You know, people want to use Bjorn as a verb “Bjorn a race” meaining bike to hard and DNF the run. You want to blast Francois for racing hurt and getting a DNF. I dont think that you all get it at all. We are very fortunate that we get to play a game not like any other on earth. No matter how cool you think you are you will never ever be able to play baseball, football, hockey or even ping pong at the same time, or even on the same field as the worlds best. With IronMan we get to play the game at the same time with our hero’s - the Pro’s. They go around us, past us and get judged by you (not me). They are not playing the same game as you and I are playing. We may be trying to qualify for Kona, or just get a T shirt at the finish line - they are not.
You want to blast Bjorn for DNF on at WI? Well go to hell…why would he want to put himself through it? He KNOWS he can go the distance, hell he could have walked the run at MOO and still beat 99.9% of the AG out there. But, that is not what a smart person does. A pro packs it in - recovers and gets ready for the next big race.
Seriously - you all think that the pros are sitting there at heart rate 2 all day? They are 3/4 near their VO2 max full time, all the time as they are going to win - and when they crash, they crash hard. This is not easy for them. You want to think that Francois should not have started IMFL at all? You still dont get it…I know for certain that there will be a person who has a DNF who did not “train right” as according to some standard - maybe that person lost 100lbs last year and thought they would do it, maybe they lost a leg, arm or brother. You dont ever know anyones reason to start, let alone why they just cant push any further and finish - and why to even bother with a finish if you are a pro.
If you want to tell someone that they should not even start an IM…then you are telling that to me, my friends and probably 50% of the AG there who suffer for 14-17 hours on a course that should be win in less tha 9 right?
Thank you for taking this issue off of Francois thread; he only deserves congrats. some sympathy, (OK, and some good nature kidding too) there.
Unless you are a pro, or have raced at the elite level, you can’t question the strategy or motivation of a pro’s decision with any amount of credibility. Why? AG is a whole other game with entirely different motivations; professional/elite racing just looks similar ('cept the speeds).
When you race pro, you are “on stage” when the gun goes off. It’s show time in a literal sense. You go big or go home. None of this, “Well, I’ll just hang with the AG’ers and chat up some fans.” You take it as far as you can at race pace and either win, place, or blow.
Armchair quarterbacking is a time honored American pastime; but that’s all it is, a pastime (except maybe Tom Arnold, he seems to be making a living out of it). If you can’t do it (armchair QBing I mean) with finesse, respect, and genuine curiosity then keep it to yourself IMHO.
Otherwise, put the flamesuit on and get ready to rumble; you will join the ranks of pricks who post here and get flamed until they change their screen names and find some humility.
As for whether it was smart for Francois to start given a recent stress fracture… well, if he felt ready why not. He clearly stopped when it was painful. I just hope the injury wasn’t made worse.
Unless you are a pro, or have raced at the elite level, you can’t question the strategy or motivation of a pro’s decision with any amount of credibility.
That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I have ever heard… like any sport average Joe triathlete, fairly fast Frank triathlete and even sit on his ass Sam non-triathlete are the only ones who can and do criticize pros… do you think pros criticize pros?
That’s how it works with every sport (although I guess in some of the others you do also have pros criticizing pros
IMO, triathletes are fairly lucky. Since the stage is so small, they don’t get 1/4th of the harrassment other athletes get. Yeah, I’ve heard the rationale before … they make so much money that they deserve the crticism they get.
Imagine Simon Lessing running down the 10-mile marker at Kona and fans chanting “D-N-F, D-N-F” … or … Bjorn hearing “All bike” chants while on the course … or some newspaper writer thinking they’re clever by putting “Tim Goboom” in the headline.
Heck, in this sport, many fans will defend a pro’s DNF’ing in the last race of the year. Bill Bucker (and many others) would kill for such leniency.
Okay, back on topic … the critic’s opinions should be tempered with their results. If I say something about a pro that is critiqueing them in any way, anyone that reads it should take it with a grain of salt. It should also be realized that I am commenting out of interest and not expertise. I imagine it’s the same with most others. My only perference is that the criticism stick to the situation or act and not bounce to the person’s character.
