Yes he got married last weekend, think it was in Italy not sure.
Thanks for the link – will try to follow up on this.
Good interview w/ Jamie Riddle w/ PTN just dropped today. He was speaking on the T100, said the contracts were “a lot of money but not enough to turn other races down” to create more “all in” athletes to T100 similiar to other sports “series” (F1). IE- which means they really aren’t going to likely reach their goals/need to truly put the best product forward overall. So it’s sorta the best of a mixed bag situation (athlete desires/needs + T100 desires/needs).
Run up to T100 Vancouver
If LCB has a podium finish on Saturday I suggest she is clearly in the reckoning for top 3 in the Race to Qatar even with her Kona goal. Provided she manages to stay healthy. Sure to race London; likely to race Frejus (and that’s the 4). Suspect she’ll want to race Marbella (having now validated in Eagleman).
I expect Knibb to race just 4 regular season T100 races: Vancouver is #2. I expect her to choose London and Frejus because it opens up options after Kona, despite the travel. (Valencia is too close to Kona, and LLV is too soon after). If she has a fail (and for her high standards that means off the podium) then Dubai is the fall back, a week after Marbella. In her T100 mini-interview it seemed she judged winning in Qatar pivotal to an overall T100 Tour win so
I note that Derron, Gentle and Waugh have neither Kona nor Marbella slots (scroll down). So I guess they’ll race most of the T100s. They’ll be able to clean up (between them) in Valencia, LLV and Dubai - so they’ll have discard opportunities.
Whereas Knibb and LCB have Kona and then the option of Marbella. Which will certainly ‘compact’ / complicate their October and November schedule. And with no discards will place them at a disadvantage.
I wonder why Waugh is not racing Vancouver: there’ll be a reason but she has not shared it. Maybe the short fortnight after San Francisco is the reason. I expect her to race two WTCS races and aim to have a high enough ranking for its GF in Wollongong. Waugh appears on the start list for WTCS Hamburg which was published today!
Waugh is at altitude training. A lot of them are at Font Romeu at the moment but I think she is near Andorra with her squad. She was on the start list for Hamburg, assume she still is haven’t checked.
Her new squad is European based so it makes sense she is here. She said earlier London and France T100 are in her plans, so I would imagine that gives her the 4 races needed.
Maybe she isn’t at the level to do 2 T100’s in 2 weeks. First season in MD so she is being sensible?
Seems good planning. If Waugh wants to be competitive in WTCS 2025, what better way than a good block of training before a sprint (and MTR?) in Hamburg.
She remains on the start list (alongside Potter, GTB, Rainsley and Mathias).
Than back to T100s: London and Frejus (as you say).
Karlovy_Vary (mid September) can be her third WTCS race/score.
She doesn’t have supertri complications so can plan in Wollongong (mid October) and race Dubai in November to offer her a discard (most others will be in Marbella).
I am not sure she is planning on going to Wollongong.
After the Vancouver race (race day thread) T100 is going to struggle to stay ‘in the conversation’ till the end of July (so five whole weeks) till a bit of revving up towards London (9th August).
Whereas the IM Pro Series is hitting its mid season climax with the final Series Ironmans (Frankfurst and LP), the results of which will make it clear who are the ‘runners and riders’ going into the final two ‘World Championships’ in Nice/Kona and Marbella (ack there’s Z-a-S for those who still need a 70.3).
We may not talk about it as much for a couple weeks, but it will be a lot more interesting. Once Blu and Kat do one more race we can pretty much mail them the winners check(barring my aforementioned black swan events).
In the T100 series I. dont think we will really know the potential winners, or even podium until the final race. It will be a nail biter the rest of the year and it will have to be won by great races, and not just held onto by ok as will probably be the case in the ironman series…
Just kind of how it worked out this year, no ones fault, just not the top end to challenge in the Ironman series overall this year…
I’m going to be very interested if Hayden gets himself back into the mix after his near death crash. Watching his vids he seems to be progressing at warp speed, and I expect he will do at least a couple more T100’s, if not the full complement for a final score…
All true.
Looks like the T100 is resolving into a 4 way contest for the MPro win and a couple more in there for the podium (includes Wilde) and the WPro looks a bit more pointy: with 3 in it to win it and again a couple more as #3 possibles.
Neither Blummenfelt nor Matthews will be counting any chickens: many a slip twixt cup and lip. Just look at Matthews in 2023 and KB in 2024. Both intend to have a ‘spare’ 70.3 score but poor replacement for a IMWC fail.
On Wilde, he is not qualified for Marbella (and not distracted by Nice) so plenty of T100s (to race and score another 3, and with lots of absentees) even if Valencia on 20th September is the first he can be fit for. Likely he is targeting Frejus (both ‘local’ to Andorra). Maybe a bit more of a gap at T1?
What was the original date for the French race that got moved to the end of Aug? I’m starting to wonder how many of the top women will race the “minimum” only schedule and who will race more often to offset. Take Waugh, if she’s in Europe (and I have not looked at WTCS schedule to see which conflicts), she theoretically could race all 3 Euro races and the GF leaving her with only 1 race to replace (or get max score). She could then rest up properly for the GF after racing mid Oct WTCS GF vs others (Knibb) having to race a IM/70.3 WC + GF in the same time period she could then “rest”. A lot to say, if the contracts are basically on paying athletes for the minimum schedule, it’ll be interesting to see who races more than others who don’t. Of course $25k and $17k $13k for podium is still worthy enough to race for.
Mid May, two weeks before SF: see post #1
Frejus is a ‘combined’ WTCS and T100 w/e.
Trying to find info with the new WT website/format is frustrating. Is the WTCS event an olympic or sprint distance?
Probably, but Kat still needs to prove she can have a good Kona, and Blu did blow sky high in Kona last year.
I believe it’s a sprint distance race.
Link to all the World Triathlon events. WTCS French Rivera is a sprint.
Thx I went to the race page and half their info is “unavailable”. The new WT site formatting seems like you have to do a few extra clicks for any info.
(No schedule info, no event details from viewing it from browser, I dont know if any different from mobile viewing)
The Race to Qatar!