Hmm…
World Series in MLB.
Super Bowl winner is crowned a world champion.
NBA winner crowned a world champion.
Hmm…
World Series in MLB.
Super Bowl winner is crowned a world champion.
NBA winner crowned a world champion.
Can I set up a competition in some sport, and call the winner a world champion?
How many non-MLB teams are eligible to play in the World Series? I note that the winner of the World Baseball Classic is called “World Champion.”
Hmm…
World Series in MLB.
Super Bowl winner is crowned a world champion.
NBA winner crowned a world champion.
Can I set up a competition in some sport, and call the winner a world champion?
How many non-MLB teams are eligible to play in the World Series? I note that the winner of the World Baseball Classic is called “World Champion.”
Sure you can. There is a World Toe Wrestling Championship set up by a bunch of friends and all kind of other similar things.
Whether you can get anyone to recognise it as such is another matter, but I think it would be hard to argue that athletes, sponsors and fans do not recognise the IM World Championship as a WC.
The world championships for long distance tri is simple,the race with the most highest ranked PTO racers participating is the championship
.
Its funny that we cheer when there’s more options for pros in the sport, but then complain when athletes exercise those options.
Yup this is true and we will not gets the big one day races with everyone in top form ever again in long course.
Itu Olympics yes .
Kona kind of
Pto no , guys will play it safe more in these races.
Pto grand will they be healthy and fresh enough to race ?
Just like doing intervals if you know you are doing 8 and not 3 you need to pace and bank energy.
Some pto races will have guys jogging it in on rough days to get the finish points and balidate the 6 races needed no more digging in deep for money and pionts for 12 place
I agree, regardless of a race title. The general pro PTO races are going to be far more interesting than Nice with a handful of the strongest athletes. I don’t see how you recognize Nice as a World Champion Race when the top athletes are racing a different series.
Wrong.
Ryf will win her 5th title.
my money will be on Norden
.
1.) It’s January. Most people haven’t qualified yet.
2.) The list of qualifiers are here. https://www.ironman.com/pro-athletes
Moench, Langridge, Lee, Pierre, Norden, Thoes, Wilms all seem like pretty decent names.
Give it time. It’ll still be a high quality field. It’ll still be a World Championship.
I wonder if IM didn’t hurt itself with their validation process.
I think they were trying to make it harder to race PTO but I think it may have backfired.
Just wondering
Agree, I think their strategy has quite the opposite effect of what they expected it to be.
Jeroen
I think the best “rags to world championship” sport story I’ve ever heard of. There is a sport where neighborhood folks throw a football on top of a house and wait to catch it when it rolls back down. You get all kinds of extra points for hitting the chimney and catching it on 1 bounce, etc. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen on deep dive YT viewing.
“Roofball World Championships”
In LCB’s case this is purely a Nice vs Kona course selection decision though right? Like if this was Kona she’d be among the pro’s that was doing “both” right?
I was listening to a Talking Tri podcast today and I sorta agree with one of the hosts. Sorta surprised they didn’t make the race roster race “exclusively” PTO (especially with contracts, but it sounds like these contracts are only paid per race appearance essentially), even though Sam mentioned they didn’t want to force that on the athletes.
Wrong.
Ryf will win her 5th title.
6th
In LCB’s case this is purely a Nice vs Kona course selection decision though right? Like if this was Kona she’d be among the pro’s that was doing “both” right?
I was listening to a Talking Tri podcast today and I sorta agree with one of the hosts. Sorta surprised they didn’t make the race roster race “exclusively” PTO (especially with contracts, but it sounds like these contracts are only paid per race appearance essentially), even though Sam mentioned they didn’t want to force that on the athletes.
I was listening to that podcast today on the trainer. I normally really enjoy it, but found them not as well prepared as I would expect …but that’s a sidebar
It isn’t clear if it is legal for the PTO to force exclusivity. There was a ruling in Europe that is being watched by cycling. While the ruling applied to football, it is believed ASO (Tour de France) could not prevent riders from participating in a new, competitor’s race. I wonder if this would apply here.
