Taylor Knibb at TT Nationals

Triathlon Forum
41

The thing working in Knibb’s favor here is that US cycling doesn’t have to pay for her, or even count her as a member of the team. She was already going on USAT’s roster, and team numbers seem to mean a lot these days. I hope this puts to rest her cycling abilities in the TT and we can now talk about her as perhaps the best in the world, and not some triathlete pushing into elite cycling…Of the 3 sports, it certainly is the easiest to become world class with a triathlete background, everyone remember those 7 wins from a high school swimmer turned triathlete?

And the timing of all the events is perfect, she just has to keep herself healthy for probably 2 weeks now in Paris, gonna be a long trip for her with those 3 races. Does anyone know if she will be in the athlete village, or will she be able to get her own accommodations? Not like it is her first games, and she does have a silver medal already, so perhaps she would prefer to be outside all of the stress and togetherness of the village…

42

Awesome for her, Taylor is the best!
Is Paula Findlay going to give it a try? I don’t know what’s Canada’s qualification system but she is the 2023 canadian national champ and the 2024 championships are at the end of june. So…?

I talked to Paula about this after her St. George win, but she said in Canada if you make the TT squad you have to also make the road race squad, and as making the road race squad is a crap shoot she said, “maybe after my tri career is over” (but then she said she may be too old in 2028 when she will be 38)

43

What kind of money can female World Tour cyclists make? If Taylor can be this good as a part time cyclist, I could envisage a pro team offering her a blank chequebook to come across to the sport full time. Sure her tactics and handling skills may need some work but that engine would be a huge asset for teams.

Would be a massive shame to lose her from triathlon however as she will be the biggest star in the sport if she stays . The female Blummenfelt , crushing any distance

44

What kind of money can female World Tour cyclists make? If Taylor can be this good as a part time cyclist, I could envisage a pro team offering her a blank chequebook to come across to the sport full time. Sure her tactics and handling skills may need some work but that engine would be a huge asset for teams.

Would be a massive shame to lose her from triathlon however as she will be the biggest star in the sport if she stays . The female Blummenfelt , crushing any distance

There’s probably only a couple female cyclists (Voss, Volering, Kopecky) making what Taylor makes in triathlon.

45

I thought she was already a stagiere for Lidl-Trek?

46

She was last year shortly before the TT champs. She wasn’t listed on the roster this year to my knowledge.

47

She was last year shortly before the TT champs. She wasn’t listed on the roster this year to my knowledge.Simple search suggests: https://www.cyclingnews.com/road/teams/uci-womens-worldtour/2024/lidl-trek-women/

48

That seems inaccurate… Tayler Wiles has retired.

49

What kind of money can female World Tour cyclists make? If Taylor can be this good as a part time cyclist, I could envisage a pro team offering her a blank chequebook to come across to the sport full time.There’s probably only a couple female cyclists (Voss, Volering, Kopecky) making what Taylor makes in triathlon.Accessing Thorsten Radde’s page, Knibb won $280k last year. This year she is set to win/contract over $400k JUST from PTO (T100 plus EoY PTO bonus) assumes she finishes #2 in the 4 races (though she could race 5 given she’s racing SF). Then add Oceanside and Taupo (#2) which’d be $50k, plus $5k from the IM Pro Series pool (first 50). Clearly if she scores some wins it’d be more. And add her SC winnings (eg #2 at Yokohama and ? at Cagliari, does USAT pay their Olympic athletes?). I assume she’ll not be supertrying and not race before or after Ibiza, till Las Vegas. The Lidl-Trek contract brings in ?$70k pa.
https://www.trirating.com/deep-dive-into-the-2023-triathlon-money-list/
Now add all her triathlon related partnership income . . .

50

Faulkner close but no cigar, and no place in the USA team for the Olympics, aiui. Dygert and Knibb have auto-Qd for the 2 places available: for the TT and the RR - they each satisfied one of the criteria.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/...C-ATH-Road-FINAL.pdf
Not quite sure what you mean by “stinks”. Criterion for 3 places is clear; and not met by the efforts of the full time pro USA female cyclists.

I believe you’re mistaken here. There are 3 road slots, due to the U.S. (as far as I know) having placed in the top 10 of the UCI nations ranking. 1-5 get 4 spots. 6-10 get 3. All other countries get two.

That would mean there would be three road racers starters, and two time trial starters. If Knibb and Dygert each take a TT spot and an RR spot, that leaves one RR slot.

The two most likely candidates for the last slot are Lauren Stephens and Faulkner. Those two would be very hard to choose between for the RR, each with major wins over the last year. There are a few others in the conversation beyond those two, like Veronica Ewers if they want a climber or Coryn Labecki for bunch sprint closer.

