Is Max Neuman still a contracted athlete? A no-show in SF means he will be missing 3 and he is clearly fit if he is doing IM Cairns? PTO surely can’t be making an exception otherwise others will be asking for one if needed?
This was discussed on the PTN podcast with Pat saying hes heard rumors Max is basically ignoring the PTO and deciding not to do the series. He expects the PTO to make an example out of him. Not a good look for sure.
Surely that’s very unprofessional and a breached of contract as well. I wouldn’t sponsor an athlete or give him the time of day if this is true
Is Max Neuman still a contracted athlete? A no-show in SF means he will be missing 3 and he is clearly fit if he is doing IM Cairns? PTO surely can’t be making an exception otherwise others will be asking for one if needed?
This was discussed on the PTN podcast with Pat saying hes heard rumors Max is basically ignoring the PTO and deciding not to do the series. He expects the PTO to make an example out of him. Not a good look for sure.
Surely that’s very unprofessional and a breached of contract as well. I wouldn’t sponsor an athlete or give him the time of day if this is true
I’d certainly hope they have a provision to claw back 100% of the money already paid if the rumors are true.
Men’s start list added today (but only 16: no wildcards): https://stats.protriathletes.org/...00/2024/participants
Baekkegaard, Chevalier and Laidlow missing, and still no sign of Neumann.
Van Riel there, as previously heralded. I do hope he’s not adversely affecting his build up to his Olympic dream (to achieve an even better place than in Tokyo).
Brownlee (fit again?) and Gomez on it too.
Assume Keulen will be added as one of four wildcards.
Will a rib stress fracture stop he who must not be named (PTO Rank #20) from accepting the wildcard he has surely been offered? Can he rehab in less than 50 days from injury?
Laundry a possible wildcard? And maybe Appo (after IMOz success) and Stepniak (after #7 in Singapore)
Will the PTO delay on the last wildcard slot till after Mallorca and Iden’s comeback?
I’d love to see Lagerstrom get a wildcard considering his past success at Escape from Alcatraz.
Only 4 wildcards per both races, reflecting the average number of wildcards for all the remaining regular T100 races.
McCauley
Thek
Metzler
Kivioja
(Chura turned an offer down - why?)
Smith
Koolhaas
Noodt
Laundry
(Keulen turned an offer down - he is concentrating on estimating how far 10m looks when you’re behind another athlete. Though tbf those red flashing lights are a clue.)
Neumann (ProTriNews) looks like not racing T100s (despite contracted) and racing IM Cairns to qualify for Kona.
Contracted athletes not starting:
LCB (why? - coeliac diagnosis doesn’t stop training and racing, does it. Will she be OK for London?), Lawrence (obv), and Spivey and Duffy (who both raced superbly in Japan yesterday)
Neumann, Baekkegaard, Laidlow (why), Chevalier
I wonder if LCB is skipping San Fran because she is worried about the bike course being very technical. She does almost all her training indoors and I don’t know if she is that confident with her bike handling skills. I also think that is the real reason she not doing Nice this year. It’s definitely her prerogative to choose the races she thinks best suit he skill set, but would also be nice to see her face new challenges.
Is Max Neuman still a contracted athlete? A no-show in SF means he will be missing 3 and he is clearly fit if he is doing IM Cairns? PTO surely can’t be making an exception otherwise others will be asking for one if needed?
Max isn’t on Cairns start list that i can see so he is obviously not racing it and must still be having injury issues. Fact check before bad mouthing might be a good idea.
You do realise the contracted athletes only have to race 6 out of 8 races right? LCB not racing San fran is the same as Mathews and Ryf etc not racing Singapore.
I wonder if LCB is skipping San Fran because she is worried about the bike course being very technical. She does almost all her training indoors and I don’t know if she is that confident with her bike handling skills. I also think that is the real reason she not doing Nice this year. It’s definitely her prerogative to choose the races she thinks best suit he skill set, but would also be nice to see her face new challenges.
I thought the same, maybe she is ducking but then she had the fastest bike split in Singapore which was both hilly and technical and from the live feed looked like she was taking the corners really well. Then she put out a post race video saying she has been really working on her handling skills. Perhaps she recognised it was a weakness and has worked on it?
