In the most recent episode of Tempo Talks, the hosts, Matthew Sharp and Jeffrey Sankoff, delve into the exhilarating events that transpired during the World Triathlon Championship series in Wollongong. The episode initiates with a discussion about the picturesque fall weather, reflecting on how such conditions positively influence training and performance. Matthew, as an Olympian and seasoned triathlete, shares his personal experiences of traveling extensively for competitions, emphasizing the often-overlooked challenges faced by athletes, such as cramped airplane seating. This sets the stage for a broader conversation about the realities of professional triathlon life, which is frequently romanticized on social media. The episode further explores the highlights of the Wollongong races, particularly focusing on the elite women's race that showcased a dramatic turn of events, with several top competitors facing unexpected challenges. The hosts commend the performances of athletes like Lisa Turch, who emerged victorious, and discuss the implications of these results for the upcoming triathlon season. The discourse seamlessly transitions into the nuances of the T100 race series, where recent changes have sparked excitement and curiosity among the triathlon community. This comprehensive analysis not only highlights key performances but also provides insights into the evolving landscape of triathlon racing, making it a must-listen for enthusiasts and competitors alike.

Links to topics discussed:

The TriDoc Podcast

Matt's Instagram

Jeff's Instagram

LifeSport Coaching

Email Jeff: tri_doc@icloud.com

Email Matt: Matt@thetemponews.com

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Welcome to Tempo Talks, a show that brings you analysis of the biggest stories in triathlon training, tips to make you a better athlete, and breakdowns of the latest science and performance.

I'm Matthew Sharp, an Olympian in triathlon 70.3 Champion & Co founder of the Tempo News.

And I'm Jeff Sankoff, the tridoc medical contributor for Triathlete magazine, age group winner and coach at Life Sport Coaching.

Our goal, inform and entertain two perspectives.

One sport, all things triathlon.

Now let's get into it.

All right everyone, we are back with another episode of your favorite, hopefully your favorite podcast triathlon podcast, Tempo Talks.

I'm your host, co host Matthew Sharp, here with my better half, co host Jeffrey Sankoff.

Jeff, how are we doing today?

We're doing great.

We're doing awesome.

It is, I hate to say it, but a lovely fall day.

Amazing.

No, just I, it's, it is a lovely fall day, but I know what's coming and it's just, it's killing.

Not for you.

We'll just, we won't think about that.

We won't think about that.

We'll just live in the moment in these beautiful fall days.

Yeah, it was a great day for being outside and doing some exercise, getting some activities done.

I have really just about 10 days left of heavy duty training.

I got to see if I can get some leg room on the airplane for the long haul flight.

I'll be sure do get leg room.

Yes, let me know.

I'll be sure to send a snap your way.

I don't have the problem with the lengthy legs, but have we talked about.

This on this podcast?

We haven't.

I don't think people are aware of this reference.

So yeah, I often when I get on an airplane and this goes back a very long time ago, but I'll go on.

When I get on an airplane, like I'm a tall guy and my legs are jammed in there and it's just that I take a picture of literally my legs jammed up against the front of the seat posted on Instagram.

And the origin story of this is that for many years I was traveling quite a bit for the world triathlon circuit and doing all that, chasing the Olympic dream.

A lot of travel and a lot of flights with minimal to no leg room.

And people were always like, oh wow, you get to go to all these places.

And yes, obviously an incredible privilege to be able to do that.

But to get there, there was some suffering involved.

And so for a long time, like I was doing, yeah, a lot of flights and I was always just, I don't know, checking in, being like, hey, like, this isn't perfect.

It's not this, like Instagram, like, this is the reality to Instagram of being able to travel.

So did that.

And then people started sending me their leg room pictures and it just spun off.

But maybe twice a week, once a week, I'll still get one of these random people tagging me in the thing and then it's a new person.

Then somebody else sees it and then they do it.

It just, it's continued on.

So, yeah, that's the background with that.

So if you are listening and you are flying and your legs are jammed up against the front of the seat, maybe you're on a Frontier flight in the US or a Ryanair flight in Europe.

Tag me in it because I can relate.

And there are a couple of Asian airlines.

Scoot.

Scoot.

Yeah.

Scoot is the.

Is the budget airline.

We've all been.

That's the thing.

Singapore Air.

So Singapore, of course, this magnificent airline.

And then when you connect in Asia to, like, smaller destinations, you get on Scoot and it is not quite the standard you're accustomed to.

It gets you there, though.

It gets you there.

Gets you there.

Yep, absolutely.

When I fly to Spain, I don't have the same issues of being quite so tall, but I will definitely keep you posted.

All right, we've, speaking of travel, got a good show for you because your wife Kirsten just did some travel and I was so happy to see her looking so happy being out there racing.

So we're going to hear about Kirsten's day and we're going to just recap the whole Wollongong experience.

There was just a zillion different races there.

I happen to have the good fortune to know two people who came home with medals.

Be good to give them each a shout out.

We'll move from there to talk briefly about the T100 race that also took place in Wollongong as part of that whole festival.

And then we'll use that as a way to segue to the renewed T100.

Because the T100 isn't known to sit on its laurels, to sit pat in any way, shape or form.

They are going to be nothing if not new every six weeks or so.

And so they love to keep us guessing.

They keep us guessing, keep us on our toes.

And yes, some changes for sure that I'm personally excited about.

So some new T100 changes yet again.

So we'll bring that to you.

