But why would someone pay that amount of money to certify 1 or 2 parts of the race, when if you can’t certify the entire course, what’s the point of actually calling it a record? Like if a record is only as good as the certification it goes through, and by default the variety venue differences between swim/bike/run (and we aren’t even talking about what T1 adds to both time and energy drains; a person having to run 1k through a T area is going to be much more affected than if you literally set up a shortest venue putting your bike right beside the swim exit like they did for the sub 7/8 race) are within each venue location, there’s no real point to then certify a course.
It would be foolish to “certify” a bike course due to the amount of terrain you’d have to measure. That makes zero sense, so we just accept the GPS accuracy, so whether it’s truly 112mi do we even know? What if it’s 111.83; runners would freak the F out if that type of difference happened in a marathon, but that would almost be par for the course for triathlon variance.
And mind you again, if the sport wants to claim records, by all means claim records, even if they aren’t “certified”. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t have records, I just don’t think they have the value in our sport that they do in other sports. Because of course there is very little accuracy in the actual race splits that other sports are required to follow in order to be a “record”.
I read your comment and went back to the race coverage. She does not look like she’s in a hurry indeed, but the numbers say (this is really amusing!) she had the 7th T2 time out of 31 finishers, losing only 9 seconds to LCB, 8 seconds to Sodaro and actually out-transitioning Alexander by 6 seconds for a 2:43… 2025 Ironman 70.3 Eagleman Pro Triathlon Race Results | PTO
Not saying a few seconds are completely immaterial when you end up losing the podium by 27", but things are often not as bad as they look.