Lucy isn’t the best bike handler, not even in the women’s field. Ryf is definitely better, same for Knibb etc. But Lucy’s at least decent. You can’t be at least decent to be effectively training in Lanzarote, full stop. The way I want you to look at it is the following: among women Lucy is a better bike handler than Lionel is among men, by a solid margin. If you still don’t believe me, think of these 2 riding on a circular race track, and who hit the asphalt with a pedal…
London to US west coast is a long travel, for a single race & back. If she can skip a race to prepare better at home, she would do it. She did it before Kona last year, but this time she doesn’t need to do any heat preparation. Her main goal at the moment is to win in T100 London to make her a T100 leader before it comes to the Grand Final. It’d please the sponsors enormously as well.
Lucy isn’t the best bike handler, not even in the women’s field. Ryf is definitely better, same for Knibb etc. But Lucy’s at least decent. You can’t be at least decent to be effectively training in Lanzarote, full stop. The way I want you to look at it is the following: among women Lucy is a better bike handler than Lionel is among men, by a solid margin. If you still don’t believe me, think of these 2 riding on a circular race track, and who hit the asphalt with a pedal…
London to US west coast is a long travel, for a single race & back. If she can skip a race to prepare better at home, she would do it. She did it before Kona last year, but this time she doesn’t need to do any heat preparation. Her main goal at the moment is to win in T100 London to make her a T100 leader before it comes to the Grand Final. It’d please the sponsors enormously as well.
I just figured she’d love that hard, cold swim in the bay. I imagine she’d put more time than normal into Ash and it would be between her and Knibb for the win.
You do realise the contracted athletes only have to race 6 out of 8 races right? LCB not racing San fran is the same as Mathews and Ryf etc not racing Singapore.Yes I do realise that. The difference is that Matthews intended to and did race IM Texas in April and Ryf raced IM SA: both so they could qualify/validate for Nice. LCB has said she’s concentrating solely on T100, not racing IMs in particular not Nice, and so could race every T100 (at least that was my impression at the launch in London).
However she might wish to slip in a 70.3 so she’s validated for Taupo: maybe that’s why she’s missing San Francisco. Not racing from Singapore till London is a very long period of the year not to race. Having said that, the 11 weeks from late September (Ibiza) to Taupo in mid December is set to be a heavy racing block of 5 races an average of less than 3 weeks apart) so taking 15 weeks off is a strategic move. Or maybe SF is a long trip and with two excellent scores she feels the pressure is off.
Max isn’t on Cairns start list that i can see so he is obviously not racing it and must still be having injury issues. Fact check before bad mouthing might be a good idea.
You are the only person I’ve seen suggest he has injury issues. Even the Aussies think he’s ditching the PTO. For the Singapore race he apparently had family things to attend to, but now he is just blowing off the series. He has every right to do that if he wants to focus on Kona, but he won’t be welcome back to the series next year and hopefully won’t get a dime from them.
Well he isn’t on the start list for Cairns as stated so I am just assuming is possibly injury. He and GF were in Aus around Singapore so “family issues” is likely true too. Pretty sure their socials show back in Europe making Cairns even less likely to have even been a consideration.
You do realise the contracted athletes only have to race 6 out of 8 races right? LCB not racing San fran is the same as Mathews and Ryf etc not racing Singapore.Yes I do realise that. The difference is that Matthews intended to and did race IM Texas in April and Ryf raced IM SA: both so they could qualify/validate for Nice. LCB has said she’s concentrating solely on T100, not racing IMs in particular not Nice, and so could race every T100 (at least that was my impression at the launch in London).
However she might wish to slip in a 70.3 so she’s validated for Taupo: maybe that’s why she’s missing San Francisco. Not racing from Singapore till London is a very long period of the year not to race. Having said that, the 11 weeks from late September (Ibiza) to Taupo in mid December is set to be a heavy racing block of 5 races an average of less than 3 weeks apart) so taking 15 weeks off is a strategic move. Or maybe SF is a long trip and with two excellent scores she feels the pressure is off.
Or maybe Lucy, after two good results in the series, just wants some period of serious training uninterrupted by travel to prepare London as best as possible?
LCB has said she’s concentrating solely on T100, not racing IMs in particular not Nice, and so could race every T100 (at least that was my impression at the launch in London).
However she might wish to slip in a 70.3 so she’s validated for Taupo: maybe that’s why she’s missing San Francisco. Not racing from Singapore till London is a very long period of the year not to race. Having said that, the 11 weeks from late September (Ibiza) to Taupo in mid December is set to be a heavy racing block of 5 races an average of less than 3 weeks apart) so taking 15 weeks off is a strategic move. **Or maybe SF is a long trip and with two excellent scores she feels the pressure is off.**Or maybe Lucy, after two good results in the series, just wants some period of serious training uninterrupted by travel to prepare London as best as possible?Entirely reasonable, as I suggested (see emboldened sentence above. And after London she’ll have another 8 weeks to prepare for Ibiza.
