This episode of Tempo Talks presents an insightful discussion centered around the recent developments involving the T100 event in Singapore, featuring the perspective of Andrew Patterson, a seasoned participant and commentator in the triathlon community. The dialogue elucidates the challenges faced this year, including increased registration fees and a noticeable decline in participant engagement, which raises questions about the event's future viability. Furthermore, we delve into the implications of the Ironman World Championship situation in Nice, France, where budgetary constraints imposed by new local governance threaten the event's continuation. Our conversation scrutinizes the broader ramifications for triathlon events as economic conditions evolve, suggesting a potential shift towards smaller, more community-oriented races. Through a detailed examination of these pressing issues, we aim to provide our listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the current state of triathlon events and their impact on local economies.

Links to topics discussed:

The TriDoc Podcast

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Jeff's Instagram

LifeSport Coaching

Email Jeff: tri_doc@icloud.com

Email Matt: Matt@thetemponews.com

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Ironman Hacks: YouTube channel

What would happen if you brought together a professional triathlete and producer of one of the most widely read triathlon newsletters,.

Together with the tridoc medical contributor for Triathlete magazine, age group winner and coach at LifeSport coaching.

Let's say you had the makings of a pretty good podcast.

Welcome to Tempo Talks.

Two perspectives, one sport.

All things triathlon.

Hello.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to another episode of Tempo Talks.

Matt Sharp, co host alongside Jeff Sankoff, our better half co host.

And today though, Jeff, we are joined by a guest.

Yes, we are.

Yeah, I will first though, before we get to our esteemed guest who is Andrew Patterson, the, the man behind Ironman Hacks.

He's a former athlete of mine over at LifeSport Coaching, but I want to introduce Andrew formally in a second.

I do want to hear a little bit about what happened to Kirsten this past weekend and Uzbekistan.

Yeah, how did it go?

Oh man, just saying that, like, it's just so crazy.

You know, she was in Uzbekistan racing and now back home.

Overall experience, like I'll talk about racing wise, it was, I think she was disappointed, frustrated a little bit.

I would jump for joy at a top 20 in a world Series race back in my day, but I, I had a few of those.

But for her, you know, her standard's a little higher than mine.

It played out interestingly where there was a bit of a breakaway and she was in it.

They couldn't hold off this pretty strong chase pack led by Georgia Taylor Brown who eventually broke off on her own for a number of laps and kind of held off a lot of the field for a good chunk of the run.

It was an interesting experience to Uzbekistan, the course.

They did their best to try and make it interesting with turns and whatnot.

It's in a rowing venue so they could only do so much, but I think overall the athletes and Kirsten said it was a positive experience.

The organizing committee did a great job.

They actually brought them out afterwards.

They went to one of the kind of big, big mosques there.

I don't have the name of it right off top of my tongue, but they kind of got this cultural experience as well, which, you know.

Oh, good, good for a person.

When she's traveling halfway across the world, it's kind of nice to, yeah.

To experience the local culture and, and say, you know, you did something like that in, in Uzbekistan, it's crazy.

And she, yeah, I saw, I, I want to say she finished in the top 15, didn't she?

She was 19th in the end.

Pretty close to like that top 15, which, again, I would be stoked with, but maybe she wants more.

So that's.

That's mark of a champion, if you want more.

Yeah.

Well, when.

When does she race again?

So the plan is now to race in Yokohama at the World Series race there.

I think for her, it's just a matter of getting these races in and in between staying consistent with the training.

It's a good shout for her in Yokohama because I believe that race always usually has a breakaway and.

And she's usually up in there.

And the further you can get away from the Cassons of the world, the Beth Potters of the world, the Lisa Turches of the world, coming off the bike, the better.

So I think it's as a Olympic distance race, it sets up well for her, so I'm excited to see her just go out there and have another crack and see if we can get closer to that top 15, that top 10.

Awesome, awesome.

We'll be excited to watch.

All right, well, on today's program, we have two hot topics.

The first is what went down in Singapore at the T100, and the second is what the heck is going down in Nice, France, where we have heard all kinds of shenanigans involving the world championship and potentially even the other standard races that take place place there every year.

But to talk about the T100, we want to get the perspective of somebody on the ground.

And I happen to have a friend, Andrew Patterson, who lives there, I mentioned at the top of the program.

