Pro's thoughts on WCS - Blunt!

Triathlon Forum
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From the mouth (blog) of recently-interviewed-by-Herb Matt Chrabot. I like his honesty and mostly agree with him. The ITU races shouldn’t be all about the run…then it’s not a day where the best ‘triathlete’ wins. Just my thoughts…

http://chrabot.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-get-what-you-pay-for-thats-freakin.html

"Yesterday in the race briefing the ITU reamed us out for acting like goofballs on the bike in London and not creating enough buzz with the media.

First of all, I think the ITU has come a long way, and is doing an excellent job. I’m glad to see the athletes are really starting to engage themselves with the age group athletes, etc. Now that I got that out of the way, here’s what I’m really going to write about.

You want real trash talk, just put a microphone in the middle of the bike pack…you’ll have to bleep out half the words for TV though…

The ITU and media want exciting races. Big City, Big Crowds. BC. All the WCS races seem like they’re modeling after the final day of the Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées. The first half of the race is all smiles and waves, the last 20Km is all out racing. There’s the beautiful scenery of Paris, but it’s designed for the sprinters. Only a handful of guys have a legit shot at the win. Breakaways rarely succeed that day.

With the courses we’re racing on, it reminds of exactly that. Accept we get yelled at for waving at the camera and crowds. Big City, Big Crowds? It ends up being Boring, Crappy racing. You don’t need incredible background scenery to come up with an epic race. It’s the same thing every time. The same guys in the top 10. If the viewers want to watch something with beautiful background scenery, don’t you think they’d watch the Discovery Channel instead?

Sure, let’s have the races like Hamburg and London, but how about a killer race course like the Escape from Alcatraz? Only the strongest, most well round triathletes will shine. Maybe the same guys who place in the Top 10 will still all be in the top 10. We can only speculate for now.

As of right now the athletes representing the rest of us are also some of the most successful guys in the sport. Not only that, but you guys work your ass off, and I fully commend you on that. Thanks for all your hard work and what you do. They’re badasses, but the guys are sort of like the sprinters racing on the Champs-Élysées. Now, if we race on one or two impossibly hard courses a year, you might have to take a pay cut if you can’t hang and not get your usual top 10 finish, or just skip that one in the series. And no, I don’t feel like running for a committee anytime soon.

Tomorrow we’re racing in the beautiful town of Kitzbuehel…in a valley surrounded by alps and epic climbs. There won’t be any of that in our race though. You’ll see it in the background, but we won’t be there. I’m not suggesting we race on more dangerous courses, but if the racing is going to be more exciting, we’re going to have to race challenging courses.

Ok, tomorrow will be tough, especially if it rains like last year. Cold, wet, windy, rainy….miserable. (Man, that was hard! I didn’t even make the main pack! )What the television viewers really want to see are ocean swims with giant surf, long steep climbs, technical bike courses (quit it with the 180 degree turns already), and hilly runs. Challenging courses that will rip the race to shreds because they’re hard, not because it’s dangerous and guys are crashing.

Oh, not all the athletes will like a hard race? Then stay home you sissy.

Now, back to preparing for tomorrow’s race…"

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I starting to really like this guy and agree with just about everything he said here. ITU races (for the most part) are pretty boring on TV. If they could just find a way to make the bike meaningful…right now it’s just a warm up to a glorified 10K.

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I’ve tried to watch these races on TV, and, even with nothing else on worth watching, can’t watch more than a few minutes. The banter by the announcers is stolen right from the TDF…“Oh, he’s got a gap”…“Oh, there’s the chase”…etc. Even showing the lead guy’s time with a “gap” to the others. Yeah, like 1 or 2 seconds. Then, basically a 10k for the top 10 or so guys. Not for me.

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Yes totally! The fact that this type of racing is what represents triathlon at the “pinnacle” of the sport (olympics) is absurd to me. It’s a track and field event.

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Totally agree. Great to have a few “fast” courses but there should be a lot more variety to make it more interesting. Otherwise, it is too much like groundhog day. Alcatraz would be a great choice!

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Yep. Goes something like this.
Record 1 1/2 hour show.
Watch start, fast forward to T1, watch, fast forward through bike, stop, rewind and watch if there is a crash, fast forward to T2. Watch all of run.

Ok, I admit it, I will watch more of the women on the bike then the men, but for different reasons…

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But, even the run isn’t really all that exciting, unitl you get to the finish
.

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At least its better than non-draft where all that matters is the bike. Swim warm up for 40km TT followed by a 10km hold on for dear life.
Its a much more balanced triathlon, and if anybody disagrees than come train with me this winter.
Matt does speak the truth though, the races need to be tougher, nobody likes 5 180s in a course or out and backs.

The race tomorrow in Kitzbuhel will be different.

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Swim, run, bike.

Or, better, swim, run, bike, run. Add a final 1 mile run after the bike to eliminate bike sprint finishes. Now, that would be exciting. A meaningful swim and run. A lot of solo chasing on the bike. And then a sick final mile run. That would be sweet.

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Spot on. The best course I can remember in recent years was the Greece Olympics… tough as hell.

The better cyclists are best served to move to 70.3 or IM with the way the ITU currently picks courses…

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What will I notice if I come train with you this winter??

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Why do you believe the race tomorrow will be different? From what I’ve seen/heard, it is an “easy” course as well.

Drew

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What will I notice if I come train with you this winter??

