With most of the series either locked up or finishing up, which series was the best series to race in this year or to watch the pros race?
Toyota Cup - Andy Potts, Sarah Haskins
Rev3 - Andrew Starykowicz, Kate Major
ITU - A Brownlee, H Jenkins
5150* - Stuart Hayes, Nikki Butterfield
70.3** - C Alexander, M Rollison
140.6** - C Alexander, C Wellington
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- Still 2 races left, but the contenders appear to have called it a season
** - Half and Full distances are determined by World Champs, so they are not “series” per say, but you do need to qualify for the big race, that is why they are included.
Rev3 made every single one of their races feel like a world championship. I only did Quassy, but followed all of them. You can see that Ironman took notice, because they definitely made an obvious effort with better video and twitter coverage at Vegas and Kona. Yet, if you want to watch a race, ITU is still the best production!
Best races - ITU
Best series to race as an age grouper - Rev3
ITU - No question. The amount of talent there is just crazy.
As a participant in the Toyota Cup and WTC 70.3 series the past 3 years, I’ll be interested to see what other have to say about Rev3, WTC 140.6 and 5150.
The Toyota Cup pro line-up at each of the series’ races was pretty stacked, even at the series finale (Dallas) with Kona only 6 days later. Toyota is spread out across the county in major cities but the timing of the LA and Dallas races - one week apart - makes it logistically difficult for Age Groupers that win in LA to be in Dallas the following weekend. They have great competition, great race commentators, great venues, great post-race activities and reasonable entry fees without having to sign up 6-12 months in advance.
WTC’s 70.3 series is much the same but many more races to choose from with an international appeal. You get some cross-over Pros that primarily do Olympic-distance or Iron-distance races mixing it up with those that just focus on the half-Iron distance. The series championship is very competitive, especially for the Pros now that WTC has moved the race from November to September. There are a lot of races to choose from to qualify as an AGer but are relatively expensive and sell out quickly, which forces one to set their schedule 12 months in advance.
5150, which is owned by WTC might start cutting into Toyota Cup and keep Rev3 at bay, especially with the Pro prize purses that are offered like at Hy-Vee 5150. I guess we will see how the Pros value this series by their attendance in November in Clearwater for its World Championship finale.
Rev3 is really appealing with their venues, social media savvy, multiple distances offered at the same venue.
TriStar might start making an impact as well with their unconventional distances but for now only offer 1 US race; the rest are in Europe.
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ITU based on talent, professionalism of events, and fun to watchness
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Fun to watch ITU, best to race, well I’d go ITU also, mainly because if you can qualify to race in the ITU series you could likely qualify for any other series, but not vice versa
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