Morgan Pearson- 61:08 in Valencia Half Marathon

he lost 1.45 min on the bike and 1 min on the run just a week ago.

he was dropped from the bike pack in cagliari.

and lost 3 min in paris on the bike

his swim is fine
and in yokahama which tends to suit the runners more he did quite well and won .
but when the bike gets a bit tougher he seems to get dropped or just does not run that great off the bike or both .
ie i dont think 11 triathletes would have run faster in a standalone half. but outrun him the week before in a triathlon.

in 4 of the 5 key races on 2024 he lost time on the bike.

https://www.triathlon.org/athletes/results/123392/morgan_pearson

You may not have paid full attention then. Pearson does have a relative weakness on the bike. He had one great bike performance in Karlovy Vary last year, but apart from that outlier, it remains a weakness to this day. Some athletes I know well have been caught in a pack with him and well heā€™s not of much help. But who knows it may come eventually, and I think Karlovy Vary was probably proof that he has worked hard on this leg of the race and has improved. Just not quite enough yet Iā€™d say.

His swim is strong, thatā€™s not in question. But can also be hit and miss for some reason(s).

Alex Yee is a great example of someone who has managed to pretty much erase his weaknesses (swim and bike). Will be interesting to see if Milner can do the same this next Olympic cycle.

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i donā€™t believe in fluke performances in endurance sport. if you throw down once it means you have the talent and fitness. if you throw down inconsistently itā€™s something else (you have health or injury problems, you donā€™t prepare well on race morning, you are a bad tactician, whatever).

morgan has convinced me heā€™s a very strong swimmer and cyclist. what he isnā€™t is a consistent winner in triathlon when racing at the highest level. he also occasionally loses time in the run (as you note), but i think we see that doesnā€™t call for him to ā€œswim and bike less and run moreā€ (see the post above to which i commented).

last year he specifically worked on his swim and i think we see that paid dividends. iā€™m not a big follower of any of these athletes but what i have seen of him (IG, etc.) is he focuses in on cycling-specific stuff (crit races, even CX races). he throws down pretty big bike power numbers in training. weā€™ve all come across athletes that would beat you in the swim, the bike, and the run if they were standalone events, but donā€™t put them all together as well for some reason. it would not surprise me if he eventually licks whatever it is that keeps him from consistently winning in tri.

he might have convinced you to be a very strong cyclist but the numbers speak against your assessment for this year at world series level.
i belive he suffers form lower back pain so he might just not have the fitness.
ie talent and fitness and robustness are 3 different things, that go not hand in hand as you suggest. which would be underlined by the fact that he tends to do well in the relay which is a bit more about speed than fitness .
to be able to train consistently is part of talent and a balanced training program and is of course very hard to achieve and he might not have maxed that out or is just to injury prone.
at the same time for sure his bike is not maxed out yet given that he started rather late on the bike and on total miles he is likely still a bit low .

i do agree some people are better in a single discipline and otheres are better putting all 3 together. or they deal with over swimming and overbiking better than others.
and i would agree with you that there is every chance that we have not seen the best of him, as the talent is there.

How?
The occasional race where the race (bike pack) dynamics fall in his favour?
Yokohama 2024
Paris 2023
GF Abu Dhabi 2022

or when pack dynamics are less a factor, such as the mixed team relay in the 2020 (2021) olympics, where he rode several seconds behind yee and luis and neither gained nor lost time. instructive i think was that luis was the better tactician, jumping pearson and bridging to yee but the duo could not pull away from pearson, who just soloed those however many seconds behind. to me thatā€™s a frequent pearson race - more strong than shrewd. race results donā€™t tell the story of the rider who just doesnā€™t display the clever, cutthroat ego (or alter-ego) that mass start bike racers have.

and with that iā€™m out because iā€™m not interested in a circle jerk on this. i just took exception to the armchair expert analysis of pearsonā€™s training schedule.