T100 *London* Hot Takes

Triathlon Forum
1

I thought this would be fun. Let’s hear your hot takes… add or disagree below!

  1. LCB is best of the rest
  2. Sam Laidlow was practicing for Kona by not wearing his wetsuit, and doesn’t care about T100. Just had a good day.
  3. T100 broadcast is only marginally better than IM, and the viewer count is so underwhelming that IM probably has made a smart business decision.
  4. Most T100 big name athletes appear to use these races as training for their “A” races… which are almost all full distance races.
  5. Commentators should not be promoting brands that sponsor them personally on a broadcast.
  6. St Moritz training camp sounds sketchy
2

I thought this would be fun. Let’s hear your hot takes… add or disagree below!

  1. LCB is best of the rest
  2. Sam Laidlow was practicing for Kona by not wearing his wetsuit, and doesn’t care about T100. Just had a good day.
  3. T100 broadcast is only marginally better than IM, and the viewer count is so underwhelming that IM probably has made a smart business decision.
  4. Most T100 big name athletes appear to use these races as training for their “A” races… which are almost all full distance races.
  5. Commentators should not be promoting brands that sponsor them personally on a broadcast.
  6. St Moritz training camp sounds sketchy
  7. Could not disagree more. The broadcast is so much better, but fair point on the viewer count.
  8. That’s just where Baekegard lives now so not really that sketchy.

A decidedly not hot take is that T100 needs to get their shit together with penalties. It’s beyond a joke right now.

3

T100 puts on a perfectly acceptable triathlon livestream.

The problem is that’s not the comparator; an IM broadcast isn’t their competition. It’s big sport broadcasts on traditional and streaming platforms. And against that metric, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be for a polished product.

They still should hire a “normal” broadcaster to sit in the spot, then have Jack / Jan / Belinda / whomever else as talking heads. Someone who knows how to host for 3+ hours and bounce around.

4

For a company that’s entire market thesis is based on creating a product for television, the T100 has created some of the most visually unappealing triathlons ever. Who thought this course was a good idea?

5

T100 puts on a perfectly acceptable triathlon livestream.

The problem is that’s not the comparator; an IM broadcast isn’t their competition. It’s big sport broadcasts on traditional and streaming platforms. And against that metric, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be for a polished product.

They still should hire a “normal” broadcaster to sit in the spot, then have Jack / Jan / Belinda / whomever else as talking heads. Someone who knows how to host for 3+ hours and bounce around.

Great points. It was only broadcast on YouTube which is really sad I think. Who’s going to stumble on that? Second, they didn’t even know LCB had DNF’d. What good is that if they’re seeing what we see? Third, why can’t we have actual live tracking? Fourth, what’s sorely missing is an overhead aerial shot. Helicopters are expensive I know but drones could work too. Show us where everyone is. Or at least use live tracking and make a map like on Zwift

6

All of these things cost a pretty penny. And ultimately I think where the PTO erred was in trying to create these owned / operated events, instead of piggybacking on the logistics, etc. of a well oiled race production company.

Like, had the 8 PTO races (and not just focused on this one distance) been something like a mix of:
–Ibiza
–Roth
–IM 70.3 Worlds
–Nice / Kona
–Oceanside
–two other things

And they focused on telling stories out of it, and creating the broadcast rights for them…there would have been more synergy, and more money, for the broadcast itself.

But…here we are.

I want the PTO to work. I really do. But I’m skeptical given we’re over a decade into the various iterations of it.

7

For a company that’s entire market thesis is based on creating a product for television, the T100 has created some of the most visually unappealing triathlons ever. Who thought this course was a good idea?

quite. edmonton and dallas looked ugly, too.

i’ve said for a while that one idea was that, from the beginning, PTO shouldn’t have tried to re-invent the wheel. instead they should have bought or partnered with a handful of well-established “classics,” that are really photogenic and well-loved and have good event teams in place. then your ‘world tour’ is made up of
-st croix
-escape from alcatraz
-noosa
-phuket
you could throw in some other cool ones in there, like embrun, alpe d’huez, or - please - roth. throw in a du like zofingen or a draft-legal race around downtown course like hamburg. whatever. but capitalize on destinations that look great on camera if you’re aiming for a broadcast product.

