Aren’t Barnaby, Koolhaus and Benito Lopez in that conversation as well for the 11-16? I am interested what Barnaby would do honestly…
Those are three that I think will not sign (together with Lange).
They are all full distance focused and if they spend time racing T100 they’ll be 11-20 canon fodder, not enjoy and stop them racing IM Pro Series.
In that series I think they have the potential to make top 8.
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Fair enough, that makes sense.
Interesting that Taylor is “doing the T100 series” but “did not sign” according to her agent
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Well actually Pat (55:15 in PTN pod) merely declined to confirm she’d signed. I wonder whether she sought to negotiate non-attendance at Singapore (which is a must attend) in view of her likely race in Texas a fortnight later.
But here’s her signature:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDuA-WvNTlp/
Talbot : “did she sign a contract”
Her agent : “she will be doing the series”
Talbot : “yes, but did she sign a contract”
Her agent : “she will be doing the series”
Talbot : “you are such a politician”
But an autographed picture on IG makes it all official 
No matter what she does it will be interesting. I’m more curious “why not sign ?”, “Why not modify the contract if something is not to her liking ?”. Gotta love PTN and T100…drama 
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Agree.
I think the whole contract thing is a mistake - the “season narrative” doesn’t really happen.
I think it would be better as they did in their first ever races - massive prize money per race, four or five races. Forget the end of season bonus / points. Use those for rankings.
Then there’s a huge amount on the line at everyone at every race.
Everyone would then turn up, imho.
Very quickly it will become the WTCS 100.
The long course athletes won’t be there.
From a pure speed/athletic point of view probably optimal. I am not sure they spectator portion will follow. My guess, by the end of 2025, T100 discussion will be amongst the same people in the WTCS conversation, but will lose a lot of AG middle distance fans.
Organize a wrestling match. Invite the Olympic podium, Hulk Hogan and Macho Man (I am showing my age). Who is going to win ? Who is going to get eyes on the tournament.
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This is obviously an issue given the ironman world champs will be the main race and if you don’t have them in your series you are in trouble , and they don’t even have to perform in a way it’s actually good for the series if they get beaten nicely … But not having the 2 ironman world champs is not that great.
Looking very good as a prediction.
LCB the only one left ‘not to sign’.
[IMWC Podium 2023 and 2024: Philipp, Matthews, Sodaro, LCB, Haug, Laidlow, Lange, Ditlev, RvB.]
Tri Poll Athlete on insta has run a poll to find who people think will sign: I see LCB not on his chart.
Agree with @anon62254808 . Four or five big races like the tennis slams which was the initial model they wanted anyway and hence the Collins Cup idea. Now they suddenly want to become lile F1.
As to the series becoming WTCS 100, well the PTO also promised a T200 before but it never did happen because they wanted a product that can be packaged for broadcast. But they’e now pivoted to become mass participation event organizer and it’s not clear if the broadcast product would be the main revenue source going forward.
AG participation buys them some time as it provides some cash flow. The whole broadcast roadmap to profitability was never going to happen overnight and I guess that they realized it now
It must be quite daunting for any organization to have a monthly cash burn like they do? Like this month, they have to hand out bonuses and pay salaries and from we can see next to no revenue and repeat again for the first few months of 2025
I suppose if Lionel thought he was done after 2025, taking this contract would be easy money, see Brownlee. BUT, he said Kona is why he’s in this sport. So it would be odd to see him do short stuff.
Says one thing and it would be odd if he did another? So, that means he’s doing T100 then?
Danger warning: Lionel diversion in thread!
Sanders taking a T100 contract and racing IMWC (which is Nice for the men this year as you know) is both entirely doable (he’s already NQ) and the T100 races would complement his preparations for Nice and provide competitive races from April to early August and late September to November. If London on 3 August is considered too close to Nice in mid September, that can be missed. If Ibiza is too soon after his success in / fatigue from Nice, that can be missed too (though only an hour’s flight away so great holiday).
I don’t see him doing it; just saying it’s doable.
Sanders has raced “short stuff” (113/100) all his pro career. See his races in 2017 before his #2 in Hawaii for the success that brought.
https://stats.protriathletes.org/athlete/lionel-sanders
Unless I heard wrong, Lionel said his first goal is winning Oceanside.
I REALLY DON’T see Lionel doing the T100 accumulation of frequent flyer points.
Lionel doesn’t know this but I have found him a Nice descending instructor. He has fans in the WT. I just need to let Lionel know
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I just noticed on that link that PTO calls it “Ironman Hawaii”. Did they go back and scrub Ironman World Championship from their data after their long distance world championship agreement?
@talbotcox this needs to be documented.
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I remember thinking a few years ago when the PTO Results ‘service’ was newish, why is the event in Kona every October called ‘IM Hawaii’ rather than IM World Champs Hawaii (or Kona).
In the PTO stats, that event (WPro only in 2023) has always been “Ironman Hawaii”. If I had to guess, I’d reckon that Thorsten Radde, who is a major player in all this, has always on trirating called it IM Hawaii, and that terminology just transferred across in 2020. When IMWC Nice came along, to differentiate it from IM Nice it got its full title.
If you look at the link below, even the pre/non-Kona results are shown (but the database can only have/display one site, in this case ‘Kona, HI’.
So ‘no’: no scrubbing was involved in the reporting of that race’s results.
HTH
https://stats.protriathletes.org/race/im-hawaii/1978/results
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Seems like the T100 French Riviera date has been moved to 27th - 29th June (well it has for the AG races at least).