Looking at last year she did a couple of races in May and ‘went away’ till Singapore in late August, and the year before (2022) she was injured from New Year and then through rehab + till August. So a long break has precedent.
The idea that she’d be put off by the descent from Presidio on Lincoln Bv or back under the bridge approach is worth ignoring. For example, looking back to 70.3WC 2019 in Nice she lost minimal time descending (having had to stop for a 5 minute penalty for drafting on the way to Vence (btw group was ‘tight’ up hill when she went past (spectating) me)). Without that penalty she’d have likely finished in #2, beating Lawrence btw. https://stats.protriathletes.org/...ionship/2019/results
Erm, just listened to the latest Pro Tri News Pod & PTO told Talbot that they can’t bring him to T100 San Francisco to do content for them due to recent budget cuts. This comes after their deep dive on the # of athletes racing on the T100 Tour who aren’t in a testing pool. They have that thin skin that you’re willing to lose great content for the mildest criticism? It’s barely criticism. It wasn’t some sort of condemnation of what PTO is doing. It just encouraged them to think about their testing protocols.
Erm, just listened to the latest Pro Tri News Pod & PTO told Talbot that they can’t bring him to T100 San Francisco to do content for them due to recent budget cuts. This comes after their deep dive on the # of athletes racing on the T100 Tour who aren’t in a testing pool. They have that thin skin that you’re willing to lose great content for the mildest criticism? It’s barely criticism. It wasn’t some sort of condemnation of what PTO is doing. It just encouraged them to think about their testing protocols.
Is Jack next ?
It would be funny to hear PTN’s take on the Ryan’s comments.
Erm, just listened to the latest Pro Tri News Pod & PTO told Talbot that they can’t bring him to T100 San Francisco to do content for them due to recent budget cuts. This comes after their deep dive on the # of athletes racing on the T100 Tour who aren’t in a testing pool. They have that thin skin that you’re willing to lose great content for the mildest criticism? It’s barely criticism. It wasn’t some sort of condemnation of what PTO is doing. It just encouraged them to think about their testing protocols.
I would doubt that it’s due to his criticism.
I don’t think they’ve secured that next funding round that they were looking for, they don’t have cash flow from AG race reg that was probably anticipated, and there’s a sizable cash outlay from the whole testing pool thing…so my guess is that budget has suddenly gotten very tight around those parts.
Erm, just listened to the latest Pro Tri News Pod & PTO told Talbot that they can’t bring him to T100 San Francisco to do content for them due to recent budget cuts. This comes after their deep dive on the # of athletes racing on the T100 Tour who aren’t in a testing pool. They have that thin skin that you’re willing to lose great content for the mildest criticism? It’s barely criticism. It wasn’t some sort of condemnation of what PTO is doing. It just encouraged them to think about their testing protocols.
More likely they are hanging on by a thread financially because they have no viable business strategy.
Well, I would imagine any attention that is given to the fact that they aren’t pissing away money in a smoke and mirrors game to play catch-the-cheater is resented if they are now having to start pissing away said money just for the optics of playing catch-the-cheater.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t drug test. Just saying that the drug testing rarely works on the people who are cheating, as we already suspect, and therefore the main point of the very expensive testing protocols is to essentially threaten athletes with the risk of ruining their careers if they screw up plus the ability to publicly claim you are testing and make your product more credible.
That’s an expensive commitment, for what is essentially a veiled threat that requires cheaters to be more organized and some small PR claims that still don’t impact the bottom line.
So ya, if I was PTO, and now I’m looking at adding a $500,000 or more line item to my expenditures, I’d be pretty annoyed.
Erm, just listened to the latest Pro Tri News Pod & PTO told Talbot that they can’t bring him to T100 San Francisco to do content for them due to recent budget cuts. This comes after their deep dive on the # of athletes racing on the T100 Tour who aren’t in a testing pool. They have that thin skin that you’re willing to lose great content for the mildest criticism? It’s barely criticism. It wasn’t some sort of condemnation of what PTO is doing. It just encouraged them to think about their testing protocols.
They can afford him if he wants to drop his rates, Talbot isn’t cheap anymore and he’s too good to do things for free.
