ive always loved skipper. dude does come off as brash, but like people have said it seems like its just his personality. he seems to me very factual and very intense sometimes.
outside that his biking is incredible. hes done a couple of “challenges” i guess you could say in the past that were impressive to say the least. i was excited to see him pick up the spot for ali, and really i think he was a better fit for the challenge really.
I think that brashness is just part of his humour and typical in some ways to how humour from Australia vs the UK vs the USA can be quite different. I thought their video series they did leaving into St George was great, a lot of fun etc. Just not everyone will get or appreciate the humour.
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Yeah,he is so much like every other Pommie bastard mate of mine with a sense of humour that is often lost on Americans and Canadians.
Joe has had some great results over the last year and the lack of respect here for him here on ST has always mystified me.
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I’ve never seen any disrespect for Skipper on here. As well, I’m a Canadian living in the US and appreciate his sense of humor. I’m a big fan of the Triathlon Mockery Podcast. I have no idea where get the idea that Americans or Canadians don’t embrace his humor. It’s simply not true. If you have an issue with Americans and Canadians you need to get over it. Nobody is disrepsecting Skipper.
I remember someone posting a short video on here of them abusing joe skipper as he rode past in a race…think it was pubes from memory?
Lots of love for Joe that I’ve seen/read/heard.
On the other hand, not much for Nicola. A legend of our sport. Even heard many mock her before the race (including on the MX Podcast, as well as some from Kat Matthews team) and what she did after having such a disrupted preparation, not to mention it was her first attempt at the distance (there was another one a long time ago I think), was really amazing. And that was her last race too.
This thread is just one of many touting Skipper. I think it is a straw man argument to say ST has not given Skipper his due.
Lots of love for Joe that I’ve seen/read/heard.
On the other hand, not much for Nicola. A legend of our sport. Even heard many mock her before the race (including on the MX Podcast, as well as some from Kat Matthews team) and what she did after having such a disrupted preparation, not to mention it was her first attempt at the distance (there was another one a long time ago I think), was really amazing. And that was her last race too.
I’m bummed we won’t get to see Nicola race at this distance more!
thoughts on her using a road bike?
Would love to see her wrap up 2022 and get a spot for Kona.
This thread is just one of many touting Skipper. I think it is a straw man argument to say ST has not given Skipper his due.
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…and three more people on that thread say that they think Skipper has been under-rated ,one says “criminally underrated” and one other points directly to insults being thrown at Joe…soooooo it would seem others agree with me.
The_Exile says in a yet another post:
“By underrated I meant that when discussing high end athletes he rarely seems to get a mention - or at least did not historically, this thread does suggest that is changing”
Which is exactly what I am talking about…
Lots of love for Joe that I’ve seen/read/heard.
On the other hand, not much for Nicola. A legend of our sport. Even heard many mock her before the race (including on the MX Podcast, as well as some from Kat Matthews team) and what she did after having such a disrupted preparation, not to mention it was her first attempt at the distance (there was another one a long time ago I think), was really amazing. And that was her last race too.
I’m bummed we won’t get to see Nicola race at this distance more!
thoughts on her using a road bike?
Would love to see her wrap up 2022 and get a spot for Kona.
my thoughts are she was closer to the wheel in front of her than the other 3. so in the whole system she was just as good but i agree should have ridden a disc wheel and her helmet could have been maybe optimised
her problem was not the bike but missing a bit fire power in her bike team
there was times she rode in 2nd position during the race.
Lots of love for Joe that I’ve seen/read/heard.
On the other hand, not much for Nicola. A legend of our sport. Even heard many mock her before the race (including on the MX Podcast, as well as some from Kat Matthews team) and what she did after having such a disrupted preparation, not to mention it was her first attempt at the distance (there was another one a long time ago I think), was really amazing. And that was her last race too.
I’m bummed we won’t get to see Nicola race at this distance more!
thoughts on her using a road bike?
Would love to see her wrap up 2022 and get a spot for Kona.
Spirig had many months to prepare for this. A complete bummer for her to have the crash in February which surely made a difference to her swim and general loss on training time. Matthews formed her team in 10 days (and inherited zero from Charles’ non-preparation) in early April. Worth bearing in mind she raced an ‘A Race’ very hard bike and run only 29 days earlier at St George.
I think what you call ‘mocking’ was an opinion that Spirig’s bike equipment choices looked like they were going to be poor, and they were.
Riding road bike as she did was a perfectly reasonable (maybe the best) decision on two counts: position (hip angle+) for a better run and better visibility to minimise the gap to the wheel in front.
She (and Matthews) were saving 40% (cf Wheel 1) but having to push extra watts was unnecessary: why wear a road helmet (because of the heat?) and why decide not to have a disk on the rear?
Nevertheless Spirig biked superbly, led by tester Jo Patterson and her TTT of triathletes from Spirig’s coaching group. She then ran really well. She had to go for it and aim for the catch, but that was just too fast for the first 16 miles and she paid for it from 19 miles onwards. Still ran a 2:45 (1:21 and 1:24), a minute faster than Matthews (1:24 + 1:22).
For @Miles - there is no chance Spirig wants to race an IM to qualify for Kona: she is not an IM athlete (raced and won just the one in 2014). If there wasn’t such fierce competition for the European team for the Collins Cup, I’d like her to get a Captain’s pick and she’d be very competitive over 100km in August. She makes good decisions though. She is qualified for the 70.3 World Champs in October so maybe she’ll choose to finish there in St George (but I doubt it).
and the lack of respect here for him here on ST has always mystified me.
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You can pretty much say that about any top athlete who isn’t in the ST fanboy’s favorite list: Lionel, Lucy C, Cam W, etc. The power of social media. I was chatting once with someone that was shocked when I had indicated that Cam W has never won a single race as a pro cyclist. This person thought he was a top pro cyclist.
Overall, I think it was an insane performance by Joe Skipper putting Blu under a tiny bit of pressure.
https://stats.protriathletes.org/athlete/joe-skipper
Here are his stats - based on these what is the right amount of “due”? Sanders and Long and AB are outliers - they get credit no matter what they do. KB, Iden, and Frodo are on another level so they deserve more credit.
There are at least 6 guys ranked ahead of him that get little notice as well. I totally agree Skipper has the potential for a top five ranking, but I can’t see that he is being ignored more than a lot of others.
That said, I don’t think there is a way to quantify who gets the right amount of praise, its just interesting to see how different people perceive the athlete they care about differently than others do.
That said, I don’t think there is a way to quantify who gets the right amount of praise, its just interesting to see how different people perceive the athlete they care about differently than others do.
Is this a “North American thing” ?
The 7/10 North American athlete will get more love than the 9/10 European athlete on ST ?
Sam is an example. Very promising but gets a lot more visibility here than a handful of European up and comers. My belief is it’s just because he’s North American.
Hope he isn’t going to walk away completely, love his YT channel.
The channel kind of outlines why he never came back to his old level, let alone the new level of pro racing.
10 mile TTs and 5k parkruns as IM prep. Call me old-fashioned but I don’t think these decisions were driven by the newest scientific discoveries or anything like this.
As a matter of fact the reason his only podiums in the last 2 years came in early spring might be that Joe had been doing some actual training in the winter, before the opportunities to kick the living shit out of amateurs would pop up in the spring…
And that’s how he doesn’t even break the tape in his last race (Outlaw Holkham), finishing last of the 2 MPROs that raced the race and getting beaten by Malachi Cashmore by 5 minutes.
I gave my life to Triathlon…was it worth it? https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Z6Sain6CvKI62njsltzV6
