If you wanted to race against the best over the Oly distance in North America, where would you go?
Here’s my list:
AG Nationals
St. Anthony’s
Chicago
LA Tri
Memphis in May
NYC
Boulder Peak
Best of US
Are these in the same league?
Lifetime Fitness?
San Jose?
San Diego?
Cap Tex?
Columbia?
Westchester?
Boston?
Have I missed any?
Thoughts?
Jeez, Justin…what are you doing?
Most people want to know where the weakest fields are. 
BTW – San Diego Int’l is not an Oly race. It’s a sprint with a 10k run. 1k swim (that’s short most years) and a 30k bike that is very crowded. It’s so crowded they allow a 1-bike-length follow distance.
In SD County, the Camp Pendleton Oly race is the most competitive, but I still don’t think it compares to some of the others on your list.
I figure the LTF/HyVee combo in 2007 might bring out some competition over the week…
Not really an oly, but Alctraz brings out some heavy hitters.
I forgot about Alcatraz, even though that isn’t an Oly it definitely deserves to be on the list. Trouble is it is so darn hard to get into. Still good for the list.
Mid East championships in Indy this year was pretty competitive with the AG winner at 1:56:04.
I was 7 minutes off my PR and still had a fairly decent race so the course wasn’t that easy.
jaretj
By competitive I mean depth of the field. One really fast dude is not what I’d consider a competitive race. We have two guys that can consistently go under 2 hours here in Oklahoma, but our fields are only 100-150 people and no one else can go under 2:05 so I wouldn’t call that competitive.
I’m also (or primarily) interested in competitive women’s fields.
The 5430 race is the Boulder Peak Triathlon.
That’s it. Thanks.
What do you mean? Hy-Vee and LTF are not even in the same month.
LTF ought to be fairly competitive amongst AG’ers as they are flying in the the top AG finishers from the other races in the series…
I actually just registered for AG Nationals in Portland this morning. 
I wonder if Hy-Vee will be a big AG race. Isn’t this the first year? I can see it becoming a competitive race. I guess it is only speculation that it will be in 2007.
Is AG Nationals open registration this year, or do you have to qualify like last year? I looked at the website a month or so, and it wasn’t clear.
yeah, it’s the first year for Hy-Vee…it will be interesting to see how big a draw it is to Des Moines. The ITU race will be good to watch for sure though!
Is AG Nationals open registration this year, or do you have to qualify like last year? I looked at the website a month or so, and it wasn’t clear.
You have to qualify. Here are the particulars:
2007 National Championship Qualification Standards are as follows: Special Qualifying Races (TBD) will qualify the top 33 percent or top five finishers (whichever is greater) in each age group. Any non-championship USAT sanctioned event will qualify the top 10 percent or top finisher (whichever is greater) in each age-group. Any athlete who has ever competed as a member of Team USA (triathlon or duathlon) will automatically qualify. All-American and honorable mention All-Americans from the 2006 USAT National Rankings automatically qualify. The top 10 finishers in each age group from the 2005 USAT National Age Group Championship automatically qualify. Athletes can meet qualification at any sanctioned event between July 9, 2006 and June 24, 2007
So basically you need to have finished in the top 10% of any sanctioned USAT race or be top 5, whichever greater. Not too hard.
I like a lot of your list but here’s my .02. St Anthony’s is actually not very competitive which is weird as it’s such a huge amount of people. I also don’t think the NYC age group race is very competitive.
AG Nats
Best of the US
Columbia
Mooseman —yes it’s true Can you say 2006 top 2 guys ran under 33 min 10ks. The guy who won—Mike was also top amateur at eagleman. It really is a very competive oly I don’t think folks outside of New England really know this. The rest of the top 15 are all guys who go low 2hrs on a fast oly course
Memphis in May
Can’t really speak to some of the other classic big races like chicago and LA.
LTF ought to be fairly competitive amongst AG’ers as they are flying in the the top AG finishers from the other races in the series…
The Life Time Fitness AG field is usually not deep since most of the fast locals instead race the following day at Heart of the Lakes.
I don’t know why someone hasn’t said Wildflower yet. Sure all the pros race the long course but there are MANY fast people that do the Oly course on Sunday.
I agree with Spindogg, and would add that none of the big-city Accenture triathlons have very competitive AG fields. In addition to not being very deep, the LA, NYC, and Chicago fields have so many waves that it’s rare that you’d actually be “racing” anyone you started with – it’s really just a giant, overcrowded time trial. However, the self-selected “elite” AG field in these races tends to be fairly competitive (and the top 5 finishers get a paid trip to LF in MN), but I don’t think that much more so than a high-quality local race. In my experience, if good competition is what you’re after, there’s not a big enough disparity in talent to justify the expense and logistical hassle these big-city events tend to entail.
World’s toughest (Brad Kearns in Auburn, CA) just added an OLY distance for 2007. I bet it’s a bitch.