As I thought about it, I don’t think you have to necessarily ask each athlete about Brett. Maybe it makes sense some of the time, but others maybe not.
However I do think having a disclaimer at the start before the actual interview could be a good middle ground. We know who Brett is and what he plead guilty on, but how many new listeners haven’t? How many heard the glowing discussion about his methods and think “I want that too?”
Just making it clear from the start that you are here for the athlete and not Brett and move on.
Plus…Start asking those questions before a race and you’re likely to get the athletes to refuse to show up as they don’t want to be mentally derailed before the big day. Is really a disservice to them if a reporter wants to grind an axe about an issue the athlete had no responsibility for.
Now those who feel strongly on this might say that the athlete chose to get coached by this loser. But that’s not the same thing. If you add a reporter or us as a commenter want to make a statement on their coach, step up and make it and don’t insist the athlete do it for you.
We all deal with the human condition in our own way and it’s fine for some of us to shun the guy, but we can’t insist everyone does it. What next, “How could you let that monster live in your apartment complex?” Or “Why would you accept his grocery business?”
So it’s ok if the guy goes on to building construction and builds houses not can’t help adult athletes who are aware of his reprehensible past?
If anything, he’s a known quantity and it’s clear buyer beware. When my kids are involved, I never take for granted that the person does not have significant sexual risk. Especially in a long term relationship.
I think the issue I raised to the pro in the previous mentioned ST thread about 13 years ago. Sutto’s very own coaching group and coaching partners were putting on their own website pictures of him interacting in a coaching situation with minors in the various coaching locations. And this wasn’t some internet slouthing to find the interactions, it was his own coaching group’s website, it was all there out in the public. When that was brought up to the pro, it was more or less “our relationship is in a coach v athlete adult relationship” and what sorta happens outside of that, they can’t control.
But again that that was the accepted view, because he was such a top level coach was more probaly the bigger upsetting moment. So I don’t think it’s necessarily that convicted people have to become a hermit, but there should absolutely be parameters with said behavior, and if that’s not followed- calling out the behavior should be noted.
Again this didn’t even take internet slouthing to find that “gotcha” moment (that was what was most bizarre part about it). It was on his own website showing him interacting with minors, and no I’m not talking about in every day situations like standing in line at the grocery store. I’m talking about group of minors in a room with him talking to them about sport.
I don’t think media is slowtwitch threads or podcasts .
The only people I remember talking out about it was that guy that was quickly black balled afterwards and left the space that did a pod with dark mark and was trying to be a triathlon media guy. Almost like jack is saying if you press a serious issue you get booted.
Just replying to the OP and cant be bothered reading through the thread, you must be new to sport?
Jack Kelly is a Triathlon journalist and like all sports journalists, wants to break sprort stories before anyone else, why does Triathlon think it should be any different?
The rest of sport journalism is absolutely ruthless when it comes to this sort of stuff.
but in fairness, mike reilly really liked the pay check for the first athlete out of the price money presentation , they became best buddies iam pretty sure .
one of my favourite minutes in triathlon lol.
the real starky would be the only podcast / side I would pay for.
I never thought I’d ask Olav Aleksander Bu “what do you think happens when we die?” but I was glad I did. It got me thinking!!! I was still thinking about it the following day after recording. I was also still thinking about how obsessed he is with intensity control, though haha.
Haha he couldn’t even keep that answer to ten minutes! He’s clearly a very intelligent guy, but he’s a bit too verbose for me (and that’s probably an understatement). I really appreciate the intellectuals and experts who can distill complex ideas into language that the average person on the street could understand. Olav seems to go the other way by turning seemingly simple ideas into never ending word salad.
I asked the first question and his answer went for 20+ minutes!! He loves a well thought out idea haha. I personally find it fun to just sit back and listen, but maybe I’m the odd one out there.
I’m gonna need evidence of Talbot or the HABS club ever asking a tough question. Triathlon media in general doesn’t ask tough questions because if you ask them, and keep asking them, you lose access.
Well the Patrick Lange episode is illustrative. It got great feedback and lots of listeners. Rightly so because Patrick has a great sense of humor. But they obviously won’t ask him any tough questions like what happened in Kona 2018 because Patrick and Mark are good mates.
There was a time when they criticized the WTCS coverage and World Triathlon took their offer for them to provide an alternative commentary. I recall that it showed how out of their depth they were save for Chelsea Burns.
There was the whole incident on their out-of-competition drug testing pool research which placed some athletes in an awkward position through no fault of their own. Was it Holly Lawrence who reacted and PTN had to backtrack/further clarify what exactly they were trying to say?
Yes but apart from the 3 days Talbot was an investigative journalist and tried to go find Uzbekistan on the map,
They don’t pretend to ask the hard questions and they were the first to admit that apart from Burns , they where rather bad at commentating as most of us would be .it’s a good background podcast
I would also add (to the offtopic) that I chose ProTriNews commentary over World Tri commentary whenever it was available. Not sure if it was more informative, but definitely more entertaining.
But this is case in point. That was a news worthy story and one they investigated and broke. Just because it put out some pro’s who were likely aware they had fallen through the drug testing cracks is irrelevant. The result of the story was a positive change in the policy.
Absolutely agree: and timely remedial action achieved (PTO: we’d been getting a round tuit). Not ‘breaking news’: campaigning journalism with a foundation of hard graft.
ProTriNews were deliberate and clear with the caveat that it’s not up to the athlete whether they’re in an RTP. Lawrence had not ‘fallen through the cracks’: she’d just (weeks before) been taken off the IRONMAN list (presumably 'cos pregnant) with an element of ‘why are they asking me’ persecution.
But TC did not msg saying “Holly, you are worrying me”.
ProTriNews did not ‘backtrack’ imho but did reiterate my first sentence: governing (and similar) body responsibility.
I have recently (early 2025) tried to replicate what @talbotcox sleuthed way back when and it’s far from easy: one can get the World Triathlon RTP (which has a selection of higher ranked SC athletes and T100 ones) and the Ironman RTP. But then looking to see whether athletes not listed in those two are on their national RTP is a ‘multi-national’ challenge.
Edit to add:
thats totally news worthy
but where do you have the proof that the story was a positive change.
ie while pto does like to create things on the fly. world tri has commitee over commitiee meetings to set stuff up .
might pro tri news have sped up the process, likely , maybe by a few weeks, but you can be 99.x percent sure that world tri and pto were working on this before.