8

For a company that’s entire market thesis is based on creating a product for television, the T100 has created some of the most visually unappealing triathlons ever. Who thought this course was a good idea?

quite. edmonton and dallas looked ugly, too.

i’ve said for a while that one idea was that, from the beginning, PTO shouldn’t have tried to re-invent the wheel. instead they should have bought or partnered with a handful of well-established “classics,” that are really photogenic and well-loved and have good event teams in place. then your ‘world tour’ is made up of
-st croix
-escape from alcatraz
-noosa
-phuket
you could throw in some other cool ones in there, like embrun, alpe d’huez, or - please - roth. throw in a du like zofingen or a draft-legal race around downtown course like hamburg. whatever. but capitalize on destinations that look great on camera if you’re aiming for a broadcast product.

Agreed and likely significantly cheaper.

I can’t imagine their investors putting up money for another year of this. Been an epic fail so far on so many levels.

9

A decidedly not hot take is that T100 needs to get their shit together with penalties. It’s beyond a joke right now.

agreed.
during the london broadcast, the commentators were openly joking about it: “what do you have to do to get a drafting penalty here?” it’s a horrible look.

on the other hand, i’d say IM doesn’t that their shit together either, in this regard. between lionel’s “invisible center line,” long’s “three-abreast pass,” braden’s “littering,” baekkegard’s “mystery penalty” at st.george, laidlow’s “dq’d but validated” experience a few weeks ago, etc etc. there are just so many examples of ironman making calls that are totally unclear at big, important races.

you need to be able to write the rules on a postcard, enforce them consistently, and know with total confidence that the first person across the line is the winner.

10
  1. Honestly i thought LCB was going to smoke this, but looks like 140.6 is more her thing, and the about turn and going Nice, twice no less, seems to me she is not as committed to this as at the beginning.

Completely agree on 2. Been no where all season so far with these, and looking like he will be in A+ shape for Kona.

  1. Said it before, here elsewhere. Some of the athletes are taking the PTO for a ride, collecting the 70k $ cheque and doing the absolute minimum to pass the contract conditions, paid to train? accommodation paid for, pools sessions organised. Who wouldn’t I suppose!

Only the top 5 should be getting automatic tickets for 2025. The wild cards have been great, some real hungry people out there for results.

  1. I’m actually surprised by Jans restraint on mentioning his ryzon brand tbh.

  2. What did I miss?

My hot take:
T100 is not feasible as a TV sport. Will be gone in its current form for 2026. We love it, it’s a delight to watch, but for Bob from Wolverhampton who watches sport on a Saturday afternoon with a cold one, he just can’t relate to the skin tight Lycra and disc wheels. I hope to be proved wrong.

11

Another hot take I was going to add is that Race Ranger isn’t ready for these races. How many times now has RR failed in T100 or pro series races? What good is having it if it doesn’t work, and when it does work, it’s not used

12

My hot take:
T100 is not feasible as a TV sport. Will be gone in its current form for 2026. We love it, it’s a delight to watch, but for Bob from Wolverhampton who watches sport on a Saturday afternoon with a cold one, he just can’t relate to the skin tight Lycra and disc wheels. I hope to be proved wrong.

I don’t know Bob, but I agree 100% that this is not a mainstream product. I’m a triathlon fan and consume way too much tri media, but these races get boring in the middle as 20 athletes roll around on loops not making many moves. Maybe more people are needed to make it more exciting. Would also be interesting to make more competitions in the competition, like sprint bonuses in the Tour, to spice up the event. It’s not must see watching, it is check in every now and then and see if things have changed. Bike races also have long stretches of not much happening but then they really heat up in the final 30 minutes. I don’t get that feeling of excitement with these races, minus the men’s SF finish.

13
  1. Honestly i thought LCB was going to smoke this, but looks like 140.6 is more her thing, and the about turn and going Nice, twice no less, seems to me she is not as committed to this as at the beginning.

Actually I think we’ll see this change. I think we’ve seen that she’s an excellent swimmer and that her biking was better than most others. I think the run in Kona last year was an anomaly. Now it seems like there has been a shift in focus to the bike and I think her advantage in the swim will result in something similar to what we saw in London and in Singapore. Nice will exacerbate this even more I think.

Completely agree on 2. Been no where all season so far with these, and looking like he will be in A+ shape for Kona.

Actually, to be honest, I think this is a deeper problem for the T100. Same as point #4 below. Basically most of their stars would choose full distance over weird middle distance any day. Think about who is going all in for this series… a bunch of wild cards and a few top 70.3 pros who weren’t really known until t100 started. Magnus, Laidlow, RvB, Leon Chavellier, Clement Mignon, Max Neumann, Anne Haug, Kat Matthews, even Lucy CB, Laura Phillip, Chelsea Sodaro. All of these guys and girls would choose full distance in a heart beat, I have to believe, and they’re being forced to race a weird combination of short course and middle distance.

