For Gold Coast (W?) and Singapore (M?) initially based on the 2025 T100 rankings [top 10]; the top 5 from the Contender Rankings and 5 Wildcards, and then 10 from the 2026 T100 rankings, plus 8 from the PTO World Rankings and 2 wildcards (PTO picks).
I can see every athlete in the PTO Rankings top 15 getting an invite: your ‘big names non-T100 (2025)’ in WPro are: Matthews, Philipp, Loevseth, Perterer, Lawrence (anyone see a pattern here (!)). Whether they’re interested given their other goals will depend on whether those are ‘just’ KQ and IMWC (entirely doable) or same 70.3Q and Nice, or KQ, Roth and Kona. An athlete who schedules 3+1 T100s and a 3+2 IM Pro Series is setting a stretch target. There’s only a few men and only 2 IM capable women who have the chops at 70.3 to compete top 10 in T100s.
True but some of these are the biggest names in the sport- KM, Blu, Laidlow type of athletes- if you invite them to race and win $30k for a podium, winning 1/8th of your yearly salary on a “local” race may be worth it for all parties.
I wonder what would happen to Knibb if she “declines” the automatic T100 qualification and only asks to race in the local NA race; would it be a repeat of KM situation, where T100 wouldn’t look at her for a SF / Vancouver event? I have a feeling for Knibb T100 may be a bit too much “been there, done that” at this point…even more so when she fails to meet her contract this year now that she has heat related illness to her profile (so I guess technically she may not have to pay money back and/or the contract is deemed fulfilled).
Knibb will be invited to race every one of the four women’s T100s iaw the invitation protocol (you can read this upthread). Invitations are just that: an athlete can accept or refuse. Even with no further finishes she will remain top 3 in the PTO World Rankings until at least 31st May. Knibb has already said her HRI means that two races will be deleted from her schedule (Dubai and Qatar assumed, entirely sensible). Marbella? We’ll see.
Knibb will receive an invitation to T100 Gold Coast because she is going to be in the top 10 of the final T100 Standings on her current total (3 scores). The PTO “not looking at her” is not an option open to them. She will receive an invitation to Singapore and San Francisco (putative) because she is going to be in the top 5 of the PTO World Rankings. If Knibb doesn’t race draft illegal before end May I guess racing a T100 or not may not be the top issue on her agenda.
If the long distance triathlon ‘world championships’ was held in sensible environmental conditions for endurance sport, the phenom who is Knibb might win multiple times in the next decade. As it is she may decide that hot humid conditions are unhealthy (see T100 Singapore 2025) and not be prepared to race Kona ever again. And if the T100 ends each year in Qatar, that’s going to be a serious stumbling block which will make T100 less attractive to her as a framework for future seasons.
I guess in that aspect it’s good IM doesn’t require medical clearances that itu requires for their pros or she may not be medically cleared in certain environmental conditions. An American had a medical clearance like that, he was only medically cleared in certain weather conditions and not medically cleared in certain hot conditions. That was the only athlete I’ve ever heard of who had those medical exemptions with others going through HRI (not as severe case, but heat related issue none the less) that didn’t have any limitations (JB probably most famous w his Cozumel HRI).
One can expect alot of “drop-ins” from the likes of Norwegians, Laidlow, KM and others but I doubt they will do the 3+1 requirements . But overall the competitive field will be alot deeper I imagine for 2026. One thing good about T100 that they are quick to refine things that are not working well
they ditched the Collins Cup, zero interest
Ditched contender rankings , no one really bothered
No one is now banned from T100 races, if they kept banning people, there will be no one left
Reduces number of races per gender
Eliminate contracts that some didn’t take seriously initially
Wonder how will this play out with WTCS folks with the Olympic cycle starting mid 2026? Will we see HW, TS and KW making appearances or will they disappear completely?
So with fewer races, the “big names” that do drop in and if they have podium potentially, will have a much bigger impact on the standings/prize money distribution now. If there are only 4 chances to race for $30k+ podium money and let’s say half those races have “ringers” (Blu / Laidlow / KM type), suddenly it means you have shrunk the big money to race after if your a “T100 regular”.
