Agree that it’s a misogyny issue. But women’s participant is important and what he’s saying will only make it worse in the pro field.
Exactly. There could be a downward spiral effect: less prize money for WPROs → fewer WPROs racing → even less prize money for WPROs → etc.
Skipper, as he sometimes does, failed to think this through before talking.
It’s a free market after all. Apparently the fact that it’s easier for a woman to win money doesn’t attract enough women to pro racing to even out the field depth. So maybe we need to pay them more, relative to the difficulty of the task (i.e. pay them the same money in absolute terms), just to have WPRO racing. Joe likes the free market when it suits him, but not when he would like someone to step in and take women’s money and give it to him because it’s too easy for women because there “aren’t enough” WPROs.
Joe Skipper had a hot take in the latest episode about how equal prize money for men and women is not fair especially when the women’s field is a lot smaller. He mentioned that there are women’s races where just showing up guarantees prize money. So he’s suggesting that the prize money should depend on how many are racing in each field at least from what I recall. He said that T100 or WTCS races are okay to have equal purses since the number of athletes showing up are more or less the same.
Just replying in general, but there are more men than women who work in my office…does that mean that as a woman, I should make less than the men?
Probably fair to look at it that way.
The pros aren’t deserving of getting paid based on number of participants, but the races are “hiring” three women and three men to promote as their podium winners in the male and female category.
The fact that there could be 30 men and 5 women who apply is irrelevant if the job description calls for hiring 3 women and 3 men.
If you look at pro prize purses as some sort of percentage of the pot gambling payout, I suppose Joe’s reasoning has some legs. But it’s not clear that the men are any more deserving than the women of age grouper entry fees.
Agree that it’s a misogyny issue. But women’s participant is important and what he’s saying will only make it worse in the pro field.
Exactly. There could be a downward spiral effect: less prize money for WPROs → fewer WPROs racing → even less prize money for WPROs → etc.
Skipper, as he sometimes does, failed to think this through before talking.
It’s a free market after all. Apparently the fact that it’s easier for a woman to win money doesn’t attract enough women to pro racing to even out the field depth. So maybe we need to pay them more, relative to the difficulty of the task (i.e. pay them the same money in absolute terms), just to have WPRO racing. Joe likes the free market when it suits him, but not when he would like someone to step in and take women’s money and give it to him because it’s too easy for women because there “aren’t enough” WPROs.
but this doens’t apply just to pros. Even in the AG the % of women participating in some races is something like 10 or 15%, yet IM adds more slots for women to the worlds. Quite counterintuitive to me, as that’s how you end up with men having to do sub 8.20 to get to Kona or sub 4.15 to get to 70.3 worlds yet women doing 14h or more for a full or a 6.30-7h 70.3 go to the worlds. You think this is fair?
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
I don’t follow the pro fields in swimming and running as much as I do triathlon, but what’s the depth like in those sports? My impression is that swimming or running depth among female pros is much deeper. But does it still go as deep in those sports for the women compared to the men? I would guess not, but that’s just a guess based on the extreme fast times that the men would clock would be right up to human physiological limits while there is just more variation possible the “slower” (relative terms) the times get.
In other words, female Olympic top 1-10 5k times, to take a random sample had 17.6 seconds difference between 1st and 10th. Male time difference from 1st to 10th was 10.35 seconds. So just taking that as an example, if you combine that effect for 3 sports, swimming, cycling, and running, you get even more of a disparity as the variation across all 3 sports stacks up.
Just my thinking. When you mingle this with all the social issues, history, discrimination, and yes, politics as you’d be a fool not to think that there are those who will exploit statistical variation for gain; then the waters are further muddied. For an event promoter to spend the money on prizes is not really that big of a deal relative to the hell to pay if they decided to cut female prizes by 50% because there are just not as many women paying to show up and race. But what that does accomplish overall is to pay more for less absolute performance. Big deal in this case again, because Ironman’s ultimate goal is not to have a huge number of people shaving minutes off their finish time, but more customers entering races. So they need more females.