He is the voice behind Ironman hacks, a popular YouTube channel, a popular website that really does a great job at bringing you interviews and doing all kinds of great stuff around triathlon.

So, Andrew, thank you so much for being here and for bringing us your perspective.

Why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are, what you're doing in Singapore, and how you came to be at these races because you've been with a press pass now at the T100 for the last couple years.

Yeah.

Thanks a lot, Jeff and Matt.

Andrew here.

Been in Singapore almost 30 years now.

Come coming to be.

It's a bit crazy.

So I'm basically Singaporean, but I'm really from the Pacific Northwest, so not quite Canadian, but, you know, I try.

So.

Yeah, any.

Yeah, you know, I've been pretty well involved in getting press passes for the past four years, ever since T100 came here when they called it, you know, PTO open and interviewing people, everybody, basically everybody from Christian Blumenfeld and Jan Frodeno.

To Sam Long and everybody.

Right.

So it's really the highlight of my year.

And I love, I love PTO.

I love T100, I love the races.

And I raced in it last year.

Definitely one of the fondest race experiences I've had racing in, in this city and swimming in this iconic place.

So it was, don't get me wrong, because I mean, I do have some.

There were some issues this year, I think, but I love the organization and I love the race.

But I guess this year there were a few hiccups and I guess you could say it's for the pros, for the spectators and for the athletes.

So let's get right to it because you sent me a list of things that you found to be surprising because as you said, you've had great experiences with them before.

So what were some of the things that really changed this year that made the race less enticing for the pros and also for age groupers?

So, Jeff, just to set up the context, I guess a few years ago you interviewed them yourself.

Right.

And yeah, yeah, I'd spoken to Sam Ranuf.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think the narrative back then is we're an incumbent here to, to do something that's maybe a bit more affordable and taking a different approach than Ironman.

So, you know, there's, there's this background.

Right.

And so I came in basically hoping for the same thing.

But then $500 registrations this year, $600.

This is Singapore do, quite similar to Canadian dollars or Aussie dollars.

So quite a bit more than Ironman, than half Ironmans.

And I thought they were trying to be cheaper.

I thought they were trying to be more accessible.

But in reality it seems to be getting more expensive and becoming less accessible.

So that's one thing.

But that aside, this year there are only men pros.

So where are the women?

I mean, I'm used to seeing Lucy, Charles Barkley and everybody else, and I have some, some friends with little girls who all, all want to get her signature and it's like half the field is gone.

We want our signature too.

I mean,.

So.

Well, you know, that's an interesting point.

That's an interesting point, Andrew, because I think, you know, Matt and I have talked about the fact that they've split the races and from a viewer perspective, that has a downside.

But I guess I hadn't really thought about it from somebody who actually wants to go to the race and meet potentially their heroes.

So that's an interesting point.

Yeah.

Because they're actually quite, quite Easy to meet at the end if you want.

Easier than any Ironman.

You just go to the finish line, hang out there, and they'll shake your hand, they'll talk to you.

So I think PTO has done a really good job in allowing that and not being too strict in that, because right at the finish line, you can just hang out there and they'll all talk to you.

So it's really cool.

But now half of them are not there.

The second point was the location.

So previously it was in a very accessible place at the Marina Bay Sands, which is essentially the big.

That tower, the three towers with the thing that looks like a ship on top.

And there's a huge car park parking lot down there.

Huge area that's extremely accessible, extremely easy to get to.

And tourists are there, families are there.

It's just packed.

I mean, it's absolutely vibrant, alive, Electric, big screen, set up, food carts.

It's perfect.

And that's how they had done it the past three years, but this year they moved it over to the F1 pit, which is across the the water, which is in a very difficult place to get to.

And it was really sad.

There were like 50 people watching the big screen and there was just nobody there.

So it's hard to get to do.

Do you have an explanation?

Did they say why they changed the venue?

Was there any communication to the age groupers or just people in general about this?

There might have been, but I didn't see it.

I reached out to pto, to their press team on all of these points, and they never rep to give to their credit.

I only gave them 48 hours because this whole thing has happened very quickly.

So maybe they're crafting the reply right now.

So they didn't say so.

I mean, it was a difficult place for age groupers to get to, to watch the finish line, but it was also difficult for the pros to really engage with everybody at the end.

And I think they like it too.

And I felt kind of sad for some of the pros that are finishing, like towards the end.

