ITU boys proove that they can ride!

Triathlon Forum
1

First off, congrats to Barb on showing that she is arguably the most dominant triathlete in the sport. However, it is great to see the likes of Simon W. and Greg B. laying it down in a non-drafting race, against some of the best bikers in the sport.

I hope that their performances change some peoples’ views on draft-legal racing and the athletes that compete in this format. They are not only world class swimmers and runners who take a 50-60 min. recovery spin between events. They are laying it on the line for 2 hours, all while playing a very tactical game of chess. For a forum that so reveers the Tour and its riders, there is a fair bit of ITU bashing, that I feel is unwaranted. When Simon and Greg aren’t taking pulls, it’s no different than when Lance lets lower ranked GC athletes go on 25 min. breaks-they know who is a threat, and how much time they can give each athlete and if they feel the race is slipping away, they can push a mighty fierce pace. They also must make these tactical decisions ina split second, while redlining-most of the time, when I’m in that state, I can barely remember my name, let alone get myself to push harder and read and anticipate what other genetically freakish athletes are about to do.

So once again, kudos to Barb, but good on ya Simon and Greg for showing off the true talent of the ITU.

2

So they had a good day. ITU still sucks. :wink:

I’m done trolling. The thing that I think is missing from draft free racing is the head to head bravado and tactics of cycling. I think ITU is a step closer. But I don’t want it in our “gereral” tri races!!

3

I haven’t ridden any draft legal Tris, but since you don’t compete as a team in tris I guess that no drafting evens things out. You have to be able to do all three sports instead of going weak on the swim or run because you can get a team together and paceline yourself to a big lead on the bike. Like I said, I’ve never done a draft legal race, but I like the idea that the results of the race are solely based on individual fitness and mental toughness instead of who can sit on somebody elses rear wheel the longest to save themselves for the run.

4

F.Y.I. Simon and Greg held 4:47 and 4:49 min/mile on the run-DAMN!!!

5

The ITU athletes can swim, ride and run with the best short course non drafting athletes in the world, if not go faster, even in a non drafting oly race format. The top athletes at LTF were all from the ITU circuit. It’s a breeding ground to either go fast, including on the bike, or go get a job. Hate it or love it the ITU races raise the caliber of the sport all the way up to IM length.

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For a forum that so reveers the Tour and its riders, there is a fair bit of ITU bashing, that I feel is unwaranted. When Simon and Greg aren’t taking pulls, it’s no different than when Lance lets lower ranked GC athletes go on 25 min. breaks

I don’t understand this logic. I love hockey, but that doesn’t mean I want to see body-checks in triathlon - or actually, you’re right, I would love to see that.

7

I beleive that the comparison between bike racing and triathlon is much closer, than the comparison between triathlon and hockey (mass swim start excluded!). What I meant was, drafting and cycling go hand in hand, so why does it get such a bad rap in triathlon. Triathlons, apart from a select few races, have never been pure time trials, as drafting in the swim is widely practiced and in fact embraced by so many. The strong swimmers don’t get criticized for sucking wake and not giving it their all, saving their energy for the later parts of the race, so why is this paractice so detested on the bike. Pure open water swim races don’t allow drafting, as per the FINA rules, but no one gives this aspect of triathlon grief. It’s all about tactics and positioning, which is entirely what the ITU is all about. I just think that it is great that triathlon has so many aspects to it and that all the different racing formats only enhance the overall profile of the sport, while breeding faster and more complete athletes. There should be more oportunities in North America for athletes to test out all the different race formatTs, from ITU style races, super sprints, F1 races and non-drafting races. These other formats are adopted and embraced in Europe and Australia with great results-and fun-times for all the participants and more importantly the spectators. What about team triathlons, where each member does all three events, then tags off to the next team member, there was one in Hungary this week leading in to the Tisjuvaros World Cup and it was a fantastic and exciting race. So all that I am saying, is that triathlon came about as a means of having fun and pushing oneself, so instead of trolling on new formats, embrace them and let the sport grow and develop-cycling does this, with crits, stage racing, time-trials, team time trials… and the various formats have allowed the sport to grow into probably the most exciting and hence marketable endurance sport. So why can’t triathlon get in on this? Let’s let the athletes show off their skill by using different racing forums and formats and the sport and the athletes will only benefit. As for a previous post, who claimed that triathlon lacks the “bravado” of cycling-there are plenty of egos, icons, grudges, friendships, and tales of bravado going on in the professional and amateur ranks, it’s simply that the cycling media has been around much longer than triathlon media, and hence knows how to sell a story. The TV coverage that triathlon gets is quit poor in comparison to cycling coverage, as it tends to focus solely on the person leading, without acknowledging the intricacies of the race taking place- During the coverage of the LTF it seemed like only Barb and Walton were racing, seeing that the show was tape delayed, they could have had a virtual “peleton” with splits, saying how farup Barb was in relation to the other women, how far back the men were… they gave the odd split, but neither the people I was watching the race with, nor myself really knew what place Walton, Simon, Geg and the other women were in, nor who was in contention-that is what makes it exciting, a little ticker counting down, to at least add a sense of climax. Build it up throughout the race, show some of the other men riding, show people suffering at the back-everyone of those athletes was laying it on the line and I am sure that there were some unacknowledged efforts out there, that went unrewarded and unrecorded. Everyone was racing to win, and some people payed the price of blowing up because of that, but it would be cool to have seen it happen, even briefly.
So that turned into a bit of a rant, but what the hey, I am pationate about this sport and want to see it succeed and doing that takes constructive debate and critical assessment.
Thanks for listening

8

Nice post. In general I think I agree. One of the great aspects of triathlon/multisport races is their quirkiness and willingness to try new things. My big personal gripe about drafting showing up in the races I do is that drafting is illegal yet some people choose to do it anyway. I love pack riding. It is much more fun and interesting for me than solo distance TT rides. I would love to see all different sorts of races available to the public. (I’m laughing to myself thinking of how many people wouldn’t know the difference) I think it would be a lot of fun. But I want people to draft in draft legal races and not do so otherwise. It seems to me that many people are too dumb or to arrogant to follow the rules of the races they enter.

9

I agree that Triathlon is generally open to new things (ex. look at Tour bikes vs. Tri bikes). I prefer to race on my own effort, but there isn’t any harm in organizing different formats of races. There are about twelve hundred different types of ski races, lots of formats of swim races, why not triathlon too? I’d be interested to see a team competition with domestiques moving their guy into position to win. There are differences in pure triathlon and open water swimming or tour cycling that can’t be directly translated either way. Those are different sports. Cycling relies heavily on the team concept with riders willing to give up their glory to the team captain (obviously there is also track and velodrome and TT and all kinds of cycling). The open water swims I have seen have a much wider swim lane than tris usually do which may explain why drafting is more accepted. In a nutshell, anything that brings people to the sport deserves a chance. I just hope that individual effort races (draft illegal) don’t go away, because I think the biggest reason age groupers get off the couch to try these races is to test themselves and give themselves a sense of accomplishment. If a bunch of experienced athletes are riding away in a pack, which most average newbies will simply not feel comfortable in, then I think we’ll lose some participation.