Less bike volume than my 12 year old cousin.

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I believe that is Chrabot’s intention eventually from what I’ve read.

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Many of the top ITU guys are the best all round “triathletes” in the world, so why not make the olympic racing a real triathlon (non-draft, 1/2 to 3/4 iron distance, 15 meter draft zone staggered, challenging course, more than enough draft marshals on the course) and not an aqua bike? This way these guys would be funded by their countries to pursue a real race, instead of being forced to train for these Aqua-Runs they are doing.

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Just a guess, but I’m thinking they want the marathon to be the longest event in the olympics, so they aren’t going to go to a half ironman format.

edit: Wait a second, don’t they do speed walking marathon too? That throws my entire theory out the window. I have no clue.

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Many of the top ITU guys are the best all round “triathletes” in the world, so why not make the olympic racing a real triathlon (non-draft, 1/2 to 3/4 iron distance, 15 meter draft zone staggered, challenging course, more than enough draft marshals on the course) and not an aqua bike? This way these guys would be funded by their countries to pursue a real race, instead of being forced to train for these Aqua-Runs they are doing.

Why does it have to be long.

Sprint distance is plenty long enough as an endurance sport.

What’s the fuss with longer races.

Agreed on course difficulty - but you can have a very difficult short course race.

Longer races certainly haven’t reduced drafting. WTC races are a joke.

Triathlon started out as draft legal. Who’s to say what is real triathlon and what isn’t?

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“Triathlon started out as draft legal. Who’s to say what is real triathlon and what isn’t?”

Because apparently (like much of what we do) if Americans are into it–it must be THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD. Unfortunately, sometimes people in the US forget that there are a few other people out there that have different preferences than us. The London ITU WCS race a few weeks ago had viewer numbers on BBC only behind soccer and F1–which are really big deal sports in Europe.

What does this mean?

Well, for those who live inside the Ironmanfantasyland of the US, very little. But for those of us who race triathlon as a career, it means that the most competitive races are–brace yourself–ITU events! I’m sorry to burst bubbles, but WCS races have the highest level of competition in triathlon (and so we don’t get it twisted, triathlon means swimming, biking and running–in any distance, order, whatever). In other words, the reason Olympic triathlon is draft-legal and 1.5/40/10 is because that’s the distance where the fastest athletes are. Love it (most of the world) or hate it (US Ironworld), that’s the reality. That is the highest level of the sport.

Flip it around, stretch it, change the order, whatever. Someone has to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say, “this will be the highest level race” and we will put this in the Olympics and the best will race for the highest accolades of sport in the world–not “the highest accolades of US-based magazines”. I know we live in a culture where everyone wants to be a winner, so we have different categories for ages, weights, hair color, etc.–which really is a good thing for 99% of people–but at the pointy end, at the end where guys run under 29 for open 10ks, things have to be a bit different.

If you think ITU racing is boring to watch, well that’s another issue. Some people like black licorice, and I don’t–it doesn’t mean people who like black licorice are wrong, or idiots or anything. Just different strokes for different folks.

“Less bike volume than my 12-year old cousin”

Obviously you’re being hyperbolic, but really? Jarrod was an Olympian. If Jarrod does less bike volume than you deem necessary (and I assume you have years of coaching to back up this critique), then if I were you, I would probably re-evaluate your training regimen. Or realize he’s racing a style of racing and at a level you have no clue about. If Lagat did less mileage while training for the 1500m than you do for your local half marathon, would you call him out for “not running enough”? Doubtful.

Finally, just to clarify what Matt was saying: He was trying to point out that the current WCS courses favor a certain kind of athlete. Not a worse kind of athlete. Not a less complete athlete. Not that it makes the bike “easy” and meaningless–he definitely didn’t mean that. He meant that it’s like one stage of the Tour de France whereas the WCS should be more like the entire Tour de France. Chances are good that we’d see 90% of the same guys in the top ten if they were crazy hill-fests–no doubt the fastest guys would adapt to whatever challenges they are thrown. But at least there would be a few surprises along the way–that’s all.

If you like what Matt (or Jarrod, or me) has to say and the way we race, then support us, cheer for us, and buy from our (fantastic!) sponsors. If you don’t, then disagree and tell us why (but still buy from our fantastic sponsors…haha)–we may be good triathletes, but we still might not understand why you like black licorice!

Ew.

PS. Tune in for WCS Kitzbuhel today (or this morning) at http://www.triathlon.org/tv - it’s free, and you’ll definitely see one crazy (possibly crash-ridden) course!

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Great post CF.

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It would be interesting to see how ensuring that the courses were tougher on the bike would change things up. In the pre-draft legal era there were a lot of really good world championship battles that shaped up when trying to figure out if the fast swimmer would get caught or the breakaway cyclist would get reeled in. With the flat courses, you need to be a really fast swimmer so that you don’t miss the lead group and a good enough biker to hang in the group and then you have to be able to run like the wind. Being an outstanding cyclist is pointless (and so is the swimming since it would be a waste of energy to come out a minute ahead like some of the speedsters did 20 years ago). Triathlon Canada has time standards for swimming and running for their developmental plan and nothing with respect to cycling which indicates where the focus needs to be. With tougher courses, like they had in Athens, the strong cyclists could break away even with drafting allowed and the weaker cyclists wouldn’t be able to hang with the group so placings and tactics would have to change a lot.