Absolutely stacked, think x2 Evans and Knibbs makes up for no Waugh!
Awaits Ajax to tell me how out of date this start list is….
No, looks per the official start list.
Women: Who was given W bib #6 but now DNS - Månsson or Rainsley? No Waugh after pulling from T100 Pamplona. Knibb still there and per insta has travelled. I wonder how much trepidation she’s feeling in this brave new (short course) world. First SC since the Olympics (#19 and then a silver - by her doing - in the relay).
Why only 43 W starters?
Men: Outside the top ten I see Wilde, Bentley and Coninx (?best French) down in the 40s. Pennekamp is the lone Dutchman.
One guy on the wait list: Mercer - still hoping to roll on so I assume is there for the brief tomorrow, with domestique duties beckoning. I guess if the Aussies can get 3 men’s slots for LA (probably not), he’ll be favourite for #3 over McCluskey, for his swim-bike.
Podium Picks:
End of line swim starting selection has at times been a bother for Knibb. I’m wondering where her itu FP swim is these days after IM’ing the last few years. She’s missed FP more often than she should so that will be an early marker on what tactics she can or can’t play. If she has a near T10 run ability I would call that a great result coming from IM so soon.
What sort of course is Alghero? Im hoping for the British Army to ride off into the sunset with Knibb and Spivey maybe.
its a good course to break things up, but also in the water, so the British army and knibb will likely be split up in the swim , and the swim pace will be on , with all the top swimmer present , while knibb and Evans will have the worst places on the starline.
I would be more comfortable to predict the lotto numbers and to how to get 4 correct numbers in the lottery than predicting the male and female race …
lindemann
With a near 10 race capacity WTCS schedule this year, allows for athletes to skip WTCS races and still get near capacity wtcs OQ race scoring marks. I think in most years it’s been more like ~7 races a year for WTCS. So those “extra” races have given some athletes the freedom/sigh of relief to not feel like they have to hit every wtcs start line (and the associated travel that comes with wtcs travel).
Yee, Wilde, Conway, Milner and Cantero all coming off the bike together, yes please!!!
Really looking forward to this race, so many plots, twists, and the beginning of the stories that will carry though to the end of olympic qualifying. It seems like Gwen should be racing here, do we know why she isn’t? Really hope Knibb can sort out the swim start, not worried about her speed or ability to hang on, just in these races if you get stuck at 20+ in the beginning, that’s where you stay.
This is an easy miss for GJ based on the race dynamics (there will likely easily be a FP and CP dynamic here, no chance of a big T2 coming together), field dynamics being 1st OQ race (stronger FP athletes), and travel demands from US to Europe over the next 2 months for other WTCS races. Again when you have a 10 (now 9) race schedule, you give athletes a ton of freedom to miss races.
Ya that makes sense she gives this race a miss, but I have a feeling that all the OQ races going forward are going to be especially hard at the front. So quick question, how many races count in your ranking? I assume everyone at this point is starting with a 0 ranking?
From WT:
The Qualification Period runs from 18th May 2026 to 18th May 2027 and 19th May 2027 to 18th May 2028. An athlete’s 12 best scores, and no more than 8 from races shorter than the Olympic distance, will count in the final rankings. The Individual Ranking point-scoring events are as follows:
World Triathlon Championship Finals (1250 points), World Triathlon Championship Series (1000), LA28 Test Event (1000), World Triathlon Cup (500), Continental Triathlon Championships - Olympic distance (400) and Continental Games (400*).*
I believe only a max of 7 can count from 1st or 2nd period, so it can be 7/5, 6/6,5/7 between 1st year and 2nd year of the Q period. Yoko ‘27 will count in 1st OQ period and thus Yoko ‘28 will be basically the last Q race assuming it’s the same May weekend (which they’ll make sure it is).
Alghero is actually a race with some “teeth” to it on the bike, unlike some of the other courses. So yes the FP is going to always likely be strong now moving forward, but some races will enhance that metric, while others will potentially mute it. Alghero is a course that can have some sizeable gaps, and no GJ wouldn’t be close to being FP swim, so she would only be likely going backwards. She got lapped out last year, but she had a face plant at the swim entry start that sorta caused her to immediately get gapped.
one reason could be that she was lapped out there last year
and its 12 races that count max of 7 in a 1 year period.
edit did not see brooks post sorry.
I see your outlet ( pro ironman news ) gives the male race a SOF of 66 and the female race 83
It’s not my ‘outlet’ and those SOFs for WTCS Alghero seem to me to be complete rubbish. I saw those SOFs and thought wtf - started to see how they were calculated and lost the will to live (and anyway nugatory).
The ORS ranking points (which generates the SOFs for LC races aiui) make some sense for long course athletes (and their merit is based on demoting the T100 races from their skewing/distorting ‘diamond’ tier) but for short course World Tri have quite enough rakings already: WTR, WTCS and WTOQ.
I think the PTN ‘podium picks’ is well set up and note (before I shared the link) >300 people have submitted them. I don’t play but I believe some on here, who have visionary powers, are into it.