Without contracts is it going to be harder to get #8-#15 to commit to the series when they potentially are going to only make $4500-$8k (per race) when they now have to fully fund their travel vs this year the “salary” basically covered/paid for the travel?
8th place in 2026 won’t even make what they made in '25 just in end of year winnings and on top of likely whatever “salary” they were making from the contract (plus 8th place winnings). So do we even end up with 20 people per gender eligible by end of year to take the end of year bonus money (must race 3 races to be eligible)? Likely we do, but that’s going to be interesting to watch, because you may have people just not accept invitations if suddenly they are now at best 13th after 2 races, etc. Why is Jason West going to international travel just to finish 14th every time? 14th next year makes you $37k total (including eoy bonus). 14th in '25 you made $45k (plus likely were a contract athlete).
So I actually disagree on the “depth”, I think if your a MOP athlete, you have to think long and hard to do this series (your now making less than you did in '25 and not on contract). If you have top 5 ability, easily race T100 now, but again if the “big names” drop in and take 1 of your 12 podium pay checks, that only hurts the “regulars” even more now.
This is designed to attract the top guns, nothing less. The Norwegians, Laidlow and KM create excitement and buzz and not those ranked 9th-20th
I don’t think you need to fulfil 3+1 to qualify for the year end bonus. It just says that the max that can counted. the year end bonus seemed have halved based on the analysis above so if someone had said No in the past, i doubt he/she will say yes now. Laidlow is a prime example. But I expect “drop-ins” and it will make each race alot more exciting
I also hope the WTCS folks will drop by and you really get a ripple!
Dragging this across from the SL ‘no content’ thread.
The PTO have never paid travel from elsewhere; just from and back to the airport. We don’t know whether they’ll fund the ‘all found’ Wednesday-Monday hotel plus as they did in 2024 and have been in 2025. Contracted athletes have received ‘effectively’ appearance money for each of their minimum contracted races (4+1) this year. Wildcards aiui have received a base [edit] $2k plus race prize money.
Given finishing #20 gets an athlete $3500, that a fair payout for a “2nd tier pro” compared with what a similar performance in a silver/bronze tier 70.3 might get you. Take someone like Kate Curran and an example who just finished #2 at Cascais on Sunday, winning $2000. Last year as well as five IM Pro Series 70.3s (more than any other pro btw) she raced three T100s as a wildcard (#15, #10 and #17 in GF) and won an average of $3k so with the $2k per race $15k total - about the same as for her five 70.3s. NB for those she will have had outgoings of at least $1k each race for in venue expenses.
The PTO funded everything from airport arrival to departure. Athletes have always had to fund their travel. In due course, motivation willing, I’ll try to offer some fact based comparisons: maybe @BDoughtie ‘s bro maths is on point? In the meantime, here’s a table comparing the race prize money 2024/2025/2026:
I think it is $2k US not £. So about £1500. I dont believe this is on top of prize money but a minimum amount. That is the 20th finisher to 16th would relieve $2000 instead of the lower prize, but any place from the normal $2000 up is just that straight amount prizemoney. I may be wrong but this is how I interpreted it.
Yes $2k (the ‘£’ sign crept in in error). You may well be right with regard to that sum being a threshold rather than ‘in addition’. But bear in mind the PTO are requiring lots of marketing and stuff and the contracted athletes in 2025 were getting min $6k per race for that.
From upthread, it was said you need to race the min races in order to get the eoy bonus; as I made that very point…Someone racing 1 time and podiuming may have more points than someone racing all the races in 14th position. Obviously fullfiling the series is likely an easy ruling they add to “protect” giving away free money to athletes. Even though they would all love to have Blu/KM/insert big name (who can podium) at these races; even if just once.
