Lucy raced 4 times last year after starting and ending the season with an injury… I don’t think she’s going to be the exception to any rule about racing 8-10 times this year.
Lucy raced 4 times last year after starting and ending the season with an injury… I don’t think she’s going to be the exception to any rule about racing 8-10 times this year.
What I meant was LCB is probably the only (long distance pro) exception that has clearly stated she is only racing T-100 and middle distances (IM)
Think everyone else will probably dabble in both , although not everyone has stated their intentions for 2024
Lucy raced 4 times last year after starting and ending the season with an injury… I don’t think she’s going to be the exception to any rule about racing 8-10 times this year.
What I meant was LCB is probably the only (long distance pro) exception that has clearly stated she is only racing T-100 and middle distances (IM)
Think everyone else will probably dabble in both , although not everyone has stated their intentions for 2024
Ah. Sounds like Ashleigh might also be all in for t100. And not sure if we have plans from Paula yet?
Lucy raced 4 times last year after starting and ending the season with an injury… I don’t think she’s going to be the exception to any rule about racing 8-10 times this year.
What I meant was LCB is probably the only (long distance pro) exception that has clearly stated she is only racing T-100 and middle distances (IM)
Think everyone else will probably dabble in both , although not everyone has stated their intentions for 2024
Ah. Sounds like Ashleigh might also be all in for t100. And not sure if we have plans from Paula yet?
Think middle distance specialist will go all in and maybe 70.3 worlds. It’s lucrative so where else will they go
This. Absolutely this
Think middle distance specialist will go all in and maybe 70.3 worlds. It’s lucrative so where else will they goThis. Absolutely this. The money is actually irrelevant: the contract requires them to race 6 times. They “can’t” or won’t race 140.6. If they have a T100 contract: race. If not already qualified, slot in a 70.3 to get a Taupo start before or after ‘northern California’ (8 June) - NB must be by 30 June.
Gentle raced 8 times last year. Findlay (next MD only athlete in rankings) raced 7 times.
T100 x 6 (incl GF) a 70.3 and Taupo is entirely doable. Can’t help thinking Knibb will be fresher than Gentle come late November (GF) and December (NZ).
Don’t see a Magnus thread, but thought this video would be of interest to folks:
Don’t see a Magnus thread, but thought this video would be of interest to folks:
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Magnus is a cool dude.He takes “laid-back” to a whole new level
T100 Tour - Behind The Scenes Untold Stories with Sam Renouf:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pto-tour-behind-the-scenes-untold-stories-with-sam-renouf/id1595443343?
More from Renouf with Kelly asking short questions, for those with curiosity AND patience.
Principles:
Season long narrativeSeries ties togetherLocations - importanceAthlete group consistency (fan base and media support)Prestige (money important, authenticity with TRI)Technology (HR, power for near-real time broadcast/second screen)
Brand clarity/identity
Events building to festival multisport participation, grow sport
This got me thinking. Let’s say 50% of the t100 racers go out and qualify for Taupo. December comes around and they think they want to race, but things don’t come together and one by one they bail. Does IM offer roll downs if there is time?
T100 Tour - Behind The Scenes Untold Stories with Sam Renouf:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pto-tour-behind-the-scenes-untold-stories-with-sam-renouf/id1595443343?
More from Renouf with Kelly asking short questions, for those with curiosity AND patience.
Principles:
Season long narrativeSeries ties togetherLocations - importanceAthlete group consistency (fan base and media support)Prestige (money important, authenticity with TRI)Technology (HR, power for near-real time broadcast/second screen)
Brand clarity/identity
Events building to festival multisport participation, grow sport
Was thinking about this whole “season long narrative” and I think this idea that you can create one becomes incredibly tough. it’s one thing to have a 6 month season and you play a match every weekend or 4 games/week. But this “regular season” is 7 races over 6 months and then a final.
-“prestige” - potential
-“Technology” - this had been a struggle, they need to work on graphicl representative before the second screen. But they need more timing mats to make the second screen worth it…and it needs to be accurate. Milwaukee showed that comms can’t even read the tracker and make accurate predictions.
-Brand Clarity? Changing your name every few years doesn’t create such. Have to be consistent.
- Event building will be interesting. We’ll see.
I think the season long narrative is more that there finally is an series where the top names and the same athletes race against each other over and over or what 5 out of 8 times a year. Again it’s basically WTCS 2.0, which is exactly what you want when you are marketing a brand…Consistency. That’s what the season long narrative is basically going to allow, you know for the most part that XYZ athlete is going to be there with every telecast.
I think the season long narrative is more that there finally is an series where the top names and the same athletes race against each other over and over or what 5 out of 8 times a year. Again it’s basically WTCS 2.0, which is exactly what you want when you are marketing a brand…Consistency. That’s what the season long narrative is basically going to allow, you know for the most part that XYZ athlete is going to be there with every telecast.
I struggle with the idea that this didn’t happen in Ironman. Sure, Ironman could have supported less pro racing and have bigger purses in certain races instead. But that means a smaller professional sport. Do you want this to be a small and incredibly niche sport or do you want it to be expansive? For example, look at professional marathoning. There isn’t a narrative whatsoever. The “Majors” are a series over two years, not one.
