels in younger adults where down?
Drew Scott didn’t exactly do as good as Dave Scott in long course tri.
The factors that have made the biggest jump in long course in 20 years .
Guys are focused on the exact distance and requirements during there peak fitness span of their lives , not short course 18-32 then long 33-40 . They are focused at 22 for Ironman .
Bike tech in order , power meters , wheels and tires, aero set ups , places to hold fuel that is also aero.
Running shoe tech helps you do more endurance and intensity with less stress and soreness.
And maybe drugs???
First attributing the improvement in performance to doping is out of bounds.
I think genetics is the wrong word and inaccurate. But I do think we are starting to get higher level athletes choosing triathlon and a big part of that was it becoming and remaining an Olympic sport. That gave it the credibility to attract athletes earlier in their development to focus on tri. Gustav, Blu and Yee are great examples of that. Yee is a pure triathlete but he just threw down a top 15 at one of the 6 marathon majors in his FIRST attempt at the distance.
How does the average height of a player in the NBA get taller every year? Some of that is selection but that doesn’t explain how college basketball gets taller every year.
If we want to admit that is 90% nutrition and not wholly genetic related fine. The fact is the level of athlete taking up the sport is higher at the professional level than when those legends of the sport were racing.
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In 1994 there were 7”8 , 7”6 and 7 “7 tall nba players
Bol , Bradley and Muraean .
Basketball coaches are attracted to tall players because you can’t coach height but can win with height .
And more people play basketball now than 1990 .
One of their kids plays in the nba yet is worse then there dad was? If he was 6”0 he wouldn’t be there but also same genes and less ability even shorter then his dad.
Where are Jordan’s kids? Shawn kemp had like 25 kids and none even sniffed college basketball.
Yes that’s my point 20 years ago a guy like yee would not try that marathon attempt until he is 35 or older .
People are starting early and focusing early then 20 years ago .
The drugs was kind of a joke but… amateur level and pro has more violations now then 1990 s
You’re correct about starting earlier but I’d contest someone like Yee wouldn’t have even sniffed triathlon in 2020. He would have gone through the ranks of running 5k, 10k or marathon runner for GB. So they are for sure starting earlier but wer’re also getting top tier talent to choose our sport (who also start earlier).
It could easily be construed that you’re stating that Blu and Kat knocked it out of the park yesterday due to doping so that “joke” stinks as much as a post race fart in a closet.
I don’t know if this was discussed in the thread, but what were those lumps inside the back of kit on some of the women during the bike? I think Knibb had one, as did Chura. I thought it was ice they may have dumped after the swim, but it didn’t change shape.
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Tracking devices
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Interesting. It looked big and annoying to carry. To track what kind of data? Speed, HR, body temp?
Buddy said that any male that wanted to go Nice got to go.
Women’s slots rolled NONE
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