one thing that PTO seems to be doing well (and something i’ve been really crying out for IM to do for a long time) is making good use of wildcards.For actual “world championships†I’m all for having everyone qualify the same way. Maybe some very rare exceptions but . . spots imo don’t deserve to be given as “wild cardsâ€. . . . So if they’re “regular season†events they want to invite whoever, cool. . . . when it’s an actual world championships I’m not really in favor of letting athletes in who didn’t really follow the same qualifying process, (I know validation allows some to AQ easier but they still have to race events instead of just showing up on start list + Olympic champion gets an auto start).well world triathlon calls it:
‘the official World Championship tour of long distance triathlon’. when they really mean middle distance triathlon.What I mean is that the T100 is essentially “regular” events and only the GF or the world championship actually would qualify as anything “meaningful” beyond a regular season type of event. I mentioned the exceptions, but this idea that you should fill wild cards to get the best viewing for a world championship type of 1 day event I don’t think is the best approach. If you have a qualification process, I’m not really in favor of pulling favors for athletes who “didn’t qualify”,Agree Mike, wildcards to fill the startlist back up to 20 offers a chance to athletes storming onto the scene, or if good enough, local interest - to help multiply story lines. Every one of the ‘regular’ seven T100s will afford that opportunity (I shared the math upthread but it’ll be about 4 per race (average)).
“Start number limited to 20, so 140 starts plus GF. Contracted athletes at minimum will fill 94: assumes Knibb, Duffy and Spivey race Olympics. This means there’ll be maximum 46 ‘wildcard’ slots (likely less as several will do 6 of 7 and a few 7 of 7) so say 28 slots. Divided between 7 races that’s average 4 wild cards per race.”
Agree with @pk: let’s call a spade a spade (not a shovel): this is middle distance and does not need to masquerade as ‘long distance’. There’s room for both and TRI (ex-ITU) have their Long Distance champs (this year in Townsville) decided in a ‘one day’ race (participation regulated/selected by national governing bodies).
There will be no ‘wildcards’ awarded to compete in the T100 Grand Final. All the contracted athletes (20 + 20) will be given a start slot. In addition any athlete who, as a result of their performance in one or more regular T100 races where they have been given a wildcard, has scored more T100 points than the lowest contracted athlete will get a start slot. That’s the message.
However I suspect that because some of those 20 are bound to be injured or have multiple mechanicals (no names, no pack drill) and thus score rather few points, this may be finessed slightly to specify that the parvenu will need to be above the lowest contracted athlete who has completed 3 regular events (rather than the plain last).
Think we can expect Blummenfelt and Iden, maybe Le Corre, to qualify on that basis, though maybe Iden and Le Corre will be concentrating on TaupÅ. Can’t think of any women though. Maybe one of: Stimpson, Sala, Langridge, Salthouse, Derron, Learmonth, Zaferes, Løvseth, Klamer.
https://youtu.be/kiW3RL_1dUg
What I’m personally disappointed about is not the lack of money, but rather the circle closing around a top few, and the lack of opportunities to race the world bests.
The only events that is “closed” is now the current PTO series right? Hell now that the IM series is a real thing, this is actually the opportunity for long course athletes to race each other much more often. So I think what we’ve now done is actually create events where the world’s best are racing more often. If that means the fringe guys get pinched out, so be it. But the overall health of professional ranking is much greater now than ever before. As far as I know the IM pro series is open to any professional, so now you actually have the chance to race “world class” fields in non-world championship races more often than just the world championship races.
(Of course this is all on thin ice it seems if PTO goes away, we all think IM Series as it is now will “go away” as well).
I have Vitoria and Frankfurt on my schedule. We’ll see how it turns out
I understand why it’s a downer for you potentially (less opportunity to toe the line with the stars of our sport), but even you may recognise that this is how a more major sport should function (the best racing the best more often)!
Is your brother still racing too?
Maybe I missed it, but is Malibu the suspected California round or is there another venue that’s more likely?
Sam confirmed today the CA date is not Malibu.
It’ll take a while to get used to seeing “T100” races actually on the WT website and have actual event race pages like the WTCS circuit pages have. The Miami one will be a very easy telecast assuming it’ll all be on the speedway. Should make for very easy broadcasting, the “tactics” may likely suffer, but from an feasibility standpoint- likely couldn’t ask for a better opener.
What I’m personally disappointed about is not the lack of money, but rather the circle closing around a top few, and the lack of opportunities to race the world bests.
The only events that is “closed” is now the current PTO series right? Hell now that the IM series is a real thing, this is actually the opportunity for long course athletes to race each other much more often. So I think what we’ve now done is actually create events where the world’s best are racing more often. If that means the fringe guys get pinched out, so be it. But the overall health of professional ranking is much greater now than ever before. As far as I know the IM pro series is open to any professional, so now you actually have the chance to race “world class” fields in non-world championship races more often than just the world championship races.
(Of course this is all on thin ice it seems if PTO goes away, we all think IM Series as it is now will “go away” as well).
I have Vitoria and Frankfurt on my schedule. We’ll see how it turns out
I understand why it’s a downer for you potentially (less opportunity to toe the line with the stars of our sport), but even you may recognise that this is how a more major sport should function (the best racing the best more often)!
Is your brother still racing too?
I understand why it goes this way, I’m just not excited for it as many other. I’ll be fine.
