My take in this matter is similar to yours, just want to add that many AGers with good/outstanding performances choose to remain relevant in the AG and flex in social media capitalizing sponsorships and ads via influencer route, which also give a dark incentive for them to use questionable “therapies” to keep on with the performance once their bodies don’t respond to training. So in the end they live like pros but compete with average joes and their influencer peers. I was a fanatic triathlete, but life got on the way, saving to buy my first apartment as an immigrant in Sweden + career/family ambitions got on the way of spending thousands and thousands of dollars in equipment and training just to have a hobby. Planning to return to tris soon, but might only keep myself in local races and gravel triathlons, lost the motivation to join ant PTO or IM bullshit, it’s not fun anymore.
Not really, especially nowadays where you can delegate most of the work to Claude.
It’s rarer, especially for men, but it does happen. In 2025, Aracaju-Sergipe, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai Chongming, São Paulo, and Valdivia had at least one male age grouper who was faster than the 10th fastest MPRO. It’s more common in the women’s field, reflecting the fact that the FPRO field is usually weaker than the MPRO one. Even if you exclude fields with less than 15 FPRO finishers, that still leaves you with Aix-en-Provence, Chattanooga, Eagleman, Geelong, Knokke-Heist, Louisville, and Port Macquarie.
Among men, it’s the exception that no MPRO finishes slower than the M30-34 podium. In some cases, that even covers a significant fraction of the MPRO field. At Oceanside 2025, for example, 24 of the 65 male pro starters (37%) took longer to finish than 4:10:39, which was the time of Ryan Lewis, who placed 3rd in the M30-34 age group. For FPROs, failing to beat the F30-34 podium is somewhat rarer, but still happens regularly. Again, this reflects the fact that the women’s field, in this case the F30-34 age group, is generally weaker overall than the men’s field.
| Race | MPRO | FPRO | AG(m) < Top10(MPRO) | AG(f) < Top10(FPRO) | MPRO > Top3(M30) | FPRO > Top3(F30) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aix-en-Provence | 62 | 23 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Aracaju-Sergipe | 15 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| Augusta | 54 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Boise | 51 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Boulder | 41 | — | 0 | — | 6 | — |
| Brasilia | 28 | 14 | 0 | 21 | 6 | 1 |
| Chattanooga | 50 | 24 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| Cozumel | 19 | 8 | 0 | 11 | 3 | 1 |
| Eagleman | 49 | 36 | 0 | 3 | 9 | 2 |
| Ecuador | 12 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Florianopolis | 20 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Geelong | 41 | 21 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| Happy Valley | — | 30 | — | 0 | — | 1 |
| Hradec Králové | 30 | 13 | 0 | 45 | 4 | 3 |
| Italy Emilia-Romagna | 37 | — | 0 | — | 1 | — |
| Jönköping | 39 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Knokke-Heist | 31 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 0 |
| Kraichgau | 45 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Krakow | 32 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Langkawi | 20 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lapu Lapu | 8 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| La Quinta | 44 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1 |
| Louisville | 43 | 20 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Nice | 46 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oceanside (2025) | 65 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 4 |
| Oceanside (2026) | 69 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Peru | 16 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Port Macquarie | 27 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Portugal-Cascais | — | 22 | — | 0 | — | 1 |
| Poznan | 20 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 1 |
| Pucon | 19 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Rio de Janeiro | 16 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Santa Cruz | 43 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 |
| Shanghai Chongming | 12 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| São Paulo | 24 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| St. George | 62 | 32 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 2 |
| Sunshine Coast | 36 | 14 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Swansea | 38 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Tallinn | 12 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tours Metropole – Loire Valley | 23 | 9 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Valdivia | 13 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Valencia | 49 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Venice-Jesolo | 65 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 3 |
| Warsaw | 36 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Westfriesland | 40 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Zell am See-Kaprun | 52 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| World Championship | 62 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
Good on you for having the shovel to dig down on the stats. I would only add in that many of those low level races, the pros do not get paid out to 10th place, I think top 5 most the time? Unless it has changed, perhaps some more digging? (-;
Slow pro men are typically stumbling around in our early/mid 20s on a shoestring budget (or daddy’s money) and a hail mary, while M30-34 are fast because of survivorship bias in a resource-intensive sport.
Another angle here is that when a fast age grouper has a bad day, nobody notices. If you have a shocker one in five times, that’s 20% of the pro field. I think everyone agrees a pro license should be for fast people, but that doesn’t mean being more bulletproof than amateurs.