Even if it doesn’t, personally I think PTO is right not to block athletes to do Kona or Nice. However I do think IM should equally not force a validation for say top 5 WC athletes which was obviously an attempt to block athletes from doing PTO. The courtesy should be bi-directional.
Some of the top 20 skipping a few races creates the opportunity for other athletes. The top folks just need to be smart and figure out where is best for them. Skipping PTO to do maybe a top 10 at Kona is probably not worth it over the long haul, but athletes should be able to make that decision.
Very much a personal opinion.
I agree, regardless of a race title. The general pro PTO races are going to be far more interesting than Nice with a handful of the strongest athletes. I don’t see how you recognize Nice as a World Champion Race when the top athletes are racing a different series.Well “you” don’t need to recognise it (are you committing not to watch Nice btw?)
The T100 contracted athletes are a mixture of IM-capable and IM-incapable/unwilling. Apart from LCB’s ‘I don’t think I’ll like Nice and I’m prone to injury’ approach (both reasonable and sensible) and (I surmise) Knibb’s ‘Olympics first and trying to validate for Nice will distract’ (she’s only had a go at one IM and she has many years ahead of her SC MD and LD) I expect all the other top IM-capable (and done a few) athletes to at least plan to race Nice.
Was the IMWC 2021 (St George May 22) a “World Championships”? Of course it was. Was it at Kona? Different Q.
A field at Nice including Ryf, Haug, Philipp, Matthews, Sodaro, plus those already IMWCQ (Moench, Simmonds, Norden, Langridge, Lee) would be stacked. And after T100 London there are 8 clear weeks before Nice for concentrated prep (no pesky August: PTO US Open and PTO Asia Open and IM70.3WC Lahti as the men had this year).
https://www.trirating.com/nice-kona-2024/
Your “interesting” thesis is leaky @timr and I suggest that Nice will be excellent and the T100 races will be super interesting (other than Singapore and Ibiza (6 days after Nice)).
Do you think TaupÅ will “not be a 70.3WC” as it’s too close the the T100 Grand Final?
I bet the biggest issue why PTO isn’t forcing “exclusivity” is finances, not legality imo. Many many pro contracts that athletes across many sports are bound by all kinds of “weird” clauses that athletes can’t take part of, or it invalidates contract. IE- if they were offering 7 figure contracts instead of 6 figure contracts, I bet there would be many more “requirements” attached to the contract stipulations than not. So imo this is the best of both worlds. Add that the contract is only based on each race participation per race (essentially appearance fee vs "player contract)
Wrong.
Ryf will win her 5th title.
6th
Damnit. For some reason I thought it was only 4 still.
I agree, regardless of a race title. The general pro PTO races are going to be far more interesting than Nice with a handful of the strongest athletes. I don’t see how you recognize Nice as a World Champion Race when the top athletes are racing a different series.
Because in ten years when the PTO has long since lost its sugar daddy and folded up shop, their winner will be a footnote in the sport’s history, something equivalent to “Xxxx took first in the race the ill-fated PTO designated as its championship.” Meanwhile the winner at Nice will be listed in a line of champions that goes back decades.
Although, truth be told, the WTC has damaged its championship’s legacy by its move from Kona.
I agree, regardless of a race title. The general pro PTO races are going to be far more interesting than Nice with a handful of the strongest athletes. I don’t see how you recognize Nice as a World Champion Race when the top athletes are racing a different series.
Because in ten years when the PTO has long since lost its sugar daddy and folded up shop, their winner will be a footnote in the sport’s history, something equivalent to “Xxxx took first in the race the ill-fated PTO designated as its championship.” Meanwhile the winner at Nice will be listed in a line of champions that goes back decades.
Although, truth be told, the WTC has damaged its championship’s legacy by its move from Kona.
No they damaged legacy by not upping the pay of any other tri brand
the WTC
There’s no such thing as the WTC anymore.
the WTC
There’s no such thing as the WTC anymore.
I love to partake in the derailing of silly threads, so: you’re incorrect here - Ironman is still owned by the World Triathlon Corporation, inc. The IRONMAN Group is a brand, not a legal name.