Excessive talent is not a “get-out-of-criticism free” ticket. Nor should it be. You quit in a race, and there’s gonna be plenty of people commenting on it … maybe that should be part of the decision that goes into quitting?
Pros have all types of personalities. Some are tough … some ain’t. Some work their butts off, and some coast by on abundant talent. Not all pros need defended with the same verocity.
Ah, I’m making a speech I don’t really wanna make. I do know I won’t read the Francois thread. I like Frenchy, and I’ll choose to ignore the negative remarks about him. If he reads them, and it concerns him enough to comment … I’m sure he will.
What is funny to me is how we will go wacky over an 82 year old man who limps across the line at 12:02 am…we will cheer, give him our finishers shirts and finshers medals as he is 82…we will cheer women who lost 200lbs, men who were in wars, and on and on…I was at IMLP 04 when the really old guy (how ever old he was) was a DNF and finishers gave him their shirt and medals…that is to me what Ironman is about…I guess to some we should have sat down with the old man and told him all the reasons he should not start to begin with…he and all the other DNF people…
Actually, to borrow a phrase from Arnie, the pros participate in a sport with which I am not familiar. For me to say that Bjorn did this, or Deboom did that, is not much different from my saying that Farve sucked ass when throwing long into double deep coverage out of a wing formation. I know as little about pro football as I know about pro triathlon.
Even though it was me that used bjorn as a verb (A JOKE!), I hope you’re not implying that I’m one of “those” that doesn’t understand what being a pro triathlete is. That would be just hilarious.
Unless you are a pro, or have raced at the elite level, you can’t question the strategy or motivation of a pro’s decision with any amount of credibility.
Do you need to have been a pro pitcher to recognize a bad pitch or poor pitch selection? Or a pro Offensive coordinator to recognize a bad play call or game plan? Or an ex-pro quarterback to recognize a horrible decision reading the defense that leads to an interception? Or to interpret a player’s body language and posture to conclude they’ve “thrown in the towel”? Seems like most of the strategy/motivation aspects of many pro sports are fairly obvious. Most sports are fairly simple (not to be confused with “easy”).
Is the strategy that different between a mega-talented pro going for a 8:05 finish and a talented AG’er going for a 9:30 finish, and a complete average Joe going for a 10:15 finish? Assumming we are all trying for the fastest race possible?
I’m not following that? The strategy in the World Series, College World Series, and High School State Championship are very comparable … as is the relative experience. The talent’s different, but not the strategy. Again, is IM pro racing so different from AG racing in the strategy/motivation department?
Edit: I am asking this question, not to provide myself or anyone else with justification for trashing an athlete. Not my intent at all. When it comes to athletes, I generally have enough respect and admiration to give them the benefit of the doubt. But, I am asking if the strategy/motivation of a pro racing is all that much different from the “not-just-out-there-to-finish” AG’ers?
well, let’s divide this a little bit, for the sake of argument:
let’s ignore bjorn and simon and the other “i make a living off this” pros. let’s talk about the pro’s who also work 9-5s, let’s call them the non-$ pros … why do they race pro? it seems to me that a big part of it is for the challenge, for not sandbagging in the ag races.
so, in that regard, this is different from pro ball-sports, etc to which you are referring. i contend that the non-$ pros (as defined above), are at worst worthy of our apathy, and are at best worthy of our admiration. never the sort of derogatory crap you see here so often.
Not really the same. Though a pitcher has huge talent and ability - he is not pushing his body to the level that we do - and the pitcher, quarterback, center and every other guy on the team knows that he has a replacement on the bench…we dont.
The operable word in my post was “credibility”. What I mean is, there is an entire universe behind the facade of what even sports enthusiasts see as spectators. By all means, criticize, analyze, second guess any sport you feel like it. But, unless you’ve run a mile in their shoes, it lacks substantial cred.
I worked with a retired pro football player and lived next door to another. I watched a game or two with these guys and the observations they made were stunning to me in the sense that they knew all that went into that bad pass, missed tackle, whatever. Most of us go, “I woulda done this instead of that.” WTF. Based on what knowledge? Cause you picked up a football once?
