Wow, ok. I guess it’s why we have Ironman and not much else in this sport. People are not ready for anything else. I give Sam and his team a lot of credit for trying, and they have done a LOT in the last 6 years to take this sport to a new level.
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Yeah they’ve done a lot of pivoting in the last 6 years. They got praised when they were handing out money, but that almost went dry. Collins Cup was a dud. The Opens were great but got abandoned for a season-long narrative buzzword which brings us back to 4/5 races next year. Contracted athletes was supposed to be a gamechanger but pros didn’t like constraints. So we’re back where we started.
How many times has he promised to release a race calendar only to have it pushed back or races even getting cancelled. Not completely his or PTO’s fault to be fair. But as in any leadership role, the buck stops with him.
Sam hyped about the broadcast product but it’s hard to find any major improvement from when they started. It’s good compared to the rest, but not radically different to what was promised. Didn’t he also promise a T200 somewhere down the road? He promised a pro-driven tour, but now T100 has pivoted to age-group racing.
The partnership with World Triathlon is good. But the recent press releases on wanting the T100 in the Olympics won’t lead to much. It’s something that will remain on their vision board.
We can thank him for forcing IM’s hand to step up their game. But it seems evident now that IM did a better job with the Pro Series compared to the T100 tour.
So to summarize, under his leadership, the PTO seemed to take two steps back after each step forward they’ve taken. It sounds like I’m a hater, but it’s just frustrating to see the missteps Sam and his team has taken each year.
I never would have thought in our niche sports the pro’s would behave in that manner with guranteed money before the race is even raced. Just make sure you put in your note a little bit of blame on the pro’s too for how the T100 has sorta never really taken off.
Might have been the ultimate smart business move on IM’s part to “disrupt” all the praise the pro’s felt towards T100, and all I can think about is what most pro’s feel will happen if T100 type of money goes away- IM will most certainly pivot/change their pro IM gravy train as well. It would be the smart business play to drop pro series by 20% etc, if T100 dried up. It will almost be a given at that point that IM lowers it pro purse, even as successful as the IMPS is going.
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while i agree with you that they have done a lot of good things
the last post from runningeconomy is not wrong and while it is commendable what pto tries. i did not watch the last 3 races .
iam not watching a t100 race during a world champ. the race in spain was to low in quality and likewise if there is a world series race the same weekend i do not watch a t100
funnily i do see more of seasonal narrative at world tri than in t100 …
their poor dealing in the hayden wilde case still annoys me
there is nothing of the PTO left at this stage
i do like a lot of the changes they made for 2026
i am still far more likely to watch a t100 race than pro tour race but this year was a step downwards from the previous years. and its just childish to ban atheltes because they did want to sign a contract.
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Same. The narrative of this long season is T100 is becoming like the WTCS. Well done. Now I have two series I only occaisonally pay attention to.
These are all good points, and yet come from a very negative stance and could also be turned on their head if looked with a glass half full attitude instead. That’s what I choose to do and was the point of my argument.
I don’t agree that IM did a better job with their Pro Series. Take away the IM and 70.3 World Championships and IM doesn’t have anything on T100. Also with @pk’s point about him not wanting to watch the last 3 races (that’s his right) supposedly because of sub-par fields, well they were still better than any other middle or long course (non-drafting triathlon) race outside of Ironman world championship races.
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I for one love the T100 and dont give a shit about all the political back and forth behind the scenes.If the races are on then Ill watch and have more interest in a “b” T100 race than a “b” Ironman race.
Ironman started the Pro series for one reason,to end the T100 series. If they do that,the sun will still rise for me but some of the Pro’s might want to take a good hsrd look at themselves as they had this gift horse throwing money at them and they,as a general group,couldnt be bothered supporting them.
Once the T100 series is done you can bet that the Ironman series will be scaled down and the cash cow will be gone.Then we will hear the Pro’s having a good cry.
