A few years back lifetime was allowing Kemper, Potts, Haskins and a few others to make a living racing non draft legal Olympic distance (who am I missing?). I think usat should pick up this slack and do it in a draft legal format. It doesn’t have to be for points.
Bove I think is going to have to follow the McElroy pathway, though Bove raced some USAT jr series (he may have even won JR nationals one of the years, I cant remember, he def podiumed). He is likely an MTR target athlete, he’s a sub 4 miler PR type of speed. Huge weapon on the MTR scene if he can get the swim there.
Bove is one of those athletes where USAT “loses” them to college, and I think they try in the summers to “keep them in the sport” by putting them in as many races as they can. Just keep the carrot in front of them.
He did win Long Beach ITU earlier this summer. So I think he’s going to have to follow the McElroy approach. Swim 5k yards in the morning and 5k in the evening and see where he is at 3 years later. The issue for a guy like Bove, and I’ve coached usat collegiate recruited athletes as fast as him (Scott Dvorak, Erik Armes)…They just dont realize how much of a grind swimming 10+ swims a week is (at min of that) for guys who “excel” and are at the front of every competition they ever entered, to suddenly realize “shit I’m getting beat by a 10 year old every time I go to the pool”. Go look at YT on Ari Klau’s (spelling) pages, and this is kinda what he went through, and he improved a bunch under the guidance of James Petersen (JP Elite), but yet he was still well off the itu mark. Like that f’ing sucks. So they just burn out / quit when they realize it’s going to take 2-3 years of every day swimming just to get to a level that maybe they can finally compete with the swim. Which is why a guy like Pearson who came to the sport and within 8 months was front pack swimmer at world cup events…is like “FUCK YEAH”…we finally got a top 3 runner who oh yeah can swim front pack!!!
McElroy I believe swam 6k yard swim set the morning he ran the ncaa track 10k finals…where he finished 6th 12 hours later. But that was how “invested” he was into making it. So his whole “hard work no talent club”, isn’t a sticht. Like that’s all he’s done since he’s come to ITU…Worked at it, week by week, and hell even he struggles at the non-wetsuit swims still.
What’s funny about that time period, I cant remember which race it was, but they had this handicap system where the male and females raced together and 1st to the line won. So there was no male and female prize purses, they all competed for 1 purse. They simply handicapped the men behind the women X amount of time (based on the data from the previous races, etc). I cant remember what non-draft races it was, but they did it about 2-3 years maybe 10 or so years ago. Was interesting to watch.
LifeTime Tri Minneapolis had that Equalizer format from 2002-2006. It was such a big time event in every way from the prize purses to the quality of the fields to the TV coverage…
You have come along with the run speed of some guys. That´s OK, but that´s not enough… triathlon is not just about running (see Alan Webb or see now Beth Potter who runs slower in a WTs than GTB or Duffy). You perfectly know that it is all about the balance: good swim, good bike and good run after a “hard or not so hard” bike. So, you can pick a guy who has the best PB in a 1500m pool freestyle, the best 40k TT and the best PB in a 10k run and might not be the best triathlete. You say there is a guy that runs blablabla…yes, I have heard from dozen of guys who run like hell and did not success in ITU…
KB is not the fastest swimmer, could be considered one of the fastest bikers and definititely not the fastest runner but he is a machine because he is a pure triathlete.
JUst my opinion.
You have come along with the run speed of some guys. That´s OK, but that´s not enough… triathlon is not just about running (see Alan Webb or see now Beth Potter who runs slower in a WTs than GTB or Duffy). You perfectly know that it is all about the balance: good swim, good bike and good run after a “hard or not so hard” bike. So, you can pick a guy who has the best PB in a 1500m pool freestyle, the best 40k TT and the best PB in a 10k run and might not be the best triathlete. You say there is a guy that runs blablabla…yes, I have heard from dozen of guys who run like hell and did not success in ITU…
KB is not the fastest swimmer, could be considered one of the fastest bikers and definititely not the fastest runner but he is a machine because he is a pure triathlete.
JUst my opinion.
Totally agree but the reason Beth is running slower this season is she decided at the end of last year that there would be a total focus on bike/swim through the winter and earlier part of the season.
It seems to have paid off because she hasn’t lost a lot on the run but has been a front pack swimmer quite a few times this year. She did an article on it (can’t remember if it was a blog or an interview). She considers herself a WIP and her goal is to be a complete package by Paris 2024. Whether that means another winter of bike/swim focus I don’t know.
To be fair, I think it is clear that USAT understands this. I’m just a fan, but from the outside it seems like Project Podium is a great opportunity to keep talented young guys developing in the sport instead of following the single-sport pathway. Those guys are getting good coaching and it seems like a real chance to develop consistent well-rounded performers.
I also like that they are taking a few unconventional athletes. I guess Sullivan Middaugh isn’t that unconventional since his dad was an Xterra stud, but still - no big swimming pedigree, likes that Colorado outdoor nature endurance stuff, etc. He almost sounds like potentially a huge engine Norwegian-type character.