Nobody's talking to them.

They're kind of all alone.

And that brings us to the next point, which is the field.

I think the field you'd be forgiven for not recognizing all of the.

All of the pros this year.

The lineup wasn't the same caliber we've seen in recent years.

I mean, if you hadn't been following triathlon super closely, you wouldn't know who these are.

Maybe even you guys wouldn't.

I sure didn't for example, we know Sam Long, Christian Blumenfeld, they're usually here.

Christian's here sometimes, but Sam's always here.

But they're racing in Texas.

Now, if that's an excuse, I don't buy it.

And a lot of my friends on the way to Finland were sitting in front of Sam Long.

He's back there, too.

And everybody's like playing jokes on each other on the plane.

So it's like, that's no excuse.

Texas has no excuse for not coming to Singapore when previously they had an even bigger arguably race, which is the four world champs, and they still did that.

Well, this is one of the things that I've been saying is that they keep scheduling themselves opposite big Ironman events and they have their schedule.

They have the choice to move things around.

They know Ironman's not going to move for them.

So they're still at the situation where honestly, they've got to make a move to accommodate for the bigger Ironman races.

And they knew that a bunch of pros were going from New Zealand, Australia, flying over to do Oceanside Texas.

All they had to do was have Singapore in the next couple of weeks.

They would have had all the big names.

And for whatever reason, they continue to put themselves squarely up against these big Ironman races.

And I don't really understand why.

Yep.

So, Jeff, exacerbating that problem is the fact that the prize purses or the prize money was cut in half.

So when you're getting 100k, it's a little bit more appealing than 50k.

Hayden Wilde knows he'll get it anyway.

So he still showed up.

Yeah, exactly.

Hayden.

Hayden.

It's almost now become, and I don't want to say like a subsidy of, of Hayden Wilde, but it, it, it is kind of trending in that direction because a lot of these athletes, Texas is on the same weekend.

I do think that's a, that's a tough decision because the pro series, ultimately in so many ways, the incentives now are, are better, obviously, just straight up monetarily, but also in the attention and also in the like, scope.

And, and I think Singapore is a great race.

I think it should have more attention because it's in this incredible city.

It's just the, the T100 in the eyes of the average age grouper.

It just doesn't resonate or they just don't know about it.

Like, they do Iron Man.

So in that sense, just the attention, incentive is just so much better at, like an Ironman Texas, when it's part of the pro series like this.

But it's hard, like, for yourself.

Did you talk to many other age groupers about just these changes and what their sense was on, like, how they felt about the event versus previous events?

Yeah.

So, Matt, this one right now, these are only the pro concerns.

I haven't even got to the age groupers concerns.

The answer is yes.

So these are the pro concerns.

So, like at half the prize purse, of course it attracts fewer people.

But now, Matt, onto what you're asking.

Basically.

I did mention the affordability.

Like, last year, I think it was like 500 bucks.

This year it's moving up to 600.

Everybody's complaining.

I mean, I'm cycling with people.

Every week we have big groups that go out and everybody's saying the same thing.

And I mean, these are not people who don't have money.

It's just irritating.

Right.

They can afford it.

It's just.

You promise one thing.

It's a 20%.

It's a 20% increase year over year.

I mean, that's.

That's not nothing.

That's a big deal.

Yeah.

Moving on.

Entries were also open all the way up until the weekend before the race.

Usually this thing sells out.

So what's happening?

Okay, not for the full distance, but for the duathlon or for the other.

The other shorter distances.

But entries were open.

It's not really a good look.

I don't know that demand, at least in Singapore, is as strong or the novelty is still as appealing as it used to be.

So that was a concern.

Could the price increase and.

Or the location change have significantly impacted entries?

Or could there be bigger factors?

Price increase, for sure, location.

I don't think anybody necessarily cares because from a consumer perspective, from a age grouper perspective, the starting place is still.

It's always.

That part hasn't changed.

For us, it's just the finish line.

The finish line changed.

That affected the appeal.

The spectator appeal for the pros.

Price increase for sure.

Then the third or the next thing that happened, that was a little bit weird.

I don't know.

You guys can disagree with me, but we have ultra conservative lightning and weather alerts in Singapore.

Anybody who's ever swam in a public pool here will know there's an orange light that spins like a siren.

Like, not a siren, but a light that spins.

An alert light.