I do wonder if USAC is asking Knibb if she wants to do the RR and TT, or just the TT. That would free up a nomination to the road team. This isn’t unheard of. In 2020 Amber Neben only did the TT. That allowed USAC to send 5 total women, Amber, Chloe, Leah Thomas, Coryn Labecki, and Ruth Winder.

I could be wrong about the top 10 nations ranking. It’s easy to get the current ranking, not so easy to get the ranking at the end of October, which is the ranking that matters. But Dygert winning TT Worlds won a ton of points, so I’m assuming they were 6-10, which is where they were for the Tokyo games as well.

Criterion for 3 places is clear; and not met by the efforts of the full time pro USA female cyclists.

There is a criterion for the 3rd RR position to be selected. It is this. “If positions remain after considering the preceding criteria, athletes may be nominated to the 2024 Olympic Games Team in accordance with USA Cycling’s Discretionary Athlete Selection Procedures.”

51

I thought she was already a stagiere for Lidl-Trek?

If she is, she has not raced anything but the 2023 and 2024 Nationals ITT. (according to ProCyclingStats and road-results.com). Also on PCC she was on the 2023 roster for Trek-Segafredo. She is not on the 2024 roster for Lidl-Trek.

52

What kind of money can female World Tour cyclists make? If Taylor can be this good as a part time cyclist, I could envisage a pro team offering her a blank chequebook to come across to the sport full time.There’s probably only a couple female cyclists (Voss, Volering, Kopecky) making what Taylor makes in triathlon.Accessing Thorsten Radde’s page, Knibb won $280k last year. This year she is set to win/contract over $400k JUST from PTO (T100 plus EoY PTO bonus) assumes she finishes #2 in the 4 races (though she could race 5 given she’s racing SF). Then add Oceanside and Taupo (#2) which’d be $50k, plus $5k from the IM Pro Series pool (first 50). Clearly if she scores some wins it’d be more. And add her SC winnings (eg #2 at Yokohama and ? at Cagliari, does USAT pay their Olympic athletes?). I assume she’ll not be supertrying and not race before or after Ibiza, till Las Vegas. The Lidl-Trek contract brings in ?$70k pa.
https://www.trirating.com/...riathlon-money-list/
Now add all her triathlon related partnership income . . .

That would seem like with sponsors/partners it could be a decent year, that would exceed earnings of all but a few on the women’s protour, AND Taylor gets to decide her own schedule largely on her own terms. Pro cycling, you are truly an employee slave to your employer. Pro triathletes are more like entrepreneurs, who get to do whatever they want, and if they perform, they get paid.

53

I really take my hat off to Taylor for doing what she is doing.
I googled the number of athletes who have competed in two different Olympic sports and the list was a lot more than I would have expected, although it did not narrow it down to two different sports at the same games. However, a lot of those who have done are in things like swimming and water polo and road and track cycling, not something which is quite a bit more diverse in terms of triathlon and TT (granted the TT is somewhat of an extension of the triathlon aspect but quite different in terms of the TT nature versus an Olympic Tri).

54

I really take my hat off to Taylor for doing what she is doing.
I googled the number of athletes who have competed in two different Olympic sports and the list was a lot more than I would have expected, although it did not narrow it down to two different sports at the same games. However, a lot of those who have done are in things like swimming and water polo and road and track cycling, not something which is quite a bit more diverse in terms of triathlon and TT (granted the TT is somewhat of an extension of the triathlon aspect but quite different in terms of the TT nature versus an Olympic Tri).

The closest example to Taylor was probably Carol Montgomery (no relation to Monty I think :-), who qualified for both triathlon and the 10,000m track in Sydney (for Canada).

55

Faulkner close but no cigar, and no place in the USA team for the Olympics, aiui. Dygert and Knibb have auto-Qd for the 2 places available: for the TT and the RR - they each satisfied one of the criteria.

Not quite sure what you mean by “stinks”. Criterion for 3 places is clear; and not met by the efforts of the full time pro USA female cyclists.I believe you’re mistaken here. There are 3 road slots, due to the U.S. (as far as I know) having placed in the top 10 of the UCI nations ranking. 1-5 get 4 spots. 6-10 get 3. All other countries get two.

I could be wrong about the top 10 nations ranking. It’s easy to get the current ranking, not so easy to get the ranking at the end of October, which is the ranking that matters. But Dygert winning TT Worlds won a ton of points, so I’m assuming they were 6-10, which is where they were for the Tokyo games as well.I assumed @Frederick was sharing fact when he suggested having only two slots “stink”. https://www.cyclingnews.com/...race-and-time-trial/ and this suggests USA have 2+2 as a result of the UCI standings on 17 October.
“The UCI rankings have granted the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Great Britain four riders in the women’s road race. Poland, Australia, France, Germany and Canada will both send three riders to the women’s road race, while the USA, Denmark, and Spain are among the five nations set to field two starters.”
Aiui the total number of athletes (cycling on the road) is the limit. You can’t have 2 for the TT and another 2 for the RR.
Knibb can’t ‘race’ the RR: she has rather more important Seine fish to fry in the MTR the following day.
Faulkner has a great chance to race on the track.