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I think for whatever reason it takes a very special athlete to capture the triathlon world’s attention if they don’t race Ironman. Hayden Wilde is cleaning up T100, and it’s not that interesting. Mika Noodt is having his best year ever, and it’s like “no one” (rando commenters that don’t matter in truth) really cares.
If Hayden was headed to Marbella, a lot of people would be talking about him and how that will play out. THAT is interesting, isn’t it? It kind of does show that the athletes need Ironman to be relevant in most fan’s circles.
Now, where I agree with you is that a random race, even with an A-lister Ironman focused athlete isn’t that interesting unless there are a few of them. But still, you can take 3-4 Ironman/70.3 athletes, and the race becomes very interesting. You can take 8 great athletes in the T100 and it’s not really talked about.
That’s a problem for the T100 isn’t it?
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Put it this way,I wont be following Ironman Arizona because it is s b race full of pro’s who are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
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Says who? For me there have been 3 ironman races I was glad to watch and looked forward to, and really two should be one as it was split gender Nice and Kona. the other was Oceanside and that is really it. All the T100’s except for the last one I looked forward to, and if the next two get the athletes entered, they will be high up on my list as well. The 70.3 WC will be great to watch, although like the T100’s, many missing athletes makes it less interesting.
That’s basically it besides Roth for long distance, all the rest of the races are easy misses or watch later on. Super League is a must watch every single time, even the watered down fields there are fun to watch. ITU top races are great usually, but same goes there if not many top athletes are there..So overall T100 as a grouping has the most watchable races for long distance racing, Ironman has their flagship WC’s and Oceanside.
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See that’s interesting as I think it’s fascinating how the comeback story will workout for all the “big names” at IM AZ. Matt Hanson, Ben Kanute, Sam Long, Joe Skipper are all well known names in the trifan world, but haven’t had success lately and I’m more interested in that story than Mika Noidt! chasing Hayden Wilde with Bogen on his heels. Evern though I agree that’s objectively better racing and talent. Unfortunately, that narrative hasn’t really stuck for me and many others.
It is interesting that you sre more interested in watching the “has beens” in a local derby in the USA rather than to top guys in the world at an A race overseas.
The triathlon fan world is “interesting”
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In the real world superior products and ideas fail all the time to seemingly inferior ones.
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In 2 cases I did not watch it because with WTCS level races at the same weekend, unless they have a London quality field there is little chance I watch a middle distance Tri.
Point in case Hayden Wilde can swim in a t100 race in the main pack but has no chance in a world series race in the swim , yet, after his injury.
Hey, I get it. I haven’t (re-)watched T100 Wollongong (yet?) but did re-watch the junior worlds male an female and elite men WTCS final on Triathlonlive. Haven’t yet had time to watch the U23s. But I saw them all live on the spot for once.
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Has Renouf or someone else mentioned when they would announce the other 6 races, in Qatar most likely or later? I would be keen to give their Age Group racing a try if its a location nearby, dsspite Frejus and Valencia.
btw odd that they call it amateur racing and not age group racing…
Thanks buddy, I love compliments!
He called it “a matter of weeks”. In PTO lingo, who knows if it’s weeks or months of course 
They don’t have all the locations announced yet, according to Renouf, because they’re trying to line them up so that men and women get a similar set of races in terms of terrain, climate, travel requirements, scheduling conflicts etc. He also mentioned some pending adjustments to the London course to make it less boring (a word Renouf actually used), suggesting between the lines that there might in fact be a PRO race in London after all.
The podcast is worth a listen - not as bland/corporate as some would have it. He says a lot of interesting stuff aside from the usual talking points.
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To support @Lurker4 's point. The Senior Tour was infinitely more popular than the LPGA Tour only until recently.
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It goes to show that people are more interesting than the race itself. That’s one of the things that has hampered the T100, some of their best athletes don’t have strong social presences. They signed the Howard Hughes of triathlon to a contract last year. They have fantastic athletes who’s name recognition doesn’t match their talent.
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