I find this pro/amateur debate interesting. Many elite/pro athletes are not really contesting for the win. Often times they were top level age groupers and they want to push themselves to the next level and go all in for a bit. Many still have to have other income or family support. So many pros are no different from top level age-group athletes. I call these people pseudo pros because they will not make a living from the sport. In my younger days - this is the space I was in. That said - look at the winning times - mens winner was 3:40, and top age-grouper was over 20 minutes back. Top female age-group was over 35 minutes back. That is a long way back from the top. Not saying these are not respectable times (of course they are). Elite age-groupers will often be able to beat back of pack “off day” pros - but if that happens I certainly wouldnt quit your day job unless you are really close to the pros on the podium. In the meantime - keep enjoying the sport and pushing for improvment. Tons of healthy competition in the age-group ranks will keep you motivated. And if you discover during the process that your blessed with world-class talent - get your pro card and go for it.
I love that you are using “chasing a pro card” as a motivator. Seems like you have been blessed with decent talent - and maybe with the right work/life balance, you can get the times you need to qualify in the US for your card. In your case - that might be your “win or podium or gold medal”. I think that’s great. Go for it!!
Although I think that the lack of “proper” club structure might be a small part of it (I mean, we have clubs, they’re just very much adult-focused and still mostly long course oriented), and most triathletes in the US fall into it after either swimming / running / in limited quantities, MTB or cycling in high school or college, evidence is pointing more towards a bigger shift in consumer mindset for lifestyle purchases / experiences. Because it’s not just in tri.
More to come. Maybe this week I can get enough brain space to write.
When I raced in Kona, I was on the run and a gal caught up to me and wanted to know if she could run with me. I said sure. She said she’d asked because she’d been told that the rules said you couldn’t be near anyone. Come to find out, this was her first ever tri - she’d been at a New Year’s Eve party and a friend of hers was a triathlete and talked her and her boyfriend into entering the lottery. She didn’t even own a bike at the time she entered the lottery. She finished. And she thought the bike rules also applied to the run.
proving that data can tell any story you want it to, especially when not considering variables impacting said data. Significant impact to AG times include: swim dynamics pro v AG, 20m v. 12m draft zones, AG drafting, and impacts of ‘sling-shot’ drafting cycling through a field. Then, impacts for faster runs based on easier bike due to said drafting.
It is not a comparable data set.
I wanted to weigh-in on this conversation too. I’m a current pro (Matt Guenter), taking my pro card in 2024 after qualifying in 2022 and 2023, winning 3x 70.3 Amateur races & USAT Nationals. I had received some frustration by the end of 2023 on why haven’t I turned pro yet. I wanted the challenge and stepped up to race at the next level.
It’s been an adjustment since turning pro. I’ve had some good races (Michigan 70.3 2024, 12th, Boise & Louisville 2025, 19th/12th respectively). I’ve had some tough days too. Flat tires, sprained ankles, etc. I’ve been beaten by top amateurs at some of these races. Should I have DNF’d instead of finishing the race because I don’t want an amateur to beat me?
This has weighed on me in doing my first full for awhile now. It’s a lot easier to do a full as an top amateur - you have a bad race, walk the last 6 miles in, nobody notices. No Slowtwitch articles about the top amateurs beating you.
Eliminating races that lower-tier pros can go to sounds good, but is challenging. I work a full time job, and I have a life outside of triathlon. If you’re limiting which races I can go to even more (take a look at how many pro races are available now compared to 10 years ago), I may only be able to race 3 or 4 times per year.
I agree that the pro-field has maybe a little too many folks in it - but judging any one athlete on one race is a tough look. Should we judge athletes readiness to be in a pro field by continuing on after a crash and getting beat by amateurs (Brock Hoel this past weekend). The women’s last place pro is 1-year post-partum (at least from what I’ve seen online) - should we put them down because they were beat by 30 women?
My biggest issue is the qualification system, similar to K-Rad above. The points system to qualify is now disproportionally affecting women, allowing fewer women to claim their pro cards. Where until 2024, Men and Women received USAT scores for their gender, they now receive the same score - so a man and a woman going 5:00:00 in the same 70.3 will receive the same score, instead of the woman receiving a gender-adjusted score. Yes, the thresholds for pro cards are lower for the women, but the spread from top man to top woman is higher in more challenging courses than this adjustment accounts for. BLUF: More men qualify for their pro card yearly via the points method than women by a large amount. This is even worse when you see the pro field #s for men vs women - we should be encouraging more women to qualify for their pro card, so the fields aren’t 80 men and 30 women.
Lots of words by me here. Bottom line is, I think we should commend all the amateurs for their top results at Oceanside. We don’t know what happened to those back of the pack pros - maybe they flatted. Maybe they bonked. Maybe they should race amateur! But blanketly saying they shouldn’t be racing at the highest level is too nearsighted, and fails to realize what results they had put in at the amateur level to get there. Well done to everyone that raced last weekend.
