There are relays at less than 1/2 of the WTCS events, it just happens that this season was front loaded with sprints, and back loaded with Standards, so there were MTRs with 3 events in a row and then very few on the back half because of the standard distance events.
This may be a commonwealth bias in circuit planning, given that the commies are sprint distance and relay… so it’s a good tune-up…
In terms of the US MTR, McQueen had a chain issue that he had to stop to fix (no Wilde/Iden wizardry…), and Hoel for Canada got a flat early in the first lap, tried to ride it out on his rim until it basically caved in, and had to DNF (the pictures of his rim from socials are gnarly). Disappointing end for both, given that they led out of the water… We’re seeing more penalties on the circuit these days… I think that because the races are so competitive people are under pressure constantly and making more inattention errors. we’re seeing more swim conduct penalties too, since the officials now have access to drone footage on WTCS swims, which gives way better angles for spotting, than a hand held camera from a boat alongside… They’ve also moved to a football (soccer) type system for the swim conduct penalties, where your penalties accumulate and result in suspensions for repeat offenders, which should hopefully help clean up the swims (not to mention that the swim conduct rules were introduced at the request of the athlete’s committee). Either way, it has meant that races aren’t short on drama with penalties threatening to disrupt the order of things in many races (both individual and MTR). You have to feel for Lindemann who earned neither of the two, but had to deal with the brunt of both penalties in the MTR. Flora’s interview after the individual was priceless, she pooched T2 after seeing her goggles out of the bin, and knew she wasn’t making her life easy, but then chose to take that out on everyone else, with the most Flora performance we’ve seen outside of Tokyo since the first Bermuda race…
I know that traditionalists bemoan the sprint races on the WTCS, but we’ve had so much drama and excitement this season, I have to say I like it. We’ll get the tactical standard distance chess matches come fall, once we get past the commonwealth games, which bring their own set of drama, but I see room for both formats, I would prefer more intermixing of the formats, rather than 3 sprints/SS in a row, and then a pile of standards…
On the para series front, impressive races in Montreal. the highlight pack is up, but doesn’t do justice to Lauren Parker’s dominance… She was more than a lap ahead of second place on the run leg… That’s even scarier, given that she’s been dabbling in long distance racing and looking to race para cycling worlds too… If she stays healthy and motivated, I can’t see her losing in a sprint in Paris like she did in Tokyo… There were plenty of other impressive performances too, even if there were a few of the top brits sitting it out to avoid travel and focus on the commonwealth games… I wonder if one of these years they will move the WTCS from the old port over to the race track like the paras (and the Esprit Tri in september), I could only imagine the speeds that the pack could reach on that course…
And for the MTR, the OG qualifying is broken down with auto spots for the host, the one in MTL (taken by GB) and one in Hamburg next year as the world champs. Then there will be the auto qualifying by ranking, and then the last chance qualifier race. there then might be the odd other team that sneaks in by virtue of qualifying 2 and 2 based on individual rankings that would be eligible for a relay as well…
As for Abdelmoula, he had a world cup win late last year (and had some promising world cup results before that), made the top 10 in Montreal (his first or second WTCS i believe) before his podium in Hamburg, so I can’t say that I was shocked. He tends to do well on races where the group is largely together on the bike, because he has a serious run, but I relish to see more and more countries being competitive on the circuit…
i would be very much up for more sprint races if the swim portion would be made a bit longer to give it a bit more time for the fields to split a bit more. in my opinion the current sprint races make it too much of a run race in the mens as the fields are to close, but of course i also see that right now we in the opposite area then the last decade, and in the female race most top swimmer are also the top cyclists , like in the brownlee area . this has just switched around and could easily change again . but still i do think the swim should be a bit longer lets say 1 k and the few sec more separation would be good.
Iam looking forward to the day when they will have a bit of decent camera work done for para races. i think it would be better if they were only at every 2nd race but then double the cameras and have at least one camera on a motor bike , so you can actually watch the race a bit. rather than like 10 sec snippets of each race.
and just to add jetze plat is still 9 min faster than parker-who is obviously an great athlete and still improving- so a bit more than the gender gap and he is the triple oly champ from tokio in tri , road cycle and tt . and did kona in 8.40 I was told by a dutch team mate, the guy pushes 300 watts on the bike with his arms … but i have to say parker is the only athlete where i like to see the bahrain 13en logo on the trisuit .