I think what people are trying to achieve with the narrative bit are overthinking this. One of the reasons you get a narrative in say Golf and Tennis is that these folks play A LOT. Similar to team sports.
That’s not what we’re getting going to get here due to the volume required to train and then compete.
I’m interested to see how this plays out, but wonder how conflated it will be and if it looks more like “the bachelor”.
It’s not happened in IM because there’s never been an directive to make it happen (you have guys that race 3 times a year and win the world’s biggest races; there is zero “season” narrative in LC racing prior to this). That’s why I said this is WTCS 2.0. This is the same 30 athletes racing each other 5 times a year. That’s huge for a product that is trying to make it “big time” imo.
So I disagree with your assessment- it’s simply, now they have actually have the ability to do a “season narrative”, cus you guessed it…there’s an actual “season” of races. (again why I say it’s WTCS 2.0). With the season end bonuses, the pay structure as it is (appearance fees more than "salary), your going to easily have the same athletes racing the majority of the events (and still miss a few of the races). You’ve never had that setup in this sport, so I think your assessment is incorrect.
But to be fair, IM has never needed to do this. And the IM distance obviously is not advantagous to making pros race an IM every month. So I think it was PTN last week on their podcast, to compare the 2 series is almost comical- the T100 truly is a “middle” distance racing series; it’s basically only compared to IM because of the non-draft nature.
Thx for posting that interview. JK’s podcasts are not in my rotation so I would have never listened if not for your post.
I thought it was a good interview. To hear they are going to do an specific anti doping program, I’m very skeptical, but that may be way easier to say they are going to do something than actually doing something (they mention specific in and out of comp testing)….I’m super skeptical on that especially when they are going to do in house and getting other agencies to test….which means testing data sorta gets lost imo.
The Malibu race “issue†against SLT (SuperTri now) is imo the only “black eye†against the PTO (in addition to the long delay in releasing the schedule, 3 months “lateâ€). It certainly created a pto vs SLT dynamic whether they wanted to or not by “financially supporting†the old owner.
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. “wild cardsâ€. . . . . . if they’re “regular season†events they want to invite whoever, cool. 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.”
ProTriNews have speculated that of the 20+20 contracted, at least 11 will ‘pass’ on the first T100 race, for various reasons: WTCS Abu Dhabi or general Olympic/SC focus, delaying (long) season start, still getting back up from injury, et alia).
It’s 18 days to race day on the Miami Speedway.
To give the time to ensure a full field, athletes will have been required to tell PTO whether they’re racing (IM closes the Pro start list 3 weeks ahead)
How will the PTO choose/offer out the replacement wildcards? Will they just scroll down the PTO Ranking list in which case (W only): True Langridge Pohle Norden Frades McCauley Reichmann Salthouse Peres or will they have other criteria? And if so which women might fit other reasonable criteria? I assume they’ll be paying an attendance fee (>$1k) plus the opportunity to win prize money (assured $2.5k for places #11 to 20, which combined is the same as winning 70.3 Campeche btw) and good PTO points (super SOF and diamond race status).
Keulen Koolhaas Barnaby for the male gaps.
https://youtu.be/Au9_tXva1zw
https://triathlon.org/events/start_list/2024_t100_triathlon_world_tour_miami/638333
lets see when the start list will be available …
So Kat Matthews will be doing both the IM Pro Series and the T100 series. There’s no doubt though that Nice and Taupo are her A races. It’s gonna be. Pretty tough schedule including two more IMs, 70.3 Estonia, and the 6 other T100 races. I guess she’ll never say it, but it looks like the T100 races will just be mere tune up races or catered training days.
On the talk about having a season-long narrative, the Miami race just puts a stinker to that. How can you launch a new race series with half the field not lining up for the first race?
How can you launch a new race series with half the field not lining up for the first race? //
So you have seen the start list? Please enlighten us in the dark here…
My guess is that once you back out the ITU folks, there should be pretty good attendance for this first one. I mean people will want to get as many in the bank as possible early here, so that they can do a skip late in the season, for an ironman race, perhaps Roth, or just being injured, burned out, or too big a travel. I highly doubt that “half” the contracted field is not going to be there backing out the ITU folks that have to do less races anyway…
Just from a pure numbers standpoint, I would expect about 5 or so each race unable to start, either through injury or illness. Then you layer onto that the ones that have a particular race as a skip anyway for whatever reason. I’m curious as to how the fill list is established, are folks waiting on the sidelines for a start? Who are the on deck circle athletes??
That will be an interesting angle. For WTCS pretty much everyone knows the process to fill a race (hell for pretty much every WT race, there is a “process” that organizers must follow and not just an “favorites” to pick from), so it’ll be interesting to see how/who is in the bullpen for PTO to pick from. At the WTCS level, you pretty much know who can and can’t get on a start list through the specific start list regulations, whereas it seems like with PTO it’ll be who they contract/who they want to contract vs some actual “wait list order” imo.