Question from a bike racer (non-triathlete). Just how good of a swimmer is she compared to the best triathlete’s in the world.//
One of the best, and she recently led an ITU race for over half of it, so that good. But of course that was not after 3 crashes in an hour just days before, so really have no idea what happened to her in that swim. Hopefully we will get something from her once this is all over…
And other good swimmers got caught out too, while some medicare ones did quite well.
Nobody has addressed the current question. Are there other races at this level where they are swimming in a river with a fairly strong current?
I vaguely remember a Windsor race where Jodie Swallow, Liz Blatchford and possibly Stuart Hayes had amazing swims because they knew how to swim in the current just like in the Seine. But whether that was at National or International level I can’t remember.
Fully agree that her championship level racing in Olympic fields is a poor use of her talent. Maybe she’ll figure this out and go and dominate in long course. Maybe she’ll be annoyed at being too good in long course like Blu seemed to and just go chase some other goal. I hope she sets a new standard and unseats Ryf as the GOAT. We havent talked about her lately and her Olympic results never lived up to her athletic potential.
An Olympic medal is important and harder to get in so many ways but if she can rack up a dozen 70.3 worlds wins, with some full distance Championships, is anyone ever going to care or talk about the Olympics when she’s 40?
Don’t get me wrong, I think if she can qualify for LA she should race. But perhaps racing in an Olympics should be defined as success for her. You don’t have to win at everything to be successful. The fact that she has the experience can be enough to be proud of.
I bet for an average Joe, no one would care about all the Ironman or 70.3 wins; only the Olympic medals will count.
At this point, I am a little concerned about her mentality after watching some of the documentaries and her comments on TriathlonLive. She’s clearly talented, but seems a bit stubborn and very insulated with her small group of people she trusts. Clearly the decision to race the TT was one of the boneheaded decision that she made, but I am not sure if USAT had any say in that; just like USAT never had any say in her schedule and preparation leading up to the Olympics, and we all knew even back then that it was not ideal.
her championship level racing in Olympic fields is a poor use of her talent.
We haven’t talked about her lately and her Olympic results never lived up to her athletic potential.
An Olympic medal is important and harder to get in so many ways . . .
I bet for an average Joe, no one would care about all the Ironman or 70.3 wins; only the Olympic medals will count.
At this point, I am a little concerned about her mentality after watching some of the documentaries and her comments on TriathlonLive. She’s clearly talented, but seems a bit stubborn and very insulated with her small group of people she trusts. Clearly the decision to race the TT was one of the boneheaded decision that she made, but I am not sure if USAT had any say in that; just like USAT never had any say in her schedule and preparation leading up to the Olympics, and we all knew even back then that it was not ideal.“Poor use of talent” “Olympic results” “concerned about her mentality”
Knibb, and all the USA athletes performed to their potential in the Olympic races. “Olympic medals will count”.
Edit to add:
USA team dynamic:
From a correspondent (seems farfetched and flawed in practice to me but he believes):
"For team usa in this MTR: A medal is going to be won strictly on pure hatred. It’s turned into a full blown hatefest between Pearson/Rider/Spivey vs Knibb. They’ve gone full cold shoulder towards her post the individual race: can’t blame them. Your best best for a medal is an MTR and you are off doing 3+ hour racing events that have almost the opposite effect of what a 18-20 min race specificity is.
“If they medal it’s going to be on pure angry hatred for one another”
Knibb was incredible today! Fastest split out of all of the female competitors. Her swim was super impressive & then she was able to do her thing on the run. Would’ve guessed that she was running for 3rd but took it to Lindemann & Potter & led almost to the finish. Lindemann didn’t do any work on the bike or run. Sat on her wheel & then on her shoulder. Really awesome to see her bounce back after a tough go of things up to this point.
Knibb was incredible today! Fastest split out of all of the female competitors. Her swim was super impressive & then she was able to do her thing on the run. Would’ve guessed that she was running for 3rd but took it to Lindemann & Potter & led almost to the finish. Lindemann didn’t do any work on the bike or run. Sat on her wheel & then on her shoulder. Really awesome to see her bounce back after a tough go of things up to this point.
Good news is that she does not have any major injuries from the falls during the road bike ITT. And she has the fastest overall split which makes sense because in this format it is more of a solo race for everyone. That split of hers bodes well for staying in the short course game until LA 2028.
I think Knibb just struggles in a large pack. If she was racing in a heat of 12, she’d be fine. There’s too many people racing is the simple reality of ITU.
I’ll just keep saying they need to go off in heats spaced 5 minutes apart. Haven’t heard any good reason why that’s a bad approach. You get passed, your day is done. Top 3 move on.
She was incredible today! I wonder if the result would’ve been different had she let Lindemann do a bit of work on the bike after she caught her in the last lap.
I think Knibb just struggles in a large pack. If she was racing in a heat of 12, she’d be fine. There’s too many people racing is the simple reality of ITU.
I’ll just keep saying they need to go off in heats spaced 5 minutes apart. Haven’t heard any good reason why that’s a bad approach. You get passed, your day is done. Top 3 move on.
