well most likely duffy manged fast run splits because she paces the bike well
but it was clear in short course she was not back at her best.
gtb and spivey for sure pohle whichever way as well neubert races agressively and thats good, its post olympc year and i belive the nat coach was at the 70.3 race, i would prob add somebody from braziel its a big emerging market .
and in the males i would like to see kenji nenner to have an asien athelte
and be truly a world wide series
and of course i want a qualification race i have very little intreset in a bigger series but qualfication races at beginning of sason and mid season that would be interesting.
i want the in form people at the races .
and the season narrative of who is missing this race does not do much for me.
the narative for me was the exitment lee keulen noodt derron etc brought to the season. and weiss chevalier for instance did not ad much and should have been relegated mid season.
that would add exitment who gets relagated and who comes on new.
the season long narative is not working unless all athetes are at every race and thats not going to work…
i would say the pro series has a better seasonal narrative as with the every seconds counts thats more intersting and catches the imagination more . and the focus is on who is there and less who is not there .
Can you imagine if Knibb did the series though - like…everyone would avoid her for their scores lol
Re Nener - I really want him to be good but WA 70.3 shows he’s got a ways to go. Really like the guy though - on the women’s side outside of SC athletes - interested to see the development of Alanis Siffert - super good swimmer, super strong on the bike - run developing - maybe like Lucy Byram a year or two ago?
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Speaking of Byram, don’t really know much about her (could she not make it ITU?) But to get 6th overall is mind blowing considering the competition.
Given her age, its a good of example (there are countless others, who cant make it in ITU who go straight in at longer and excel.
You’ve quite literally got the GOAT of SC (Duffy) just about beating in Byram (im completely guessing she couldn’t make it in ITU, might end up deleting this after research)
The majority of the top T100 men, are they all ‘couldn’t make it in ITU’
I love the idea of a qualification race. There are likely a number of athletes whom don’t have the ranking to get starts due to being new to long course and the fact that podiums at the races they can get into don’t even rank as high as a poor placing in a t100.
And Nener raced in Wa, swam well but that was where it ended. Dropped from the front group very early on the bike and continued his backwards movements from there. His best is superleague distances.
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On the other hand, Jamie Riddle may have deserved a look.
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Example of a junior in the GBR (Leeds) tri ‘programme’ who went middle distance early doors (aka perjorative ‘couldn’t make it in ITU’) rather than ploughing the draft legal treadmill.
". . . competed in triathlon and running from the age of 8 when I first joined my local running club Holmfirth Harriers.
“[came] through the British Triathlon pathway as part of the Yorkshire Regional Academy racing as a youth, junior and senior in the British Super Series. Racing short course, drafting legal, ITU style triathlon. In the second half of 2021, made the jump to 70.3 distance racing”
Raced loads of Challenge races in 2022. “Lucy [made] waves early in 2023” three Clash/Challenge wins and “a breakthrough performance in the PTO US Open where she mixed it up with the very best in the world to take 4th”
With Sodaro and Matthews making space in the BMC Pro Tri team, Byram was picked up (kudos to Bob DeWolf for the spot) for 2024 and also (then aged 24) was one of 4 hot shot contract athletes for the inaugural T100 Tour (others were Duffy and Spivey!). She was the only female athlete to race all seven T100s and didn’t she deliver (as you point out)!
She’s the next best (after Knibb) on the bike and runs well enough to get consistent results.
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well laidlow smith bogen keulen funk are certainly examples of male atheltes that did not hack short course or you could say there were smart enough to go long early enough.
at the end of the day idealy you go where your sport profile matches the the demands of the sport best .
and then of ocurse there is a shelf live with athletes so in a way after 5 olympic games like spirig and i think duffy its not that easy to change there is only so long you can be at your best . i would be 99 percent sure had both spirig and duffy changed to middle distance at their peak they would have been just as good at t100 spirig was made for this.
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Your post would benefit a lot from structure, punctuation, capital letters in the right place, etc. I think you have some good insights but I can hardly read them as is. 
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yes siffert is a super interesing athlete and somebody that would have an impact on the race
but i guess this is the good thing about europe we have challenge and other independent races as a development sereis were both byram and siffert could make price money, and this is missing in the usa
if ironamn want more american talent i would say they need to offer more smaller price purse pro races. turns out killing the competition does not only have advantages lol
totaly fair iam dyslexic
I prefer @pk shares his insights, and is not deterred to do so by the challenges of capitalisation, punctuation or indeed (see below) speeling.
Feck me, without spell and grammar check I would be screwed!!!
Stop being a grammar snob and accept the content rather than the presentation.
Accept the content? Reading long posts with no structure is no fun. And I read ST for fun.
It’s a shame when otherwise good posts are lost because they are hard to read.
I have no desire to derail the conversation any further so let’s return to the topic?
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Ok. Will any non former ITU/Olympic athletes win a T100 race next year? I say no.
I say no
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It depends how we classify non-former ITU/Olympic.
If you mean somebody who never started in ITU / WTCS, then probably only Katt Mathews would have a small chance.
If you mean somebody who hasn’t had any even mediocre results in ITU / WTCS, then I could think of Ditlev, Bogen, Laidlow or Keulen with a chance.
Totally - do we include LCB as a short course athlete because she did 2 races, or Lucy B because she was in the ITU ideal earlier? Laura Philipp? I don’t consider any of those SC (or the ones you mentioned) but…you could technically make arguments.
Of course this is the right answer on how to classify. Just about anyone who started as a kid will have done some sort of ITU type race, but unless you excelled and stayed in it, just another race you did without any real results. You are not considered an “ITU” athlete if you were off the back or never really factored in, and also had some sort of career within that framework…
Lucy Charles had a 5th and 12th i believe in 2 WTCS races…so she factored, but there’s no way we can say see…SC athlete!! haha…not arguing with you on this.
I don’t think junior athletes can even race longer than Olympics before they are 19? I think I did 5 olympics before I was 16 and started playing school sports and retired for 20 years haha