Nah he stopped after having to operate a haglund’s deformity. He’s a happy dad now. Still into endurance sports but more globally than triathlon (ski touring, ultracycling,…)
Maybe I missed it, but is Malibu the suspected California round or is there another venue that’s more likely?In the ProTriNews podcast (31 January), Renouf was asked, towards the end, about the $300k letter to Epstein and whether Malibu was on the cards. He said, not this year not next year but never say never and shared the reason behind the PTO’s support for keeping a race going in Malibu.
https://protrinews.buzzsprout.com/1736374/14395410-epsiode-149-pto-tour-2024-with-sam-renouf
The June T100 race is “southern California”. People have speculated that, given the date, the race may be San Francisco way. Twenty wetsuited athletes could get off Hornblower fairly fairly and with only 20 competitors the bike course could be televised safely with minimal moto drafting. They could fit Raceranger to the motos, with the distance set at 40m (say).
https://twitter.com/realBertBlocken/status/1545119860543340544/photo/1
Moto 40m ahead gets you a 10% power saving (@?50kph
But Renouf has said “southern” and SF that isn’t.
Sea World was a great visit, a while ago now. I had no idea (at the time) that that was Mission Bay. 50th anniversary!
On the Triathlon Hour with Jack yesterday - Renouf said it will NOT be in Malibu for sure, so there goes that theory.
Still trying to figure that venue out. It wont also be the Long Beach venue that will likely become the LA Games Olympic course because that race is middle July.
Would they do something on the San Diego Island where tri was “born” (is it called Fiesta Island that has like a decent bike loop that they could do)?
I think that would mean it would be an basically a “PTO produced” event?!?
Still trying to figure that venue out. It wont also be the Long Beach venue that will likely become the LA Games Olympic course because that race is middle July.
Would they do something on the San Diego Island where tri was “born” (is it called Fiesta Island that has like a decent bike loop that they could do)?
I think that would mean it would be an basically a “PTO produced” event?!?
Yeah I had that same thought about Fiesta Island too. It might make sense? They host the Tritonman and Mission Bay Triathlons around there - and the island would be easy to control traffic. But not sure. Escape date matches but I can’t see a good course for TT bikes in downtown SF. Like they couldn’t use the Escape bike course for a lapped course I wouldn’t think.
Still trying to figure that venue out. It wont also be the Long Beach venue that will likely become the LA Games Olympic course because that race is middle July. //
I think more than that, the fact that Super League has already made a partnership with that race. So many strange bedfellows now in race production going on, gonna be hard to figure out who will partner with who going forward. I’m sure SL is not real happy with the PTO funding the Malibu take over against their presumed ownership, so probably a tit for tat on that Long Beach race anyway.
Fiesta Island would be a much easier course than San Francisco, but easy is not always the driving factor. We have seen that these orgs will throw a lot of $$ at difficult courses, so both areas are in play, until they are not. Fiesta Island would be cool, it is basically the birthplace of modern triathlon. I think it was the 2nd race I ever did back in the late 70’s, and it was a run/bike/swim format for maximum cramping potential!!!
Still trying to figure that venue out. It wont also be the Long Beach venue that will likely become the LA Games Olympic course because that race is middle July. //
I think more than that, the fact that Super League has already made a partnership with that race. So many strange bedfellows now in race production going on, gonna be hard to figure out who will partner with who going forward. I’m sure SL is not real happy with the PTO funding the Malibu take over against their presumed ownership, so probably a tit for tat on that Long Beach race anyway.
Fiesta Island would be a much easier course than San Francisco, but easy is not always the driving factor. We have seen that these orgs will throw a lot of $$ at difficult courses, so both areas are in play, until they are not. Fiesta Island would be cool, it is basically the birthplace of modern triathlon. I think it was the 2nd race I ever did back in the late 70’s, and it was a run/bike/swim format for maximum cramping potential!!!
i’ve said before: - i think a possibility for PTO back in the day, instead of creating their own race series and taking on all the hassle that involves, would be to partner with some classics. rather than trying to reinvent the wheel there in california, go to escape from alcatraz. say to them, “hey, you guys know how to put on a great race with lots of heritage and perfect broadcast potential. wanna be the US open?” pump in extra money for prize money, signage, broadcasts, and go for it.
then look around the world and do the same with noosa? phuket? st croix? roth? zofingen? rather than getting tied to the 100k format, this would also open up possibilities for other formats and leverage some already-successful, media-friendly properties. imagine the images of kanute and jan smashing through the waves, or of ash and annie running along under the golden gate bridge. epic stuff!
A Maurten Move:
https://www.linkedin.com/...edium=member_desktop
https://protriathletes.org/...riathlon-world-tour/
Is there no getting away from the pesky stuff.
L O L that’s just great…although I guess we’ll get it in an Aussie accent (JK) vs the Americans on the IM telecasts.
Looks like the PTO USA race will be Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco on June 8. Just ran into some road closure information posted by the PTO in my neighborhood in the Inner Richmond in SF
Great scoop!
Looks like the PTO USA race will be Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco on June 8. Just ran into some road closure information posted by the PTO in my neighborhood in the Inner Richmond in SF
Would it still be the 100k distance?
So not “Southern California†haha. Las Vegas is closer to Southern California then San Francisco.
Looks like the PTO USA race will be Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco on June 8. Just ran into some road closure information posted by the PTO in my neighborhood in the Inner Richmond in SFPosted by the Professional Athletes Organization Triathlon . . . mmmm who dey OYL
https://www.escapealcatraztri.com/ (on June 9)
Looks like the PTO USA race will be Escape from Alcatraz in San Francisco on June 8. Just ran into some road closure information posted by the PTO in my neighborhood in the Inner Richmond in SFPosted by the Professional Athletes Organization Triathlon . . . mmmm who dey OYL
https://www.escapealcatraztri.com/ (on June 9)
This would be the worst bike ever to watch! Thank goodness this guy signed up today to tell us!!!