I have been working with the Iowa State triathlon team ever since I helped to establish the team in 1999. During that time I got involved with the Collegiate Triathlon Association(CTA). I have been the midwest region representative for the CTA and am a member of the board of directors for the CTA. I have to agree with you that the top triathletes are coming from the swim programs. Our only member from the Iowa State swim team that participated on the triathlon team was by far our fastest female. This year I have been watching and recruiting members of the Iowa State womens swim team for participation in the triathlon team, we also have a couple of people from the Track/cross country teams at Iowa state who have joined the team.
This is all in preparation for the Collegiate national championship triathlon at Lake Pleasant on April 26th. We are expecting 800+ college students to attend this race, it should be a good place to keep your eyes open for new recruits. I know the past couple years there have been men and women from the college nationals move on to pro careers immediately after the competition.
Keep in mind that no one has had conference meets yet, and not too many people tapered for the US Open in December, so that list is a bit slow right now. Last year’s NCAA psych sheets:
You’ve also got to remember to seperate out foreign nationals like Janelle Aiktinson and Flavia Rigamonti.
I was playing around on USAT’s web site and was surprised to discover how (for lack of a better word) lame thier swim time standards are for resident team application. Their A time of 5:15 for women’s 500 is a couple seconds slower than the NCAA Division 3 nationals B standard (5:11) And 5:32 in the 500 Free (USAT B) doesn’t even get you to high school state meet in most places. It’s pretty much a requierment that you be merely good, but not great.
Interesting comparing them to the run time standards, which unlike the swim, cannot be easily met by a slightly more than competent 15 year old.
The good news? USAT did not have ANY time standards in individual sports until recently. They just took the best of whomever showed up at the door. The bad news? You hit it right on the head: if all a prospect can do is hit THOSE standards, USAT is wasting its money. They will NEVER seriously compete on a world stage.
In fairness, however, I need to emphasize that a good share of USAT’s elite budget is, happy surprise, performance based. In other words, a substantial percentage of the money goes to people like Lindquist, Taormina, and before her retirement, Lindley, who demonstrate that they can indeed compete.
But there are anomalies. In the U.S., we have a strong tendency towards gender equality (or at least, we have it if the gender to be “disadvantaged” is male). In the current state of triathlon, the women’s team kicks ass. Four women have 14 world cup wins (and a first, second, and third at worlds) among them over the past two years. Meanwhile, the men’s team is somewhat less accomplished (like no world cup wins in modern history and not even a single top seven at worlds). The result? The top three men still got the same year-end performance bonuses as the top three women, even though the three women were 1st, 2nd, and 10th in the ITU rankings, while the men were 16th, 25th, and 57th. And left out of the year-end performance bonuses completely were Laura Reback (now 8th in the world) and Joanna Zeiger (only fourth at the 2000 Olympics and third at 2001 Worlds).
But what can we say when Title IX is crying out for reform?
I’ve taken this theory a step further. I married a fast swimmer and had two kids. My 10 year old son can run an 800 under 3:00 (little to no training) and his swimming is coming along well also. He rides a MTB in a really hilly area so his spin is developing well also . . . only time will tell I guess.