And that's.

I think that's controlled by the Government in terms of, like, the meteorological system.

Meteorological system.

And that thing goes off.

And when that thing goes off, everybody's out of the pool.

And sometimes it happens when the sky is sunny.

There's no clouds, but this orange light's going.

So it's like, okay, lightning.

We're all going to die.

And everybody freaks out and everybody leaves.

And all the swim.

Swim squads are canceled, and all the football games, all the kids are playing, all the rugby.

It's all gone.

Right.

So my daughter plays a lot of football, and so she's always complaining.

It's like, why is the light on?

There's nothing happening.

And so that happened now, not to discount it that much.

Yes, there were dark clouds coming our way, but during the ride, halfway through the ride, for a lot of athletes, it's canceled.

So the lightning alert comes on.

It happened on the bike for most.

And, okay, the duathlon guys, they started first because it was still dark.

They can start, but you can't start swimming in the dark.

So those guys had finished, but most of the age groupers on the bike hadn't finished.

So now they're paying 600 bucks and they're not even finishing.

I've raced in plenty of races in torrential rains, storms, and I've never had.

Even in Singapore, like, Sundown marathon.

I remember a marathon here.

Lightning everywhere, Just finish.

But.

But to be fair, who.

Who makes the call to make that?

Is it the government who says you can't race?

So it's not.

It's not the T100 who said we have to cancel it?

Conceivably, that could have happened every other year to correct.

Or conceivably, yes, you're both right, Jeff.

And sorry, Matt, I'll just finish the point here.

I did put that to pto.

I said it could have been a local decision.

Not sure.

Like, it's not something that T100 did, but it's to their detriment.

That's right.

It's just one more thing added on to all the other insults.

Yeah, it's another hit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I.

That's actually what made me reach out to Andrew is I saw some posts on Facebook from locals who were just bitterly complaining about the fact that the race had been canceled.

And they were, like, standing there going, it's not even raining.

Like, it's like, this is crazy.

Yeah, that's another.

That's another hit.

It's another hit.

And it's another hit.

You know, it's not their fault.

No, it's not.

It's Funny, though, because the T100 and Sam Ranuf, really, I feel like in every year prior, been a lot of talk, a lot of hype, and deservedly so, because of the location of Singapore, because of the demand for the race, like, always selling out.

And yeah, I think this year they were.

They were very quiet.

Sam has been, I think, very quiet, unless I'm not seeing what he's putting out there.

It just feels like there's the momentum and who knows, maybe if this was priced in before the war broke out and.

And all that issues has come about for them.

But the swagger, the momentum, it certainly feels like it's.

It's gone out a little bit for them.

And I wonder, did you kind of sense that on the ground, I guess, from even just the organizers or the employees or even the athletes?

First of all, the press guy who's usually here, he didn't come this year.

Maybe it's a budget issue.

I doubt Sam was here.

Sam was here before.

And then I asked the other press guys who were there.

I said, hey, when you guys.

When you guys leaving?

He's like, tomorrow.

Wow.

So it's like the.

He's leaving the day that the age groupers are racing.

Of course, he only handles the pro.

He only handles the pros, so he doesn't need to be there when the age groupers are there.

But it feels like there may be cuts.

I'm just speculating.

I may be completely wrong, but yes, on the ground, I mean, the other thing that's more visible is the simple fact that they moved.

The location resulted in a situation where the run was dead.

So on the run, normally, okay, I was there with my friends, my fellow triathletes.

A whole bunch of us met at a restaurant where we always meet right on the water where all the pros go by.

Everybody runs.

It's basically four laps or so.

I may be wrong, but it's a few laps out and back on sort of the waterfront area.

And there's a restaurant there.

People get food, and it's just packed with spectators lined all the way down, cheering.

Last year we had Jan Frodeno.

That's the highlight of my triathlon career.

Jan Frodeno giving me five.

Right?

So he's cheering for everybody.

And, like, it's just totally packed, totally hyped up.

Amazing.

This year, nobody.

Just my group of people, like 10 of us there and all the rest of the.

The way down, it was just dead.

There was nobody there.

There's nobody watching.

Is that because they moved the location or is that because it was just lack of interest?

It's because they moved the location.

I think it's primarily because of that.

But it could be.

It could be all this.

This has the hallmarks of a race that's on its last legs.