Yes, I agree. The sport has gotten too commercialized in ways. But, what you said is interesting - I had no idea about the ‘influencer’ side of things. Though, I am not surprised. I would be surprised if many of them were making ‘serious’ money out of it. Some probably are. Most not. It’s the modern ‘keeping-up-with-the-jones’s’ (a somewhat dated term here in the states) behavior that is sadly all the rage worldwide and is causing serious mental issues and more…. Also, I want it to be known, that not all AGers are like this. There are many normal blokes that are just good. It’s not easy being a pro at all.
Just my two cents:
The “professional” amateur thing has been around for a long while. Anybody remember the old Timex or Snapple teams? Or, heck, the sizable Rev3 one? We all wound up with a metric crapton of product and deals thrown our way, which was significantly more valuable than whatever some of these folks would have wound up with if they had taken their respective pro cards (or what they did wind up with when they did take those cards).
What’s mostly changed is how people engage with that content, as it’s moved from mostly text and image heavy formats to video or audio; YouTube / Instagram / podcasts instead of Facebook and Twitter.
I just accept the Collab invite 
Love Tamara we have some really good conversations.
Too bad ST doubled down in their IG stories though.
Pedro may be from Portugal, but c’mon he’s as Arizona as they come.
I came to this thread expecting to read about “some fast amateurs at Oceanside” and celebrating their speed and success.
To quote “I wanted to talk about was the success of the age group race.”
I fear that introducing the speed and failure of the slower MPros and WPros as a benchmark distracted from that.
“Julia Day . . fastest age-group woman, finished in 4:36:49 — ahead of 10 female pros. . . . The pros she beat included . . .”
So the article really was not about “some fast amateurs” it ‘switched fire’ to the pro-am boundary
"First, as the depth of age group triathlon continues to grow. The athletes at the front of age group fields are legitimately fast — fast enough that the line between amateur and professional is thinner than it’s ever been. So what will that mean moving forward?
There isn’t a “line between” this is a set overlap. In the US is this partly driven by so few non-IM brand races for the new or weaker pros to race?
"Second, the women’s pro field at Oceanside was deep at the top ([list]) but had a long tail. When 70 age-group women finish ahead of at least one pro, it raises the question of what the pro card really means.
No, it reflects that at least one WPro (and at least one MPro too btw) had problems in this race, but finished. One assumes that both were already in the bottom decile of the pro performance cohort.
@TriChris14: “many pros are ‘racing to win OR make money’ . . . low level pros may be forced to wear / use inferior equipment” This is b***x. “Forced!?” Which bikes are you talking about? Trainers? Come on; spit out examples.
@monty: “We also have to keep in mind that in these Ironman events there are a lot of foreign pros, where in their countries it is gobs easier to get a pro card.” But the tail in these USA races are nearly all NA athletes (eg the bottom 14 MPros except Chevalier; the bottom 10 WPros except Ryter). Not sure what your point is. The “gobs easier” forriners are not in the tail.
IMO those standards in 2011-2014 were some of the hardest. You had to be within 8% of the overall winner in at least 3 races in a calendar year with prize purse of over ~$20k. That was back when south beach tri, st Anthony’s, and captex were major pro races and for ag’ers. Ag’ers would purposely seek out those races in order to get their pro cards. They were very competitive and exciting races as an ag’er. There weren’t as many IM branded races back then so getting top 3 in an amateur field was really challenging as well.
USAT lightened the reins up in 2018-2019 and added the USAT scoring criteria.
Not sure what you were looking at, but of the bottom 22 guys(those that came in near or well behind the lead woman) I count 12 from foreign countries…
And 2 of the bottom 6 women were foreign, and 5 out of 6 of the DNF’s too. Seems like the tail is more foreign than you let on?
There were both hard and soft requirements back in the day because they had so many different pathways along with more racing distances that would qualify. Olympic non-draft is basically almost non-existent now within prize purses, and so the scoring criteria sorta had to be added by default.
The new rule about not needing a elite card to enter ITU Conti Cups will be a very interesting development to see if that gets more younger people willing to travel more for itu races in CAN/MEX/Caribbean. It’s still mind boggling that the US has only 1 CC, when it would for decade plus max out it’s allottment of 3 every year.
One thing I disagree with Mark from PTN. WT could never create a “global” pro standard because there’s so much diversity within it’s federation members. There are far more “developing” federations that make up WT than A level federations, by probaly 5x as many (there is 172 recognized federations in WT)….it’s just that those federations never get athletes past CC level of pro racing. An US pro and an Egyptian pro or Aussie pro aren’t even close to being the same athlete generally. So it would simply mean they would have the make the standard so low it wouldn’t even be worth doing. But again if you put it on IM, it just means more work for them.