Kona baby! Who cares what SC racing Knibb plans later this year?
I just hope she doesn’t adversely affect her long course racing with the ‘parking lot’ stuff.
La Paz start list
Ffwd to her questions to Babbitt (last few minutes) - best bit of a long interview.
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This one was strange - while usually direct and comprehensive, this interviews responses seemed particularly terse…softball questions?
Put a pin in this for mid-October, this is about the Celebration of Triathlon happening in Kona. Not the rest of this.
Are you now thinking it has which seemingly is a complete 180 from your usual athlete can do any planning narratives.
I think the biggest “seasonal” training/racing plan this year has done for her is find fun/joy in all of this. Good spirits can be a big weapon for athlete. The tactics these FP athletes all need to race to is just going to be really fun to watch and see who inevitably explodes.
@thestrovrothestrovro if Knibb can race a WC cycling event and win a 70.3 WC, with no updates in this thread (since mid July where she said she was basically fully on board LA Games pathway in addition to her usual LC racing calendar), sorry mate, this ain’t going to be the thread to talk only Kona for another 2 weeks. This will fall off after this race start update, will be plenty of other thread to talk Kona baby. I’m honored my posts can get such a reaction as this “kona baby” video has been out for almost a day prior to me posting about Knibb’s schedule, to fire up the usual suspects to at me on something. 
Since when are you Australian, at least hit me with a bro.
yes the name def deserves a bro, my apologies….bro 
. Talking to too many international athletes the last few weeks, i mix in my international lingo with my american lingo at this point.
Is she mixing things up next year or is she entirely focused on WTCS. I just can’t imagine her solely focused on a single distance
No Kona, No 70.3, no T-100 , no TT WC?
I doubt she ever goes with a schedule that includes Wtcs only. I think she’ll always have t100 / 70.3 in the hopper, so it really comes down when will the last IM be for her heading into LA? ITT cycling and MTR are within 24 hours of each other in LA so that may make it nearly impossible to do, but this is knibb so “we’ll see”.
I hope she does a 70.3 to qualify for Worlds in Chattanooga next year, or does she get an automatic entry as defending champion? That course will be taylor made for her, hard climb up Lookout Mountain, non technical decent.
Ups I made a mistake in assuming the grand final and 70.3 worlds are same weekend when the grand final is 2 weeks later ( thanks to the person that pointed it out to me )
So I would be rather surprised if she did not both.
ha Knibb doesn’t race *Wtcs GF’s anymore hasn’t since ‘22.
Knibb and Wilde each get an automatic entry as defending champion.
I expect Knibb to race the LA Test Event in July, Chatanooga in August and skip the 2027 Ironman World Champs in Kona. She’ll race a low profile Ironman (as training) before Christmas (? Florida) to get a KQ for Kona 2028. That will give her a clear run to LA28 with maybe Oceanside to keep her hand in.
Kona 2028, baby.
Jim didn’t suggest this to me (in Le Meridien, Nice).
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I don’t disagree with your schedule, but I’d bet the one Kona she skips ends up being the one that ends up looking most winnable.
I would think her schedule is entirely dependent on how she does in Kona this year. If she wins being the “defending champion” will be mighy hard to pass up.
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With the additional aspect that that’d allow her NOT to race a full IM till October.
I think the need to KQ (in 2027 spring) is the extra demand which makes 2027’s Kona in jeopardy.
Racing Kona 2027 (and 2028) is entirely doable for her but I don’t think she can race an IM in the spring and give of her best for the USA in July (and she’d need to to KQ for Kona 2028 (or race an IM mid-August - would clash with 70.3 world champs)). She may look at the USA men, though, and decide the LA MTR is not worth sacrificing anything for. If she does her business and hands over with the very small lead few, then unless Pearson turns things round, chocolate might not taste sweet enough.
At this distance (to Kona 2027 and Kona 2028), it’s reasonable to assume that the same players will be vying for the win (LCB, Loevseth, Matthews and Derron) with Philipp maybe the only one not in the mix and add in Siffert. So which year is likely to “look most winnable”?
But once Philipp decided to race IM Kalmar in August, for me that was the signal that she had discounted her chances of winning here this weekend.
She is on the start list for Chile World Cup the 1st weekend of November.
And I am sure she will do another world cup the week after.
Video blocked at the request of an Ironman Triathlon partner.