Pro tri news: The good, the bad, the banter

Triathlon Forum
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The good, the bad, the banter, with Foley and MatthewsK
At 15 miles - a Maurten Move: 10 salt pills 7 x Maurten gels 100s, pints of Coke

And reflects this marvellous news (McCauley’s ‘first times’ including bun in the oven):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVmDPg6kxsE/

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Foley Finds His Form Again At IRONMAN New Zealand
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IM events with their commentary and broadcast style in addition to it being 112mi bike- any broadcast is boring and dull regardless of the draft distance. They miss key moments cus they are showing something else, they consistently misidentify who or what is going on for years on screen irregardless of who the commentators are. It’s never going to be a good product for the masses and it has zero to do with draft zone. They talked about bike tech working w Blu to fix/analyze his aero bars yet none of that was on broadcast. They likely couldn’t have that many motos “together” to get it on video but like that’s the whole issue- that’s entertainment and they completely miss it. That’s SOP for them but it’s a free broadcast so yeah….

But again for IM the broadcast is only so important, and so I’ve never really cared to worry about the “entertainment” factor. It’s by default never going to be entertaining.

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548

Truer words have never been spoken.

I don’t think IM are trying hard enough if they want to maximise the quality of the broadcast.

But… they don’t want to. And even if they did try and succeed in making the broadcast as good as it can be, it still wouldn’t be remotely watchable.

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549

Jewett with 20m is probably a net benefit for her since she rides solo most of the time and isn’t keeping up with the pack anyway, so for her it’s a benefit if everyone else has to push harder.

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550

I was going to ‘answer’ Tim’s Q but restrained. However, ‘for info’, I checked the tracker and Jewett rode solo virtually the whole time: might have had a bit of company for maybe 1/8th of the (long) time riding. If you ride 20 mins slower than the pointy end runners, and then run a 2:42 (or 2:40 in IMLP last year) it’s real fast but reasonably might be compared with what the pointy end triathlete/runners riding 20 mins slower could run.
In IMLP she rode 20 minutes slower than Sanchez before her 2:40. And here she rides 20 minutes slower than Matthews.

Before the 2023 season Jewett really improved her swim, but seems to be unable to get her bike more competitive, even on a course without many tight bends. Edit: Checked the splits: Jewett lost 60 secs on the downhill into town on both laps.
Given how superb a runner Jewett is, with a top CV system, I wonder what the ‘blockage’ is. Noone wants her anywhere near them in T2. I look forward to Jewett and Kleiser racing one another in a 70.3. 1:12 (for 21.1km) in reach.

Some have said the same about Hanson’s super fast runs. Yesterday he rode hard and was matched in the marathon by Foley and Le Corre. Shades of West here too.

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the one time kyle could have been right with Trevor , he blows it at around k 30 in the run and tells rinny C that matt Hanson will win lol

good post race show.

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Hey, Mark here,

I appreciate the message but don’t worry about it on my behalf. Like some have pointed out here, I have created that persona for myself and at the live shows early last year in particular I definitely took that a little far so it’s probably warranted.

For the record though I haven’t drank anything during any of Kat’s races in years. I’m normally out on some far corner of the course. And yes I shout…obviously…I’ve found whispering fairly ineffective.

Cheers

Mark

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Much respect for owning that Mark.

As an Aussie who was well and truly immersed in the huge Triathlon party era of the 90’s I can totally understand getting caught up in the festive feel of race week. A lot of very big names from our sports history are no doubt thankful that there was no social media to record the shenanigans of that era.

I,however, have a very good memory.:rofl:

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554

Gave you a heart for the Leroy Jenkins ref.

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That’s the maddening thing to me. It looks like they are trying now (they had plenty enough cameras on course) in terms of the overall technical assets present for the event. But they still lack proper direction on how to use these goods on race day, what to show when, etc.

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Too many cooks in the kitchen.

