LCB will certainly be offered a contract, however big/long her name is.
Sanders will probably be offered a contract, depending on how many of those above him in the PTO Rankings decline.
I expect Noodt, Geens, Mann and Nieschlag above him to sign up but with Ditlev and Brownlee declining there’re 8 ‘11-16’ slots.
Whether either will sign is a different matter. Sanders chat mercifully has its own thread (he raced two PTO US Opens, #11 and #21 and is already IMWCQ), but LCB may follow the lead given by Matthews and Philipp and judge she can’t race T100 (April - early August, three of: Singapore, Frejus, SF, Vancouver, London) integrated with validation and prep for IMWC in October.
Besides Sanders, the inclusion of which male athletes would cream your nicks?
I repeat im not a Lionel fan! However for me he would definitely add interest to races, you know I like my ITU, so adding anyone from ITU is going to make things more interesting for me, obviously the Norwegians.
There’s IM lads who I wouldn’t expect to do very well but would add interest Skipper, Laidlow (he has actually won a race but id expect him to go all in for Nice?) Wurf, Curry, Lange any of the big names really.
Just looking at it from a selfish what would interest me point of view, not in the best interest of the athletes.
I strongly believe that Knibb got some exceptions in her contract.
I understood that Kona is also on her list for 2025 which looks quite impossible to prepare well when racing a full T100 schedule.
Apart of that, no big surprises in the 8 signings men’s and women’s so far.
Maybe Sam Long is surprising. I’d expect an even closer race scenario to WTCS which means even faster swims and more competitive in runs and for 2026 the roster will look quite different, mainly on the men’s side I believe.
The PTN guys mentioned this which absolutely makes sense. It was a mistake from PTO not requiring all contracted athletes (except for the Olympians) to race in Miami after pushing the season-long narrative agenda.
Fairy snuff.
Norges have said they are racing the IM Pro Series.
Laidlow will have been offered a contract by now: I guess we’ll know his decision soon enough.
The idea of Skipper or Wurf racing T100 is just unkind: do you want to watch suffering? (The PTO will have Long to play the deficit bike-runner card next year, all year). Currie would be a good addition, especially the 2022/2023 model though Taupo went OK-ish. Lange won’t touch a 100km race witha barge pole: look how his two 70.3s went which stymied his IM Pro Series campaign.
In the men, I can see a swathe of SC athletes being invited, in addition to those who have effectively jumped already (MvR, Geens, Nieschlag):
Luis, Bergere, Wilde and Le Corre are front runners and all could be put in the outstanding performance (ie 11-16 cohort (8 available)) OR as hot shots (bit Frenchie ‘eavy tho’) .
Still keen to see valid SC women suggested, besides GTB. Meissner has not prospered to the extent expected (well, by me) and Neubert is super young (but maybe the German SC women ahead of her means she’ll not make it in SC).
Michel raced well enough at Indian Wells (low SOF), but difficult to style her as a ‘hot shot’.
“Quite impossible”?
You can believe that (I don’t: presentationally that would be awful) but a schedule of T100 races and Q and IMWC is entirely doable. With fully focused intent to win IMWC.
April T100 Singapore
May T100 Cote d’Azur
June T100 SF
mid June T100 Vancouver
late July IMLP (to qualify)
miss London
miss Ibiza
October IMWC
back to USA for LLV (as a warm down; though if athletes are only required to race 4 + GF then miss that too)(also note we still don’t know what date LLV will actually be held)
November T100(GF) Dubai (unless there’s a subsequent GF, assume first w/e in December)
The risk with this schedule is that a ‘fail’ at IMLP would stop Objective Alpha in its tracks.
No (not both): I think it’s fine for an athlete who has as their primary objective an IMWC win. Knibb could vary that schedule by racing an earlier IM (eg IMSA) to lock down a Kona slot and then go to Singapore.
I guess Matthews has decided she doesn’t want to be locked into the T100 schedule, combined with the knowledge that she is likely the favourite to win the IM Pro Series again next year, which means that the sums add up.
