Not a mountain stage, but per meter covered. Marbella WC bike course is as hilly as Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Il Lombardia. Which are both climbers races.
250km long & 4.5km gain. So net gradients of 1.8%.
Vs 90km & 1.75km. So 1.9%
For reference St. George would be (90 & 1) 1.1%
That gradient is a bit of a simplification. For the Marbella course it holds that the start is in the same place as the finish. So what goes up must come down, i.e. the total vertical gain is covered in half the distance. That makes for an average gradient of 3.6% for the uphill sections. I’m too lazy to look up the course profiles of LBL and Lobardia 
.
T100 and WTCS is the A league… i guess you want 70.3 to stay B
You think a race called Liège-Bastogne-Liège is going to have a significantly different elevation start and finish? 
No, definitely not 
. In fact, there’s only a 10m difference between the start and finish:
Stage profiles Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2025 One day race .
In theory they could start/finish with a difference of +/- 233 meters, just looking at the altitude of Liege itself.
That made me chuckle xD
Lionel talks like a 10 year old boy whos blabbering off some crazy idea to their mom’s cell phone camera
Welcome back! Thanks for chiming in with such insightful commentary.
I appreciate the gentle trolling.
I assure you the winners in Marbella will deserve their win. And if Derron or Waugh aren’t there, are people really going to say, ooh, the best athletes weren’t there?
Also for men.
See also Nice and Kona.
I thought two years ago, with the advent of the T100 tour, that the 2025 et seq 70.3 World Champs would be marginalised as the ‘middle distance’ crown would be determined by the T100 final standing - and said just that on here.
But because several of the best MD triathletes in the world want to race in the IMWC (specifically Knibb, Matthews in WPro and Blummenfelt and MvR in MPro) and can’t or won’t subject themselves to the strictures of the T100 regime/treadmill, the 70.3 retains its diamond tier status.
Thank you! I watch every video and just providing my thoughts on his latest video
lol
what about Liège-Bastogne-Lüttich …
To have the best triathletes in the world on the start line of the world championships?
Give Hayden a Wilde card.
And invite Sanders and KB to Qatar; for fun this time.
not a gamble if you’re so sure 
He’s not rambling off a cell phone , he’s trying to ramble off what he remembers from chat gpt and the last guru he saw and said something that sounds smart with big words. Get it right. 
You know this idea would never happen but we can fan fiction it anyway. KB and Sanders should show up to upset the day. KB hangs back and lets Sanders draft the swim. Long hangs on to Sanders, and the three of them freight train to the front and run to the podium and upset the whole race and put all the T100 snobs in their place.
I’d pay to witness that!
he was a legitimate world class pro at one point. And even earlier this year he won a second tier major race.
Im not ready to call him irrelvent as a porfessional just yet, but I do see your point. We probably only disagree in terms of degrees.
So I really wonder where he goes once his professional relvence is unmistakably gone. Will he hang on too long? And of course that really is entirely up to him, but I think there is a public concensus that Jan got it “about right” and Ali carried on too long.
Can we get a Lionel reacts to the reacts video, @talbotcox ?
He will become a coach and if he wants it he will have damn near the biggest coaching company from day 1.
Wow, if you don’t outright win a major TOP-tier professional race in the recent year, you’re not a relevant pro? That would leave like 4-5 people tops relevant in the mens field. Everyone else might as well be posers, right?