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
Joe’s argument that prize money should be dictated by number of entries is a terrible idea and if implemented would lead to a whole lot of hurt for IM and their sponsors. Now if he wants to discuss prize money only being distributed to finishers who are within x% of the winners time I’m willing to entertain that argument.
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
Joe’s argument that prize money should be dictated by number of entries is a terrible idea and if implemented would lead to a whole lot of hurt for IM and their sponsors. Now if he wants to discuss prize money only being distributed to finishers who are within x% of the winners time I’m willing to entertain that argument.
Ironman tried that years ago and it led to people just waiting at the finish so everyone got paid. I believe there was one race where Julie Dibens sat at the finish line for 5 minutes.
The underlying issue that USAT has no interest in addressing is their elite card standards. There are way too many “professional” triathletes, especially in the United States.
Thanks for the info! I had no idea but that is awesome of her. Did the women just lose out on money or did all $$ just go to whomever finished within the qualifying time?
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
Joe’s argument that prize money should be dictated by number of entries is a terrible idea and if implemented would lead to a whole lot of hurt for IM and their sponsors. Now if he wants to discuss prize money only being distributed to finishers who are within x% of the winners time I’m willing to entertain that argument.
Ironman tried that years ago and it led to people just waiting at the finish so everyone got paid. I believe there was one race where Julie Dibens sat at the finish line for 5 minutes.
The underlying issue that USAT has no interest in addressing is their elite card standards. There are way too many “professional” triathletes, especially in the United States.
Eh, there are too many professional triathletes globally that don’t race. If they all actively raced and had to validate by racing professionally 2x/year it would change some things.
Agree that it’s a misogyny issue. But women’s participant is important and what he’s saying will only make it worse in the pro field.
Exactly. There could be a downward spiral effect: less prize money for WPROs → fewer WPROs racing → even less prize money for WPROs → etc.
Skipper, as he sometimes does, failed to think this through before talking.
It’s a free market after all. Apparently the fact that it’s easier for a woman to win money doesn’t attract enough women to pro racing to even out the field depth. So maybe we need to pay them more, relative to the difficulty of the task (i.e. pay them the same money in absolute terms), just to have WPRO racing. Joe likes the free market when it suits him, but not when he would like someone to step in and take women’s money and give it to him because it’s too easy for women because there “aren’t enough” WPROs.
but this doens’t apply just to pros. Even in the AG the % of women participating in some races is something like 10 or 15%, yet IM adds more slots for women to the worlds. Quite counterintuitive to me, as that’s how you end up with men having to do sub 8.20 to get to Kona or sub 4.15 to get to 70.3 worlds yet women doing 14h or more for a full or a 6.30-7h 70.3 go to the worlds. You think this is fair?
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
This is really recent though. I qualified for Kona with a 3rd place in 2015 IMC…that would NOT have qualified as a woman - for years with a single race championship many women’s AGs needed to win to go to Kona. So…now with separate races, yes…right now it’s pretty easy at some races for women to qualify. But I truly believe that it is better for the sport to have separate men’s and women’s world champs - but I don’t think there is any reason to limit the women’s field for these races. Kona last year was different - but I will tell you this - being there on the ground, I was as inspired by the middle to back of the pack as I was to the front. Allround world championship efforts by all.
Going to women’s racing…at Boulder the first AG beat the same percentage of pros in men’s and women’s. 17 male pros - who the argument should be paid deeper than the women - didn’t beat the first woman. Is the depth there? Not the same - I get that - but you pay 8 deep you do it for both sexes. Looking at the numbers - most races the last money woman is pretty close to the winner as the last place man - especially when you use percentages as they are out on the course longer. I just don’t see an argument that makes sense for paying men’s races deeper when the lower half of the men’s field isn’t winning the women’s race anyways (in the case of Boulder)
Listened to the pod this morning on the trainer. Disagree with his point and wished they had spent more time discussing the quality of the lower ranked male pros who, in reality, are not really competing for the prize money on offer.