You’d think Haug would be unbeatable in the IM Pro Series. But it’d have to be pre-2024 middle distance Haug: the one that beat all-comers at PTO Ibiza.
It’ll be interesting to see if Philipp tries to race IM Pro Series. But I expect her third full distance will be Roth (again; home turf).
I’ve been told Singapore is a ‘must attend’ (mid-April).
Agree, I think. If you’re saying an athlete can’t ‘win’ them all.
Clearly Knibb is a special case as she’s the only athlete in the world (male or female) that has the potential to win both T100 and IMWC. Only she can decide what’s more important to her and prioritise accordingly. But that does not mean she can’t enjoy and do well in a number of early season T100s. Which on current form would be enough for her to race Kona and then go to the T100 Final with a dominant score. Worth also bearing in mind that she may have some cycling goals to weave in, but the race fatigue toll of those is much less.
As for “going along with pro series while making IMWC the priority can work” isn’t this contrary/not consistent with your mantra that racing the T100 Tour means you can’t give full focus on winning the IMWC?
In his last video he talked about Kat Matthews and how she was doing the minimum amount of training and raced well.
But the big difference is Kat raced an absolute ton this year and so the minimum training really seemed almost just maintenance because she was seemingly racing every week or every other week.
Lionel basically didnt’ race this year, so he “should” have been more fresh to train more.
So he should race more, but not pull the crap he did where he wakes up on Monday and decides to fly across the country to race on Sat/Sun. If anything the T100 would force consistency and a known schedule on him to build around.
Matthews finished 10 races this year with an average time between of a month between races. Average as in mean, with Ibiza only a week after Nice to satisfy her contract, but otherwise, for example an 8 week block running up to Nice (her ‘A’ race) with a planned 70.3 four weeks out (Tallinn).
I’ve read other stuff from her in the past pre-crash so IMWC St George and Sub8 where rest and the ‘minimal effective load’ (copyright @tilburydavis according to Sanders) is advocated.
Bjorn Geesmann is her coach at the moment.
Minimal Effective Dose - Sanders (15 seconds clip)
I remember back in the day when Paula Newby Frasier did 3 full Ironmans in 6 weeks, and won the all. She trained a lot like Kat did this year, basically recovering in-between races, and using those races as the important speed work. No rush to get back to intervals or high level training, just doing whatever was needed to recover from the last race, even if that recovery led right up to the next one…
I think this may be the biggest problem a lot of pros have, they know how to train and race hard, but the path to recovery eludes them in-between.
Also, she’s mentioning that PTO has made the T100 participation / series points calculus less strict at the last moment. They did it to convince more people to sign. It might mean e.g. fewer scoring races or fewer mandatory races or maybe no series opening being mandatory. No more details available atm.
I don’t have a mantra. I am echoing what athletes have told me. T100 and Pro Series are two different beasts.
The fact this thread started with “they will take contracts”, and now has 0 LC athletes accept contracts is an indication that the athletes see things differently than us AG armchair quarterbacks.
Pulling across from the Long dilemma thread
Two of the T100 top 10 will not sign.
That leaves 8 slots for what I’ve called the 11-16 cohort (PTO criteria text below).
Leaving 4 hot shot slots.
“The next 6 contracted athletes for 2025 will be decided through analysis of PTO Rankings and those who’ve shone with standout performances in the 2024 season. The final 4 contracts will go to Hotshot athletes – those with the x-factor to shake up the racing regardless of ranking or recent [MD/LD] performances. That could be a former all-star coming back from injury or an Olympian making the move to long-distance racing.”
SamLaidlow
RudyVonBerg
JustusNieschlag
NicolasMann
LionelSanders
TrevorFoley
DanielBaekkegaard
JasonWest
(I am assuming some in the PTO teens will not sign if offered)
Hotshots (though some could be included in the 8 slots above on the “standout performances in 2024”):