This sounds a lot like, you know, you hear this about Ironman races too.

70.3 Or full distance, where they kind of have run their course and they're going to move to a new location.

That's kind of what this sounds like.

But it's compounded by the problems that T100 has had.

And I don't know how much of this is a reflection of T100 being in trouble and how much of this is just the race itself.

Is they're just giving up on Singapore as a location?

Are they.

Are they saying that.

That Singapore is on the schedule for next year?

They did.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right, Matt.

And the funniest thing, I mean, gosh, they cancel the race, everybody's pissed off, and then immediately we get an email join next year.

I mean, good for them for pushing it, but they should be a little bit more like tuned in.

That was scheduled.

That one was scheduled and someone forgot to take that out of the mailchimp or whatever, you know.

Yeah.

No.

No discount.

No discount for returning athletes, given what happened.

They do have discounts.

They do have discount.

They always have discounts for repeat athletes.

But nothing special.

Nothing special to acknowledge what happened.

Not that I heard of.

Not that I heard of.

But just.

Just to reiterate, I love them.

I love the races.

I think the race experience.

Just to sort of balance things out.

Last year I raced it.

It was one of the best race experiences ever.

The aid station is like 200 meters long.

It's tremendous.

It's after a U turn, so you're already going slowly on the bike.

The photography, it's all free photos.

You don't have to pay 100 bucks.

It's all free and it's properly done.

So much of it is done so well.

So I'm not like bitter about them, but I'm just saying this year.

Well, that's why you're.

That's why you're the best voice to have on here because you are very.

You love this race.

You're very pro, the organization, and you can give a very, I think, objective viewpoint of what you saw on the ground.

And if you are feeling this way, then just imagine what people who maybe are less positive might be feeling.

So I think it's great and I really want to thank you for taking the time.

I know you've got to get to a meeting.

Before you go though, Andrew, could you just tell our listeners a little bit about your big project, Ironman hacks and where they could find that and what they can find when they go there.

Yeah, best thing to do is to go to YouTube and type in Ironman hacks.

Basically.

I interview pros.

I haven't gotten to Matt yet though.

I'm tired now.

So you don't want those hacks.

Come on, man.

Come on.

What?

I'll tell you what not to do.

How about that?

The hacks of saving yourself pain and injury.

Maybe that could be.

Or like zip up your.

Zip up your wet through your suit.

Yeah, that's.

That's the one.

That's all I got.

I interviewed Jeff a few times.

One of the.

One of the best videos I have is about how to have.

How to have a faster transition.

And I give this to all the people I work with and all the people here who are starting out in Singapore.

Some of the best tips Jeff's had, some of the fastest.

I think he's had some of the fastest transitions.

This was like probably two years ago in the season of Jeff.

You were like number one or two in all your races and I was actually one.

I was actually first and second as well after employing your tips.

But then I interview pros, I interviewed age groupers, I do a lot on nutrition, I do a lot on heat, I do a lot of lot on carbs.

And then I do a lot of like goofy stuff where I try to eat turkey dinner, Thanksgiving dinner on the bike, which never really worked out, but yeah, that's great.

Well, Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today on Tempo Talks.

It's really been great having you here.

If you want to find more about Andrew, I will have his links in the show notes.

And Andrew, I know you've got to go.

Matt and I are going to continue the conversation though with our discussion about Ironman.

Nice.

Thanks for being here, Andrew.

Thanks so much, Jeff and Matt.

See you guys on the next one.

Thanks, Andrew.

All right, well, we will move from the T100 to the Ironman situation, which is the issue around Nice.

Apparently Nice had an election and they brought in a fiscal hawk, a fiscal conservative who decided he needed to save his city's budget a lot of euros.

And the first sort of low hanging fruit that he settled on was the contract with Ironman.

I have no idea why that was the low hanging fruit, but he figured, why are we paying an organization to shut down the Promenade des Angles and provide police services and do all these other things that cities do when they sign up with Ironman.

And he immediately threatened to cancel that contract and put the world championships on notice.

Ironman did some very quick negotiating and basically decided they had no choice but to soak up the financial loss.

And they are apparently going to be letting Niece off the hook from having to pay.

It's not all clear to me.

I'm speculating a little bit based on what I'm reading between the lines and hearing from other people.

You may know Marmat, but apparently Iron man is going to basically let Niece off the hook from having to pay the agreed upon fees.