Was also interested in the topic of a coach pacing a pro female athlete in races (IM Lanzarote 2023 and 2024 are 2 examples I believe) - any thoughts on this?
It’s funny they keep not naming the pro - easy to find. But…it’s pretty disgusting - it’s pacing and it’s completely wrong. The funny part - it’s the guy who tried to cancel them. Conveniently moral…it’s tough to take. But I think that the athlete and coach should face some sort of sanction for this, honestly. How do you face your competitors knowing that you did something that is designed to gain an advantage?
There is a video out there by the athlete - Lydia Dant. I started to watch it - can’t remember if it’s under Passionfit Coaching or Lydia herself, but I just couldn’t get thru it. Apparently she addresses it. Maybe I’ll go back and watch it - but the prelude to the video is another coach for the company, I presume, saying how hard it was for her to address her race. Now…I need to watch it. Tomorrow though, it’s late.
Listened to the pod this morning on the trainer. Disagree with his point and wished they had spent more time discussing the quality of the lower ranked male pros who, in reality, are not really competing for the prize money on offer.
Was also interested in the topic of a coach pacing a pro female athlete in races (IM Lanzarote 2023 and 2024 are 2 examples I believe) - any thoughts on this?\
ok, if nobody else will make the joke, i will: tom and joe are currently those lower-ranked male pros themselves. it’s been a while since either finished in the prize money.
badum-tish!
anyway, i think some of this rests on a mistaken but common assumption that prize money is the reward you get for being objectively awesome. it isn’t. prize money is a marketing tool. races offer as much prize money and in whatever split they think they need to in order to get eyeballs. it might be about attracting big fields, or getting headlines, or competing with other series, or whatever. pro sport is entertainment, not a shift down at the factory.
the same goes for sponsorships. some pros (and more often fast amateurs) think that sponsorship is a prize you get for going fast, but it isn’t. it’s a business relationship where an athlete moves a sponsor’s brand and product, and gets compensated in return. that’s it.
the same goes for sponsorships. some pros (and more often fast amateurs) think that sponsorship is a prize you get for going fast, but it isn’t. it’s a business relationship where an athlete moves a sponsor’s brand and product, and gets compensated in return. that’s it.
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A mate of mine used to own Peach City Runners in Penticton and every year he had his sponsored “Team”. The only pro athlete he used to include in that team was local Aussie Pro Kevin Cutjar and that was because he ran the biggest training squad in town and had huge influence over them all. There were a couple of age groupers as well but the most valuable member of his team were his wife and her assorted gaggle of very BOP/MOP age groupers.
His logic. The Pro triathletes did absolutely nothing to promote anything to do with his store and just wanted freebie shit all the time. His wife and her buddies however dragged all their besties into the store to buy the prettiest shoes and trendiest clothes at the change of every season.They were also the ones who supported the run group based out of the store.To him,the Pro’s were of little value.
the same goes for sponsorships. some pros (and more often fast amateurs) think that sponsorship is a prize you get for going fast, but it isn’t. it’s a business relationship where an athlete moves a sponsor’s brand and product, and gets compensated in return. that’s it.
.
A mate of mine used to own Peach City Runners in Penticton and every year he had his sponsored “Team”. The only pro athlete he used to include in that team was local Aussie Pro Kevin Cutjar and that was because he ran the biggest training squad in town and had huge influence over them all. There were a couple of age groupers as well but the most valuable member of his team were his wife and her assorted gaggle of very BOP/MOP age groupers.
His logic. The Pro triathletes did absolutely nothing to promote anything to do with his store and just wanted freebie shit all the time. His wife and her buddies however dragged all their besties into the store to buy the prettiest shoes and trendiest clothes at the change of every season.They were also the ones who supported the run group based out of the store.To him,the Pro’s were of little value.
bingo. those folks were all paying full retail, too!