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That’s an interesting theory. The conventional wisdom seems to have been they don’t have the budget. Would explain why the commentators are not at the race venue, etc. But too many cooks spoiling the broth would suggest IM have too much money allocated to the broadcast, not too little.

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I thought there were good improvements at IMNZ vs previous years

  • Main commentators were a step up in terms of content, though the audio on one of them sounded like it was some earbuds rather than a high end mic.
  • Having Haley and Tim on site to talk through as people were coming through under the bridge was a nice touch.
  • Small pre-recorded tidbits from the pros themselves
  • Youtube means no VPN for North American audiences
  • Gap to next athlete sometimes included previous timing mats
  • It seemed like there were more cameras around and featured more of people not at the front

They do have some room to improve

  • Timing was a bit all over the place, though some of this was Foley’s chip
  • Chyrons weren’t consistent with the gap to next athlete vs previous timing mat
  • Commentators still continued with their story when major events happened. In cycling, they pause the story about the Chateaux and the main commentator interrupts to tell you about Pogi’s attack. They also used lots of generalizations like - ‘going very fast’ and ‘trains very hard’ which doesn’t add anything
  • The swim needs a better way to differentiate athletes and they need to spend more time in transitions showing the athletes. (though NZ is a bit hard since its partly inside)
  • Commentators weren’t sure themselves if a particular athlete was at the front of the race.

Edit to add - and they needed to spend more time on Blu, especially at the beginning of the run, and for a while after it was clear he wasn’t winning. Show us the struggle

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559

I haven’t watched the whole thing, but the addition of Haley Chura to the commentator lineup is welcome. She knows the sport, is a top swimmer (she led the swim when the world championship was at St. George a few years back) and has an enthusiastic presence. Feisty media ended her Ironwoman podcast (with Alyssa Godesky) which was the best platform for long cordial interviews with women pro multisport folks, and the new Feisty podcast isn’t quite as much fun. So it’s great that Haley, having recently retired from pro triathlon, can develop this new expertise and audience.

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560

The only problem is that they didn’t explain who she was! Part of where they need to improve is to find a way to explain the sport to the audience in a way that adds for newbies but doesn’t detract from seasoned veterans. I know who Haley Churra is, because I spend my days on a Triathlon message board, but I don’t think they even said ‘Churra’ or that she’s won so many Ironman races, or has been to Kona so many times. It would have been good as an intro, or maybe a segue.

Same with Tim - Tim who? Given that Rinny was in the studio, I initially thought this Tim O’Donnell.

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Agree on adding context and importance to the commentators.When they first went to Chura as she was in T1, I think they did give her first and last names, but I could be mistaken. And yes, I was thinking who’s this Tim guy.

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I would be curious what the avg time a viewer tunes in for per viewing. Race demands basically allow you to tune in and check the splits and you can sorta know how the race is unfolding and then check back in 2 hours. So I wonder how people actually view the race

Tune in 1 time for as long as they want

Tune in 5 different times throughout the day

Tune in final 90 mins

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With everything on Youtube now, it would be easy for Ironman to figure this part out.

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They need to do this across the whole broadcast. When they cut to racers on course there should be a name/number graphic - even the announcers would benefit from that since they were guessing as much as we were. I should not have to know a racers kit in order to identify them and on the run runners often have the race number turned around to the back. Announcer names as well. This event is 8 hrs long, nobody should be required to listen to 100% of it to figure out who is who.

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what I have heard is really happening is that you have like 3-4 people at the top that cant get on the same page and they are always conflicting with the broadcast company. For example you had a producer in boulder from IRONMAN telling the broadcasters what to do and at the same time she was getting calls saying “WTF” are you doing.. So yea..

The other thing is that most of the announcers dont want to be on site and they dont want to be in boulder.. They are willing to do it but they want to be home. So that is another challenge they are dealing with. So for example Will didnt want to go to boulder. So Rinney was in boulder all by herself calling the race..

So while Ironman does have “budgets” I dont think that is the issue on this.

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