I would like to see something like that.
Over the last couple of years I’ve watched less and less WTS races as they have become very monotonous: the entire field of men swimming and biking together, 90% of them sitting in on the bike, and hoping for a good run. The women will occasionally have a few splits, but a lot of the times it’s the same thing: women sitting in on the bike and hoping for a good run.
She will definitely want to fulfill her dream of racing Kona competitively (this time) in 2025. The next Olympic qualification cycle starts in 2026. Who knows? “We’ll see.â€
Knibb was incredible today! Fastest split out of all of the female competitors. Her swim was super impressive & then she was able to do her thing on the run. Would’ve guessed that she was running for 3rd but took it to Lindemann & Potter & led almost to the finish. Lindemann didn’t do any work on the bike or run. Sat on her wheel & then on her shoulder. Really awesome to see her bounce back after a tough go of things up to this point.
Indeed, today she was finally able to show her true abilities. In all probability, she is going to be the dominant female triathlete over the next 8-10 years.
Fully aware there’s nothing we can do to change it, so pointless to discuss. But it would have been nice to see her lay down some performances in the old non-draft Olympic distance races that lifetime bought over a decade ago.
She’ll continue to dominate 70.3 and t100, but she has some serious speed over that 1:50-2:00 timeframe (maybe less) that would have been fun to watch.
I think Knibb just struggles in a large pack. If she was racing in a heat of 12, she’d be fine. There’s too many people racing is the simple reality of ITU.
I’ll just keep saying they need to go off in heats spaced 5 minutes apart. Haven’t heard any good reason why that’s a bad approach. You get passed, your day is done. Top 3 move on.
I would like to see something like that.
Over the last couple of years I’ve watched less and less WTS races as they have become very monotonous: the entire field of men swimming and biking together, 90% of them sitting in on the bike, and hoping for a good run. The women will occasionally have a few splits, but a lot of the times it’s the same thing: women sitting in on the bike and hoping for a good run.
Today’s MTR was super exciting.
Elsewhere (and rolling back to 1994 when they made half the ITU world cups draft legal), I have said to package up the pro race, having a run-swim-bike or run-swim-bike-run would make things super exciting (and perhaps more along the lines of what we end up in the mixed tri relay). Keeping the pro race in the age grouper format order of swim-bike-run makes no sense as there is no suspense in the show that comes from separation. With no suspense as you mention for the casual observer (not those of us who do endurance sport), it is uninteresting watching a group go by together endlessly.
For age groupers you need swim-bike-run in that order for swim course support and road closures. For pro racing we’re not stuck with that limitation since the entire place is wrapped up in 2 hrs anyway.
In a run-swim-bike-run format, the swim and bike become more meaningful as there can be passes and re passes as everyone is guranteed to be separated in ones and twos starting the bike before smaller packs reform.
we all know how hard it would be to put on a wetsuit after a sweaty run or ride. and including putting on a wetsuit into transition times would grind things to a halt. it would also disincentivize wearing a wetsuit at all, which could lead to athletes getting themselves into danger, skipping wetsuits when they shouldn’t.
i’m all for mixing up distances and formats, believe me. but (in non-tropical conditions) having the swim first is pretty convenient . . .
There’s no question that nobody would put a wetsuit for any swim other than the one that starts a race 😂
Just look at super league. You only see wetsuits (occasionally) in the first swim of the enduro or triple mix format.
But super league / supertri can be picky with locations and dates. On the conti cup level and below you’re not going to tell athletes to travel to the Southern Hemisphere if they want to race in April.
we all know how hard it would be to put on a wetsuit after a sweaty run or ride. and including putting on a wetsuit into transition times would grind things to a halt. it would also disincentivize wearing a wetsuit at all, which could lead to athletes getting themselves into danger, skipping wetsuits when they shouldn’t.
i’m all for mixing up distances and formats, believe me. but (in non-tropical conditions) having the swim first is pretty convenient . . .
I’d it is a wetsuit swim then do swim run bike run
Mixes things up but guaranteed to have separation before bike but you still get the group swim
Knibb was incredible today! Fastest split out of all of the female competitors.//
Well one could say she was responsible for 5 people getting medals, 4 in the relay and the cycling gold. I hope all the folks that were adamant that she race the RR can now see how silly that was. That one decision got the US 5 more medal athletes, which would have certainly been 0 had she raced. And even if that RR would have only affected her by .01%, would have cost the silver medal for 4 US athletes. It matters when the margins are 100’s of a second!!!
Knibb was incredible today! Fastest split out of all of the female competitors.//
Well one could say she was responsible for 5 people getting medals, 4 in the relay and the cycling gold. I hope all the folks that were adamant that she race the RR can now see how silly that was. That one decision got the US 5 more medal athletes, which would have certainly been 0 had she raced. And even if that RR would have only affected her by .01%, would have cost the silver medal for 4 US athletes. It matters when the margins are 100’s of a second!!!
an individual medal worth more imho. everyone remembers the 400m medal winner not the 400x4. They even diluted other sports like basketball by adding 3v3