And on top of that, Iron man is now going to have to pay the police and have to pay for all of the things that usually cities do to have a race.

Go on.

Matt, what do you think?

This, this is, this is a, this is a potentially turning point in not only world championships but also Ironman races at all.

Just think about all the other cities that are maybe thinking about their new negotiating power.

Exactly.

And it sets a troubling precedent for Iron man and probably for other race organizers and, and city officials that see, you know, hey, we, these guys really do depend on the subsidies that cities provide with police and, and road closures and all that kind of stuff.

So to see this and we don't know the details.

Like I don't know the details.

Maybe there's a more of a cost share or maybe there's a bit of more of a savings for the city but not, you know, Iron man fully on the hook.

But really it does set a troubling precedent because really at the end of the day the city can just say, yep, that's it, we're shutting this down.

Pull the contract.

Who knows, it sounds like they can, maybe they can't.

But for Ironman it's their world championship.

It's a marquee event.

They're not going to let that go away.

They're going to, they're going to pay the piper.

It's certainly troubling.

And maybe Ironman will have to figure out their next contract for a world championship city or all cities to try and negate that, that possibility.

I don't know.

Like Jeff, do you know, was this mayor, was this what he was elected on was basically cutting costs and making things more affordable.

Like, do you have any insight on that?

I don't have any insight exactly.

I have friends who live in Toulouse though, so they're pretty far removed From Nice.

They don't necessarily know the politics of what's going on there.

But it's not unusual for French, for France in general to have deficit heavy budgets.

And you will go through these cycles where you get conservative politicians coming in and saying they're going to work on balancing budgets and things like that.

And I'm not terribly surprised to hear that this has happened.

Not that they're cutting Ironman, but that you have a conservative mayor being elected who is sort of saying typical to what we hear in a lot of different jurisdictions that oh, our taxes are too high, our budgets are too generous, we need to cut expenditures so that we can think about reducing taxes and or at least shift our budgetary priorities to other things.

That's not surprising.

What, what is surprising to me is that they would cut an event that has been quite kind to the city.

Now look, it's nice, right?

It's not like this is tri cities in Washington state that doesn't really have a huge influx of tourists on every given weekend.

And when you have a race that brings in 2,000 people and all of the money they're going to spend over the three to days that they're in town, that's a big deal for tri cities, that's a big deal for Boise, that's a big deal for even Oceanside.

I mean Oceanside being an ocean facing community still isn't really where a lot of tourists will go, I don't think.

I mean it doesn't strike me as a tourist friendly kind of place.

But when you have 2,000 people descending on a small town and bringing in all of that revenue for the city's coffers in terms of city taxes spent on dining, lodging, all of that, that's a big deal.

But nice, let's face it, a big tourist destination gets tourism by the bucket load pretty much all summer long.

Ironman maybe is just a blip for them.

So cutting that, cutting off the expenditures related to Ironman, maybe not as big of a deal.

Well, Ironman, in how they pitch it to cities, I'm sure they pitch the knockoff economic benefits.

The, the surplus hotel nights that are getting used.

Oh, I know they do.

Like they.

And, and, and obviously when they sell this to cities, it is convincing enough for them to take it on.

Like these cities aren't dumb.

They're not just paying a bunch of money to then have this event come in, not even knowing what the economic impact.

And of course those economic impact studies, they can be a little subjective, a little juice, but at the End of the day, especially like a world championship type race, it brings meaningful attention to your area.

You wonder maybe because of the length of time, I guess they've been working with Nice the last little bit, especially with the, the full distance world championships.

Maybe there is some kind of fatigue that the mayor is like, oh, I, I know my constituents are, are kind of tired of this because it does impact a lot of the roads.

It does close down a good chunk of these roads and some of these roads obviously are quite narrow and there's no other place for the people who live there to go.

So yeah, I'm just wondering if there's like a confluence of factors.

It's not just money, it could be money plus disgruntled locals maybe, maybe.

Interestingly though, they have not threatened to cut off the Ironman France nor the 70.3 race that they have there regularly.

They only made this about the world championships.

And it makes me realize now, like how fortunate that Ironman decided to bring Kona back together because if they were still counting on having a race in Nice, they'd be in big trouble.

And we already talked about how that was kind of a money losing proposition, having the races split and so bringing them back together to Kona was a financially beneficial proposition for Ironman.