@Ajax_Bay I would guess most athletes will have to look at the expense of it. Contracted athletes this year imo basically got likely enough money to cover most travel expenses yes? Whether that’s called appearance fee/contract/salary/travel stipend- it likely has covered *most to all the travel expenses (maybe US athletes have spent the most on travel likely; schedule dependent obviously). Which is why I think adding some big names even 1 time are likely to happen; racing for $50k works much better than racing for $25k, especially those who have the ability to still podium (there is still enough big names in our sport that have the ability to race IM and T100 and pointy end results in both…who aren’t full time T100 athletes in '25).
Also my math at 1am apparently may be off from the goggle searching results I was given, the numbers I found were more top heavy compared to your* estimates.
If the money was 100k, I think you’d see the Norwegians roll up. At 50k, I think they’ll show up to a race if the schedule and location makes perfect sense. I don’t suspect they’ll go out of the way for it though.
Laidlow, I might be wrong, but I don’t think he’s interested in a T100 payday more then he wants a shot a Kona. So I suspect it’s the same thing for him. If it works around his training, he’ll go. Otherwise, he’s not going to be interested.
I suspect that’s actually the case for all of he Ironman big names (Kat, Knibb, Lucy, etc.).
I realize the conventional wisdom has become that T100 has dropped contracts and raised the purse to attract some big names, but what if they dropped contracts because the big names have dropped and even more still were going to drop them? Then T100 finds itself in a position of paying contracts for athletes who really aren’t likely to go anywhere else anyway.
I think we’ll see athletes start with one intention then we’ll see some pivot mid-season. Like how Lange was going for the series but then after OS and Texas that was off the table. Now I think some will switch to T100 or switch to IM if one series starts off poor for them. I’m hoping that adds some intrigue to both series next year.
I like this change a lot, it doesn’t force people to choose sides and lets them do what’s right for their career. For the 9-30 athletes that maybe not going for the win in either series and trying to maximize payroll across both. I just really hope T100 releases a relatively compatible schedule, specifically they don’t interfere with the 2 WC weekends or Roth.
He also mentioned something about a triathlon Hollywood film like Brad Pitt’s F1 movie to make the sport mainstream. That is another pie in the sky that will remain on their vision board.
Interesting to hear that the PTO took an equity stake with Dataworks. The data from the broadcast has been a weakness of their coverage this year. Does anyone really care about % of max heart rate data? Just get the GPS and timing data working consistently. The website of Dataworks also says that they’ve provided the following:
During the T100 World Tour 2024, the Dataworks-powered secondscreen brought fans closer to the action. Fully responsive on the PTO website, it provided live timing, heart rate, gear ratios, and race facts highlighting penalties and key moments. Stable and reliable, the secondscreen handled thousands of concurrent users, powering data across broadcast and commentary teams to create a more immersive and connected experience.
I don’t remember anything about live gear ratios. There’s nothing really informative from the secondscreen graphics. Commentators probably don’t even see the realtime GPS data. Otherwise, they’d immediately know if there are crashes or if someone stops for a penalty even without the cameras. Case in point was when Jelle Geens crashed in T100 Spain and the commentator only found out during the post-race interview.
The interview is no different from what Sam Renouf has done with PTN/TTH. He’s obviously very eloquent. The type of executive you’d need when asking for money from investors. But it’s now his 6th year in the job and it has been a lot of big talk and yet no game.
While I take it with a large grain of salt, I do actually find this piece interesting. Obviously the percentage shown is dependent on what max heartrate the athlete says they have but watching the trend during the bike and run gives a decent idea how hard they’re working. That said, I’d really love to see wattage data during the bike but realize not everyone runs a power meter.
One can infer from the trends of % for a single athlete, rather than comparing one athlete’s % with another’s.
But surely by now the PTO have enough data on the max HR achieved (not HRmax obv) for each athlete as recorded in many hours of PTO Opens / T100s to use that as the ‘100%’. As that figure will be different for each athlete for bike and run; no problem: just use the correct one for each discipline. % of that figure is a very good proxy for how hard they’re working in race conditions. Less so in training because it’s better to use % of HR range rather than % of HRmax.
