If anyone feels that way they’re a lost cause. We wouldn’t have got this in Kona.
Also fancy producing some metal rail saddles for putting on wattbike?
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Doing my best to have those ready for Marbella
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Heart emoji
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Damn rough day for denmark! 3/4 dnf!
This seemed unlikely to me and indeed - he biked 7.5 minutes slower this year. The rest is race dynamics, 2026 not being an Olympic year (unlike 2024), and the boost in the level of long course triathlon you point to.
@kileyay led me astray with his research while I was driving to Girona for sea otter Europe!!! That bum
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I cracked the case of how Casper won seemingly out of nowhere. He studied the greats and the day before the race got a buzz cut (Craig Alexander used to do this in Kona).
One thing I will miss about nice vs kona .
The cost of accommodations 7 days in nice for $1200 Canadian. Food is very high quality and pricing is fair.
Kona every place is over $400 Canadian a day and the cost there are much higher on food that is high quality.
Nice wins a lot in trip cost, convenience, city, race logistics.
Kona wins in , it’s Ironman Hawaii in kona.
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Have to agree, they gave up on Nice way to quickly. It is/was such an epic venue, truly worthy of a WCs. What more could you want, amazing swim, challenging bike through incredible scenery, perfect run course for spectator interaction. Plenty of accommodation, welcoming locals, and an absolutely stunning all round location.
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Cross posting (thank you @sfjab ) this as some may miss it in that thread. An absolute must watch/listen (best watched as their voices are not that easy to differentiate).
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but why is the challenging bike for AGers a positive in your opinion? in my opinion is a negative for a world championship.
Not sure when the footage was that you referring to here but the prominade is basically a 5k strip. The 1-2k length towards the finish line was absolutely gang busters with crowd support, it was crazy the volume of people. Obviously this decreased outside this area towards the airport.
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Was referring to that area.
I am not techy with electronics so this is the only way to post this.
Kona nostalgia > mindful decisions
You want an ‘easy’ bike course for a WCs?
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Is Kona easy? It’s 1800m elevation. Easy it’s some other ironman like Texas which is less than 400m. It’s like if the cycling world champs were always on this year’s course in Rwanda with 5000m elevation, it just doesn’t make sense.
That kind of course always favours a certain type of athlete, especially in the AG, I don’t think it’s fair. Some people are naturally stronger at climbing and some are super strong cyclists but suck at climbing.
This is exactly the problem in “americans” (allow me to aggregate you to the US) romanticizing Nice.
For a European as stated in other threads by many people, Nice is a very mediocre location, compared to Kona.
I don’t think that when registration to the world champs is close to 2000USD, we ride bikes costing over 10k, saving a couple hundred here and there makes the difference.
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Some people will not care , you I guess.
But the point is kona takes advantage of Ironman athletes a lot more them nice does.
Check car rentals and condo at kona vs non kona times it’s robbery.
Penticton did back in the day, whistler started to catch on and did the last two years there too.
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Gave up too early?
Think they sent out a survey and vast majority wanted Kona. It’s about listening to their customers…
Nice is a great course but nothing beats history
Like asking Felix to move Roth somewhere else
And yet Kona also favours a specific type of athlete.
But if IM is supposed to be a test of who is the best across the 3 disciplines then calling out a bike course for being too hard in a WC is a bit silly
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