So you could just imagine now if they had to have two races, both losing money already and then really taking a big hit from Nice, that would have been terrible.

But just getting back to what you were saying about the communities are being sold this.

I had a conversation with one of the guys for who works for Ironman who does advance kind of city assessments.

So when cities are interested in having a race, this guy goes and he does kind of conversations with the local people and explores the venue to see if it's suitable.

And he told me, oh yeah, it's a big seller.

Like the city is selling themselves to Ironman and Ironman is selling themselves to the city.

And because you're a pro, you wouldn't know this, but as an age grouper, every time I do one of these events, I get a survey afterwards from Ironman.

And it's a pretty lengthy survey.

And it's not just about how did you like the race, it's about did you travel with anybody, how did you get to the race, where did you stay, did you pay for lodging, how many times did you eat out, how much money did you spend in total for your whole time that you were there?

Because they're taking that information and going back to these cities and saying, look what the Impact is financially to your community from people who have come and stayed.

And so.

And they're not pulling those numbers out of a hat.

They're pulling those numbers from age groupers like me who fill out these surveys.

And, And I think they're.

They.

They genuinely do offer a financial benefit to these communities like Boise, like Tri Cities, you know, the smaller community, Omaha, Nebraska, with their first race.

I'm sure this is going to be a big deal for them, but.

But again, a place like Nice, it's probably not as much of a financial benefit to them, especially when they really are.

Especially when you're looking at it.

Two Ironmans in a year, 270.3s in a year.

I could.

I can imagine that it was a big deal.

And look, the 70.3, if it was supposed to be this year in Nice, 27 still to be determined, but we think it's going to be North America.

And then 28 was supposed to be back in Nice.

Right.

And then 29 is Oman.

So 28, there's no way it's going back to Nice.

So now that means 27, 28 are up in the air.

I can't believe 27 still up in the air.

Yeah, I. Yeah.

You have no information on where that's going to be.

The only thing I know is I keep hearing Oceanside.

Oceanside gets mentioned in sort of rumbling rumors more than anything.

I don't know what the holdup is.

I don't know if it's dealing with the military and having to get permission for the base, because getting access to that base on two days, you know, it's already a problem getting access to it on one day.

And then you tell athletes who are coming in, Anybody who goes for Oceanside knows you're not allowed to practice on the base.

You cannot ride those hills.

So now you're going to tell people who come from overseas you cannot ride on the course until the day of the race.

So that's.

That's kind of interesting.

So I. I wonder if that's part of what's being fleshed out or if there's a completely different location.

I don't know what's taking so long, but we're getting close.

Because, Jude, the end of June is basically end of June, beginning of July is when the cutoff is for Nice, and we will start seeing qualification begin for 27.

So I don't know.

I don't know what's going on.

And Jeff, this whole Nice situation, the mayor's threatening them.

Do you think this could be A trend.

Like we've seen big races in bigger places like the Ironman here in, in Arizona and Tempe go by the wayside.

But because partly because they're just.

The city's outgrown, it's almost too big in, in a way for this event.

Same with St. George, right?

Yes.

Like is this, we're going to see more of this where you're going to have less nieces in the world in the, I guess Iron man or, or just high level age group triathlon realm.

You're going to have more of these kind of Ruidoso, New Mexico races where it's going to be way easier to put on a little more remote.

So there's two ways to look at this.

I'm just saying it's just the trend.

Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at this.

Right.

I mean we are, I don't think it's wildly speculative to say we are heading into an economic downturn given everything that's going on in the world and given what's likely to happen with the prolonged increase in energy costs leading to inflation and everything else.

A downturn seems inevitable at this point.

So when you have an economic downturn, the ability to spend money on luxury costs for individuals and for communities goes away.

It's a bit of a double edged sword though because if you can tell a community that, look for your $100,000 investment, we are not promising you, but basically saying that you will reap the rewards.

And many communities have seen this.

Look at Penticton, right?

Penticton gave up the Ironman and they tried for years to get it back because they saw what a huge bonus it was to the local economy.

So smaller communities really do benefit from these races.

I really do believe that.

I think that's why Kurt Alen keeps it.

I think that's why, like I've said, I keep mentioning these smaller communities.

And to get to your question, I would not be surprised.

Like Lake Placid seems to be done.

I mean, I think the, and I don't mean that the race is done.