  1. What did I miss?
    Just that Daniel Backagaard, Kyle Smith, Rico Bogan, Fred Funk all decided to train together leading up to T100 London in St Moritz.

My hot take:
T100 is not feasible as a TV sport. Will be gone in its current form for 2026. We love it, it’s a delight to watch, but for Bob from Wolverhampton who watches sport on a Saturday afternoon with a cold one, he just can’t relate to the skin tight Lycra and disc wheels. I hope to be proved wrong.
I feel the bigger issue is that Bob will never stumble on it. If he’s not on YouTube searching for the live stream, he’ll never watch it.

14

That London course was terrible.

15

I’ve seen a lot of comments doubting that this will still be a thing in 2026. Why are we so certain that it’ll be a thing in 2025?

16

+1 this is a great idea. Especially alpe d’huez. That would be very fun.

17
  1. Honestly i thought LCB was going to smoke this, but looks like 140.6 is more her thing, and the about turn and going Nice, twice no less, seems to me she is not as committed to this as at the beginning.

Actually I think we’ll see this change. I think we’ve seen that she’s an excellent swimmer and that her biking was better than most others. I think the run in Kona last year was an anomaly. Now it seems like there has been a shift in focus to the bike and I think her advantage in the swim will result in something similar to what we saw in London and in Singapore. Nice will exacerbate this even more I think.

Completely agree on 2. Been no where all season so far with these, and looking like he will be in A+ shape for Kona.

Actually, to be honest, I think this is a deeper problem for the T100. Same as point #4 below. Basically most of their stars would choose full distance over weird middle distance any day. Think about who is going all in for this series… a bunch of wild cards and a few top 70.3 pros who weren’t really known until t100 started. Magnus, Laidlow, RvB, Leon Chavellier, Clement Mignon, Max Neumann, Anne Haug, Kat Matthews, even Lucy CB, Laura Phillip, Chelsea Sodaro. All of these guys and girls would choose full distance in a heart beat, I have to believe, and they’re being forced to race a weird combination of short course and middle distance.

  1. What did I miss?
    Just that Daniel Backagaard, Kyle Smith, Rico Bogan, Fred Funk all decided to train together leading up to T100 London in St Moritz.

My hot take:
T100 is not feasible as a TV sport. Will be gone in its current form for 2026. We love it, it’s a delight to watch, but for Bob from Wolverhampton who watches sport on a Saturday afternoon with a cold one, he just can’t relate to the skin tight Lycra and disc wheels. I hope to be proved wrong.
I feel the bigger issue is that Bob will never stumble on it. If he’s not on YouTube searching for the live stream, he’ll never watch it.

i’ve said this many times. who exactly is the broadcast for? is it just for us triathlon nerds? if so, i mean, we’ll watch bloody anything.

but if it’s supposed to be for a general audience, you can’t run it as a live 4-hour stream buried on a niche youtube channel (or, worse yet, a paid/subscription service). you need to produce it into a 1-hour package with only the exciting bits, interspersed with brief pre-recorded stuff: interviews, tours of the course, etc. then you bookend that with some content designed to introduce us to the athletes and the “season-long narrative” in a separate set of “behind the scenes” videos.

18
  1. What did I miss?
    Just that Daniel Backagaard, Kyle Smith, Rico Bogan, Fred Funk all decided to train together leading up to T100 London in St Moritz.

A very good training camp, worked very well for them.

19

i’ve said this many times. who exactly is the broadcast for? is it just for us triathlon nerds? if so, i mean, we’ll watch bloody anything.

but if it’s supposed to be for a general audience, you can’t run it as a live 4-hour stream buried on a niche youtube channel (or, worse yet, a paid/subscription service). you need to produce it into a 1-hour package with only the exciting bits, interspersed with brief pre-recorded stuff: interviews, tours of the course, etc. then you bookend that with some content designed to introduce us to the athletes and the “season-long narrative” in a separate set of “behind the scenes” videos.

Yep.

(Also, it’s called Supertri, formerly Super League).

20

My Hot Take is finding it amazing that while people are saying Magnus’ performance might have been hampered by his Roth effort, nobody has mentioned that Sam won in London only two weeks after a sub 7:40 effort at IM Vitoria-Gasteiz . Bloody amazing result if you ask me.