Just replying in general, but there are more men than women who work in my office…does that mean that as a woman, I should make less than the men?
spot on.
as i said above, another way to think about this is, “what’s your ‘output’ as a professional? what do you get paid for?”
at your office, you get paid for serving clients or filing briefs or writing reports, or whatever. presumably, your boss pays you according to how well you deliver that output, and maybe even gives you bonuses based on your output compared to others. “you get more money because you closed more sales or wrote more reports than anyone else this year!”
where some people get it wrong is assuming that, as a pro, your output is “fast times.” it isn’t. your output is sales. selling tickets, TV coverage, sponsor products, internet traffic, whatever. going really fast is one way of doing that, but only one way out of many. and sometimes going fast doesn’t really result in more sales. the prize money structures in place are there to reward the outputs of interest to sponsors and race directors.
for instance, lucy charles-barclay has almost 10x more instagram followers than joe does. so arguably her winning a race brings more ‘value’ to the organizers than joe winning does. nobody is saying that joe doesn’t work hard, or that men’s fields aren’t generally deeper than women’s fields - it’s been that way for a long time. but if we’re talking about pay reflecting ‘value’ . . . we have to ask what output that pay is meant to be rewarding.
There is a video out there by the athlete - Lydia Dant. I started to watch it - can’t remember if it’s under Passionfit Coaching or Lydia herself, but I just couldn’t get thru it. Apparently she addresses it. Maybe I’ll go back and watch it - but the prelude to the video is another coach for the company, I presume, saying how hard it was for her to address her race. Now…I need to watch it. Tomorrow though, it’s late.
She regrets not reacting to the “situation in she found herself in”. Didn’t listen to the end, dozed off at about 25:00, and during this time I failed to hear any admission that it’s not fair for a coach to be pacing an athlete at a 12 m distance - the regret is due to the bad PR, basically.
It’s funny they keep not naming the pro - easy to find. But…it’s pretty disgusting - it’s pacing and it’s completely wrong. The funny part - it’s the guy who tried to cancel them. Conveniently moral…it’s tough to take. But I think that the athlete and coach should face some sort of sanction for this, honestly. How do you face your competitors knowing that you did something that is designed to gain an advantage?
There is a video out there by the athlete - Lydia Dant. I started to watch it - can’t remember if it’s under Passionfit Coaching or Lydia herself, but I just couldn’t get thru it. Apparently she addresses it. Maybe I’ll go back and watch it - but the prelude to the video is another coach for the company, I presume, saying how hard it was for her to address her race. Now…I need to watch it. Tomorrow though, it’s late.
Spot on about the Irony of her coach/business partner being Tom Ward, the guy that paced her round the entire bike (T1 to T2). He pretends to take the moral high ground on absolutely everything and if this had been a different female pro and their coach or partner he would have lost his s**t. Her excuse about not being able to make dynamic decisions for some reason or other absolutely doesn’t apply to him, he knew what was happening was wrong yet did nothing bout it. Classic to to then to villianise the multiple female pro athletes that complained about it. In the comment sections people supporting them then go on to say it’s just bitter people she beat when actually even Anne Haug mentioned seeing it on course and thinking it was wrong. It’s deliberate cheating, whether in the rules or not, it’s clearly wrong.
There is a video out there by the athlete - Lydia Dant. I started to watch it - can’t remember if it’s under Passionfit Coaching or Lydia herself, but I just couldn’t get thru it. Apparently she addresses it. Maybe I’ll go back and watch it - but the prelude to the video is another coach for the company, I presume, saying how hard it was for her to address her race. Now…I need to watch it. Tomorrow though, it’s late.
She regrets not reacting to the “situation in she found herself in”. Didn’t listen to the end, dozed off at about 25:00, and during this time I failed to hear any admission that it’s not fair for a coach to be pacing an athlete at a 12 m distance - the regret is due to the bad PR, basically.
Playing devil’s advocate I would argue it’s not really in the spirit of triathlon to use domestiques in triathlon .yet this is something the UK uses widely and with hary Wiltshire it was taken to the next level beating up and blocking British competitors
The bigger issue is she was beaten by 45 minutes …