Taylor Knibb's "New Team" is Nailing it in 2024 - and So Is She

[The_GMAN_Retired]

@sciguy

I don’t believe Taylor is entered in Oceanside. I believe she is committed to T-100 but “we will see”.

I don’t know a thing. I was making a declarative statement.

[Ajax_Bay]

@sciguy

Did you notice that in the interview Taylor mentioned she was prepping to be race April 5th i.e. Singapore?

I did (don’t know how long ago the interview was recorded). Looks like Knibb is actually racing in Singapore. That gives her 3 weeks to recover for Texas.
She (as said) owes ‘us’ nothing eg on insta. But she owes PTO marketing posts . . .

[Lurker4]

And she’s out of Singapore. Not racing or even going.

[TulkasTri]

Personal reasons???

[Lurker4]

Presumably she’s not moving house or dating a body builder.

I’d guess it’s A - there’s some mild training or life drama that’s not going well with her strong personality or B - she’s smartly not wasting her time on making an appearance and interrupting her training or C she’s got an injury she’s keeping secret and she let the T100 know, but sees no reason to give her competition a heads up.

Any seem equally likely.

[TulkasTri]

@Lurker4

Presumably she’s not moving house or dating a body builder.

… or eating an excessive amount of chicken nuggets.

[Lurker4]

@TulkasTri

… or eating an excessive amount of chicken nuggets.

When Crumbl cookies starts putting supplements in their flavor lineup that will be a terrible day…

[jeanpants]

I imagine she’s blowing this off to prioritize Texas. T100’s mandatory Singapore clause is such a joke, you’re never going to legitimize your series if your reigning champion can’t even be bothered to show up.

[Lurker4]

Knibb is the kind of person who isn’t going to travel to Singapore just because they paid her. She’s made a bunch of money already. She’s kind of a germaphoben(reasonable chance Singapore could mess with your season). She doesn’t like to travel. So I agree she seems likely to be bailing. The personal reasons could simply be heavy anxiety about all the above and she’s not going to say that to the public as she’s clearly very private and doesn’t think anyone needs to know.

Now …when she ends up racing Oceanside …hah

[Ajax_Bay]

From the T100 thread:

@Ajax_Bay

@asianzone

Is Knibb not racing in Singapore ?

I’m just surmising, based on the attention to detail she and Lorang are renowned for, that it would not be sensible to race Singapore [^1] in the run up to your second Ironman which you really need to nail (to get that early KQ before embarking on a busy T100 campaign).

[^1] (and all the acclimation required (where?) and the sickness afterwards (see West and Blummenfelt and others after PTO Singapore 2023)

[ericlambi]

@Lurker4

@TulkasTri

… or eating an excessive amount of chicken nuggets.

When Crumbl cookies starts putting supplements in their flavor lineup that will be a terrible day…

The Crumbl cookie in Boulder closed last year. Perhaps she decided she had to race Oceanside because there’s one there?

[r0bh]

If that’s that case then she shouldn’t have signed the T100 contract

[TheStroBro]

@Ajax_Bay

@BDoughtie

at best she was more of an “outside” shot at a medal vs a medal favorite.

@Lurker4

@BDoughtie

Her and pearson have to thank god the AQ policy was as “soft”

. . do you think anyone else would have been better suited to race for USA than Knibb?
And without her, no silver in the relay.

Even an “outside shot at an individual medal” for Knibb was complete wishful thinking (as I said ad nauseam in the run up to Paris) and that miniscule chance was neither improved not reduced by her TT cycling nor her long course races (October 2023 and June 2024).
Conversely the USA had an a priori good chance of a medal with her on the anchor leg. Without her, repeating the USA’s great medal in Tokyo would’ve been tenuous at best (echoing @Lurker4 ).
If Knibb had not AQ’d in the test event, selecting her would’ve remained a ‘no brainer’ for USAT if they wanted to get a relay medal. Consider the counter-factual result of Spivey plus any other athlete in the MTR.
None of the above is hindsight.

This whole discussion is incredibly reductive. She deserved to be there and was one of the top 3 US Women.

@Lurker4

Knibb is the kind of person who isn’t going to travel to Singapore just because they paid her. She’s made a bunch of money already. She’s kind of a germaphoben(reasonable chance Singapore could mess with your season). She doesn’t like to travel. So I agree she seems likely to be bailing. The personal reasons could simply be heavy anxiety about all the above and she’s not going to say that to the public as she’s clearly very private and doesn’t think anyone needs to know.

Now …when she ends up racing Oceanside …hah

Why in the world do they think that Singapore is attractive to these folks. Same with any ME venue.

[Xath10]

@TheStroBro

Why in the world do they think that Singapore is attractive to these folks. Same with any ME venue.

Because the organizers get a lot of money there. It’s not for the athletes and definitely not at all for the spectators.

[TheStroBro]

I get it from the Organizer perspective, World Rugby held a World Series 7s event there for years…and there were definitely more pigeons on the field there than fans in the stands…but someone paid World Rugby to have that event. Even though there is almost no rugby played in Singapore at any density.

[Xath10]

Like the cycling world champs there, the World Cup in Qatar or even the Spanish Supercup being taken away from the fans there. It´s only about money, nothing else seems to matter sadly