56

UCI documents show USA with only 2 as well. Dated Feb '24.
.

57

Faulkner close but no cigar, and no place in the USA team for the Olympics, aiui. Dygert and Knibb have auto-Qd for the 2 places available: for the TT and the RR - they each satisfied one of the criteria.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/...C-ATH-Road-FINAL.pdf
Not quite sure what you mean by “stinks”. Criterion for 3 places is clear; and not met by the efforts of the full time pro USA female cyclists.

I believe you’re mistaken here. There are 3 road slots, due to the U.S. (as far as I know) having placed in the top 10 of the UCI nations ranking. 1-5 get 4 spots. 6-10 get 3. All other countries get two.

That would mean there would be three road racers starters, and two time trial starters. If Knibb and Dygert each take a TT spot and an RR spot, that leaves one RR slot.

The two most likely candidates for the last slot are Lauren Stephens and Faulkner. Those two would be very hard to choose between for the RR, each with major wins over the last year. There are a few others in the conversation beyond those two, like Veronica Ewers if they want a climber or Coryn Labecki for bunch sprint closer.

I do wonder if USAC is asking Knibb if she wants to do the RR and TT, or just the TT. That would free up a nomination to the road team. This isn’t unheard of. In 2020 Amber Neben only did the TT. That allowed USAC to send 5 total women, Amber, Chloe, Leah Thomas, Coryn Labecki, and Ruth Winder.

I could be wrong about the top 10 nations ranking. It’s easy to get the current ranking, not so easy to get the ranking at the end of October, which is the ranking that matters. But Dygert winning TT Worlds won a ton of points, so I’m assuming they were 6-10, which is where they were for the Tokyo games as well.

Criterion for 3 places is clear; and not met by the efforts of the full time pro USA female cyclists.

There is a criterion for the 3rd RR position to be selected. It is this. “If positions remain after considering the preceding criteria, athletes may be nominated to the 2024 Olympic Games Team in accordance with USA Cycling’s Discretionary Athlete Selection Procedures.”

It will be interesting to see how she fares at the Olympics TT. Its a flat 32km course that is going to suit a pure TT specialist. I have to think Dygert, Reusser, Van Dijk, Brown are going to be the favorites.

58

UCI documents show USA with only 2 as well. Dated Feb '24.

Yeah, I was wrong on two fronts. They finished 12th. That surprises me.

Also riders now are apparently required to do both the TT and RR, can’t have TT specialists like Neben in Tokyo. That must be new.

59

I really take my hat off to Taylor for doing what she is doing.
I googled the number of athletes who have competed in two different Olympic sports and the list was a lot more than I would have expected, although it did not narrow it down to two different sports at the same games. However, a lot of those who have done are in things like swimming and water polo and road and track cycling, not something which is quite a bit more diverse in terms of triathlon and TT (granted the TT is somewhat of an extension of the triathlon aspect but quite different in terms of the TT nature versus an Olympic Tri).

The closest example to Taylor was probably Carol Montgomery (no relation to Monty I think :-), who qualified for both triathlon and the 10,000m track in Sydney (for Canada).

In a different world we had Krista Luding (sp?) from Germany and Allison Sydor from Canada competing in the olympics in speed skating and track cycling (Luding same years I believe, Sydor, different years) and medaling in both. In Canada we had Pierre Harvey racing the 1984 Olympic road race working for Steve Bauer on his silver medal and same year Harvey competed in 1984 Sarajevo Olympics in XC skiing and 1988 Olympic Games in in Calgary (also XC skiing). 1985-1988, Harvey was winning pretty well every triathlon he entered in Canada. (so this guy was a three sport guy). He won several XC ski world cups.

Then there was Lance, winning triathlons against the best tri pros in the late 80s before going to cycling.

On the front of Carol Montgomery , sadly she was silver medalist at ITU worlds 2000 in Perth (short 8km run and ran out of real estate closing on the run for gold) and then she crashed at Sydney 2000 and DNFd the tri and then could not start the 10,000m finals.

60

UCI documents show USA with only 2 as well. Dated Feb '24.

Yeah, I was wrong on two fronts. They finished 12th. That surprises me.

Also riders now are apparently required to do both the TT and RR, can’t have TT specialists like Neben in Tokyo. That must be new.

from inside the knibb camp, USA Cycling is not going to require her to do the road race in order to compete in the TT.