I mean that the community has just grown tired of this race.

They're another kind of touristy destination which probably doesn't necessarily need the race because they already have a big tourist economy and they kind of feel like they've been put upon for this many years and they're kind of like, you know what?

We don't want to pay for this anymore.

The community doesn't support it.

And so the race is probably done after, I think this year or next year is the last contract they have and I wouldn't be surprised.

So what you'll see is some of these established races will reach a natural end and they will just say you know what, we're done.

But Ironman will keep finding other communities that are looking for this kind of financial benefit.

But I think more and more you're going to see these communities be the Reducios.

I'm not saying the name right but they're going to be these smaller sort of small towns or mid sized towns that could really use the influx of tourist dollars one weekend a year and will welcome the triathlete to come because I think that they're now there's only so small you can go.

You have to be able to get to the place.

Right.

We're seeing the one in California, Northern California.

I think it's Reading is where it is correct.

Not easy to get to.

And my understanding is that maybe some issues with that race because it's not easy to get to and they may have some trouble with filling it.

So we'll see if that race can survive.

But if the place has access, if the place has the ability to for accommodations for the number of athletes then I think you will start to see some of these established races be replaced just like we have with Little Elm.

And I don't think there'll be a lack of communities wanting to host the race but how long they'll keep the race we'll have to see.

And if you get these new communities sometimes it's just for the best.

They have a new energy.

Obviously new courses are fun.

If people in Lake Placid, I know athletes have been there, they've really struggled to train there around races because the locals are just really done with try out the triathletes.

Hostile.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe it's just the way it is and, and it'd be kind of enjoyable to have some new destinations.

But I don't know if you know Iron man, it feels like not going to be as easy maybe as it used to be to find these race destinations for sure.

But it makes me wonder Jeff, like do you think people like you're saying like it looks like we're heading into some.

A bit of an economic downturn does when this happens do people kind of trade down to more local races with obviously less, less expensive sticker price?

I think so, yeah.

So could we be entering maybe a more bullish time for.

For local races?

Well, local races seem to have been doing pretty well all along speaking to some of the race directors locally here.

Colorado has a thriving local race community.

We have a numerous number.

There's.

What is it?

Bbsc, I think is one of the race.

And then there is.

What's the guy who does little foot and.

And Lori.

There's a bunch of them.

I'm blanking on the name of the race organizer, but.

And then there's racing underground.

I mean, we have a bunch of local race organizers that put on a ton of small races.

I mean, if you want, if you live in the Denver Boulder area, you could have a race almost every single weekend from basically mid May through mid September.

And it's incredible.

I mean, it's just amazing.

So I think the local small races have.

Have actually done pretty well because Ironman has priced themselves out of so many people's budgets.

And as we see an economic downturn, as we see people being more frugal and having to choose what to do with their hard earned cash dollars, I think, yeah, you will see more people shifting to local races, less people racing Ironman and these things go through cycles.

It doesn't surprise me.

Me, Cool.

Well, I'm kind of in my local race era, so I'm ready to jump into a few more, I think.

All right.

I got myself a new used gravel bike, so I will be exploring some local gravel races.

So I'm looking forward to that.

So maybe you and I can figure one of those out at some point.

Absolutely.

I'd be.

I'd be willing to travel to Arizona for that.

I. I raced.

Yeah, great gravel riding here.

I raced that triathlon the other weekend on my gravel bike.

So, you know, it's.

It does it all.

Yeah.

Well, especially if you're a former pro, I think you can get away with that.

I wish I had arrow bars.

I was out there.

I think this is painful.

Well, that's all we have for you on this episode of Tempo talks.

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I want to give a thanks once again to Andrew Patterson for joining us all the way from Singapore today.

That was a real treat for us.

I guess that's our first guest that we've had on the program in full flight, right?

Yeah, definitely.

And shout out to Andrew for his contributions.

I thought that was really insightful.

Man on the ground.

I love that.

And shout out to you for organizing that.

I think we're gonna have to get some more guests on.

I definitely want to hear from more folks.

It's just fun to get unique perspectives and his was certainly unique and valued by me.

I agree.

I agree.

We'll have to do that on a more frequent basis until next week.

We want to thank you all again for listening.

This has been a great episode of Tempo Talks.

We look forward to seeing you next week.

Week.

Awesome.

Thanks, John.