I was thinking about this last night and this morning. I remember Taylor’s pre-Kona vlog in 2023 with Ian O’Brien talking about here training for both the Olympics and Kona and what they had to do to make it work from a race planning perspective and where she needed to finish. Because if she hadn’t AQd she wasn’t racing Kona. With Ian as her coach she got 4th and finished.
In one of the media things I listened to her ahead of the race I forget if it was BwB, TTH, or Ironman Insider she said “well now I have a coach”. I guess I don’t understand the disrespect to O’Brien here, maybe the relationship broke down. But he still coached her to two Olympics and her last Kona appearance, one where she finished.
And this one, clearly it was almost there. She was 10 minutes from winning the damn thing. But clearly she HAD a coach the last time and it put her in a good position the last time.