CRED-I-BIL-I-TEE. That’s all. Say what you want. I won’t listen unless you have some. All the rest is just a guess.
I bet the Francois bashers are not Idot MOPs. MOPs who read this forum are likely to appreciate and like Francois for his generosity and insight. I’d guess that the bashers are pros. These folks are in a competitive world where the feed is scarce. Anyone who tries to get in their pen is going to get pecked. The only way move up in the pecking order is to get results. No matter how nice you are, no matter what your potential may be, unless you have some palmares before you get in the pen, I am afraid that you are going to get pecked. You’ll get pecked even harder if the guys in the pen resent the fact that you are more famous and popular on Slowtwitch than they are.
well, let’s divide this a little bit, for the sake of argument:
let’s ignore bjorn and simon and the other “i make a living off this” pros. let’s talk about the pro’s who also work 9-5s, let’s call them the non-$ pros … why do they race pro? it seems to me that a big part of it is for the challenge, for not sandbagging in the ag races.
so, in that regard, this is different from pro ball-sports, etc to which you are referring. i contend that the non-$ pros (as defined above), are at worst worthy of our apathy, and are at best worthy of our admiration. never the sort of derogatory crap you see here so often.
I’m not referring to pro-ball sports, nor am I limiting it to any sport… there are “non-$ pros” in scores of sports which are subject to Monday morning quarterbacking…
Nice title. Apparently BOPers or FOPers don’t bash pros? And apparently MOPers who bust their asses to finish the race they’re in “don’t get it?” I guess that’s beside the point though.
The problem here is that because the triathlon is such a small community relative to other sports, people like you have some personal attachments to the pros that you likely don’t for pro baseball players or other sports. So you get more pissed when someone criticizes them. That’s great for you, but us MOPers or AGers have as much right to comment on the pros as those who are a bit faster than we are. And you simply can’t be surprised, in a sport that is all about pushing yourself to the limit and not giving in till you cross the line, when people have their own opinions about people who pack it in early. Maybe yes, we don’t get it. Maybe we still think this sport is about training hard, showing up ready for race day, and testing your limits by pushing until you finish if at all physically possible, and not about setting yourself up for a better race and a better paycheck at some other race.
Let me finish by saying I don’t know why any particular person DNFs, nor do I automatically judge them as a failure or a quitter. I do however strongly feel that since we the MOPers pay most of the money and buy most of the gear that keeps this sport alive, we also have the right to comment on how the pros race, dress, choose their bikes, drink their drinks, etc. I also don’t think we don’t “get it.” I think in general, when the fact that we cross the finish line shows that we get it just fine.
I am an an age grouper but I believe the pros do generally race with a significantly different strategy to most age groupers. They race each other whereas age groupers go for the best overall time. Pros will often go very hard in early in the swim to hang on to the fast groups and drop some others. They will go hard early in the bike to try to get in the right group. I rememer Gordo’s race report from IMNZ05 and he said that early in the bike the pace was Olympic Distance pace before it settled down. This is risky for many and most suffer for it but the winners (e.g. Cameron Brown) are able to absorb that early intensity and still run a good marathon. I don’t believe as many age groupers go so hard early because they are normally not racing each other but are trying to do the best combined time for the swim bike and run. There is a difference I think.
I agree with that Tim. I often get angry, frustrated, bewildered, etc at the situation where people that have never played the game/sport (writers, commentators, radio hosts, etc) can get the label of “expert”. Expert in what?
I know exactly what you mean about viewing sports w/ former serious players. Me and a buddy have great conversations during basbeall games, b/c we’ve had comparable levels of experience, and see the same types of things.
CRED-I-BIL-I-TEE. That’s all. Say what you want. I won’t listen unless you have some. All the rest is just a guess.
I agree whole-heartedly. As I have said many times … everyone has an opinion, and the right to voice it. Don’t conclude that all opinions are equally valid.
There will always be rock throwers and guys with megaphones.