Your assessment of the Spanish program seems pretty spot-on. In this sport you need guys that are podium threats. To me France is the best at doing this consistently, going back to guys like Laurent Vidal and David Hauss (and maybe more before my time).
Oh totally but I’m talking about the specific guys that are in the game for usat right now. What’s funny about Webb. He came into tri waaaay too late, but of course he was so ungodly talented at the run he never was going to be a triathlete in his prime.
What’s interesting about Webb. He had trouble w open water swimming. He was actually doing swim sets and send offs and making them w front pack swimmers. Of course it was basically a 6 month try out for him. Super super down to earth guy. I was able to go down and work w his coach for a while and he was a total sponge. But his time table just was so accelerated that development time wasn’t really there. He truly was a “sink or swim†case.
Which is why, the USA “sucks†right now because their best hasn’t raced in a year. Pearson gets back into the game and suddenly our best talent is a front pack swimmer who most of time can hide and stay in front on the bike and can run. Get him back and he’s suddenly got podium talent, I think his biggest issue is consistency. I think that’s what you’ll see more out of him than a consistent top 10 every race.
Bove I think is going to have to follow the McElroy pathway, though Bove raced some USAT jr series (he may have even won JR nationals one of the years, I cant remember, he def podiumed). He is likely an MTR target athlete, he’s a sub 4 miler PR type of speed. Huge weapon on the MTR scene if he can get the swim there.
well this is information that I didn’t know. and it makes the situation better. I am not saying he is going to make the front pack - who knows - but from the sounds of it he wasn’t really a high school swimmer (he has some results, my just turned 12 year old can beat his 500 time by 30+ seconds).
I just wish ITU would once and for all turn everything into a sprint distance and pretty much have every WTCS also an MTR stop. Get off the fence and move off the Olympic distance if only so many are going to be olympic distances these days.
Just do it and be done with it.
I prefer the Olympic distance, though since the change is going to happen it might as well happen now.
We will lose the career of the diesels (Gomez comes to mind) if this change occurs. But of course guys like Mola will have even more fulfilling careers.
Speaking of Mola… he needs to get on the podium today. I am taking Abdelmoula for the win, but I think this race plays out well for MAC and Mola too.
I just wish ITU would once and for all turn everything into a sprint distance and pretty much have every WTCS also an MTR stop. Get off the fence and move off the Olympic distance if only so many are going to be olympic distances these days.
Just do it and be done with it.
That would be the fastest way to be discarded from the Olympics. I would also lose interest in the series. I would actually before making everything back into Olympic distance and excising the short stuff from International Competition. Leave that all to Macca to waste his money on.
You gotta back up statements when you say it would be fastest way out of Olympics. Sprint races are cute and fast and fit within this 1hr time window for a broadcast. Which is something that many speak on for IOC.
If the sport loses fans, it loses fans. It’s been on a sprint course overall for years now and I don’t think itu has lost fans.
Mtr actually has probably brought more fans than lost.
I just prefer consistency. If there is only going to be several Olympic distances than just move to sprint.
And I’ve heard the whispers of sprint taking over itu since 2010 when our group coached Sarah True.
So I’d rather they get off the pot and just go full bore in either sprints or Olympics. Just do it WT! We all know you want to.
I highly doubt the fanbase has grown much even with MTR.
If every sprint course was Bergen, the old Huatulco course, Leeds, sure, it could work.
But most courses are flat and will end up like Valencia just did. The entire field came together. The ENTIRE field.
That is boring and certainly not a test of the best triathlete.
The finish places was almost an exact copy/paste from run times.
Olympic distance makes the swim count. Which in turn makes the bike count.
And this is a triathlon after all.
It all depends on the bike course regardless of the distance. There was a ~40 man T2 in Tokyo (there was technically a 1 man break coming into T2 prior to the big pack).
World Triathlon think that flat courses and 200 laps is interesting for the local people in the venue, but in fact It is not appealing at all for the tv consumption. As some of you mentioned, Leeds, Bergen ,Kitbüehel, Rio…are good venues;the bike course needs hills otherwise it is boring. It could work with the sprint distance, but I think ITU goes the pathway of easy rides in the sprint distance racing because the bike leg, as it is just 25m long or so ,does not matter that much. I think they are completely wrong.I am not suscribed to triathlonlive because the raced are boring since the brownlees, gomez and now Blum are not in the circuit…
You gotta back up statements when you say it would be fastest way out of Olympics. Sprint races are cute and fast and fit within this 1hr time window for a broadcast. Which is something that many speak on for IOC.
If the sport loses fans, it loses fans. It’s been on a sprint course overall for years now and I don’t think itu has lost fans.
Mtr actually has probably brought more fans than lost.
this is the same guy who was trashing on the US athletes who was completely about actual facts.
the IOC has made it clear that it wants competitions under 2 hours so the olympic distance triathlon is on the endangered species list.
both races today were horrific to watch. how many times did the women’s bike leg have what looked like the entire peloton just coasting with everyone’s feet frozen in place? they just should have raced 5ks on the track. this venue is not good for the sport. give me some more bergen please.