We are going to very briefly talk about a couple of things at the end of the program, the 70.3 start lists because our next two weeks are going to be dedicated to our preview shows of the men's and women's 70.3 worlds.

But we will just quickly go over a little preview of what you can expect in those next two shows and then we will address the burgeoning controversy that was the Ironman California slot allocation for the World Championships in Kona next year.

So we'll touch on that briefly at the end.

We really didn't want to go there, but we feel like have to.

But let's begin first with what went down this past weekend in Wollongong.

I think I'm saying that right too.

I'm very proud of you are you're.

Natural true blue Aussie.

I talked to my friend Kelly who is one of the aforementioned medal winners.

We'll get to her in a little bit.

But she ran it by her and yes, Wollongong.

All right, so tell us what happened in the big races in Wollongong this past weekend.

Yeah, we'll talk about the big elite races.

It's funny because when I started racing world triathlon many years ago, there was never like a series.

It was just the world Championships.

You had a World cup circuit, but then the single day world championships was the thing.

But now with the media the way it is, they have the season long narrative.

They have a world triathlon championship series where the winner may cross the line but they may not always be the world champion at the end, which I don't love.

But anyways, this was the grand final of the World Triathlon Championship series.

I like to call it the World Champs because it's the big race.

It has everyone there, all the age groupers, the Para U23 Junior World Championships.

Go on.

It's just, it's a different feeling.

It has its own aura and there was plenty of drama, especially in this women's race which felt like a deja vu of Kona.

It was incredible.

And this is the Olympic distance, correct?

Yeah.

I read your synopsis in the Tempo News and it was terrific.

So yeah, break it down.

Yes.

So basically there were about, I called them like the big four who could win the world championship based on the points and stuff.

So you had obviously the Olympic champion who, Cassan Beaugrein, who was coming in with some.

She had a couple series wins this year.

You had Beth Potter from Great Britain.

She had a bit of a slower start this Year, but she actually had a couple great World Series wins leading up to this race.

Had a lot of momentum.

You had Jen lahair, who's been solid all year.

She had a World Series win.

She won the Super Tri Series not long ago.

Just another lead, who was on form.

You also had Lisa Turch, who from Germany, who won the first race of the year back in February in Abu Dhabi, but hadn't quite been on like the winner's circle.

She, I think maybe a few podiums, but not wins up until now.

And so those were like the big four who were up for the win.

And it was super interesting because they came out of the water.

And to show my bias or whatever, I got to shout out my wife, Kirsten.

It was her first race back after surgery in March.

And it's always tough coming back to World Championship as your first race.

But she was just on the bubble.

She almost made this front pack of about seven women.

She was.

She had a great first lap.

I think she was like six and then faded a little bit.

So it wasn't quite there starting the bike.

But this group got away because of this one athlete, Jessica Fullager from Great Britain, who absolutely sent it.

Like, she made this front pack happen.

She put herself on the front.

And these other girls, including Cassand, including Beth Potter, including Lisa Turch, they were basically just holding on to this, like, motorcycle of Jessica Fullager and she made this break happen.

So they went on like they weren't super organized, but then the chase behind had about 25 athletes in it and there just wasn't.

There was no organization.

And so they were able to.

Which I always find really interesting because there's 25.

They couldn't see them very well.

This is the thing in this race, they could not.

Lots of twists and that was huge.

All right.

Yep, it was a hardcore suit.

Very hilly, a lot of wind as well coming off the ocean there in Wollongong.

So, yeah, it just ended up being a pretty hard bike.

I know Kirsten was telling me her power was one of the highest she's had in years.

And of course, first race back, why don't you have a big old effort on the bike?

And she was in the chase pack like nothing.

Do not doing anything crazy.

So clearly the front athletes were working hard, but it was really set up to be this Beth Potter kind of Kurt versus Cassand.

Obviously you had Lisa Turch in there, but she just wasn't showing the form that those other two were.

So it really was setting up for this two woman epic run.

Battle to start the run anyways.

And then it didn't work out that way.

It did not.

So very interesting.

I'm watching this race and right at the beginning, there was just not a lot of separation with there was about six of them who ended up coming off the bike together.

And they stayed together for a very long time.

Like, you even had full gar, who isn't known as being a class runner compared to Cassand.

She was right at the front, like, pushing the pace.

Cassand was tucked in.

Beth Potter was tucked in there.

And I was kind of like, okay, like, they're biding their time.

They'll get to 5k and then start to turn the afterburners on and make things happen.

And it was just weird.

Like, they just weren't putting themselves in the front of the pack, whereas these other athletes were just doing the work and being aggressive.

And then at 5k in, they had a long downhill section, and at the bottom of the hill, the camera angle was a little like, you couldn't really tell what was happening, but you could see somebody just dropping off on the back of that group.

And all of a sudden the announcers are like, it's Cassand.

She's off the back.

By the way, the announcing, the commentating was amazing this weekend.

We can go into that later.

But yeah, Cassand, Olympic gold medalist from last year, in the driver's seat for World Championship title, still off the group.

She would eventually dnf.

So that was.

Did she dnf?

Because she just was like, once she was out of it, she just was like, I'm done.

So I guess when you're in that, say you get dropped, like, you can still, like, maybe she's okay, I'm not going to win the World Championship.

But she could still be on the podium and she could still lose.

Being on the podium goods good money.

At the end of the day, she's got great sponsors.

Being on the podium is probably going to be beneficial.

But she couldn't even hold on to podium position.

Like, she was totally off the group.

And, yeah, she ended up dnfing.

So just crazy.

And when that happened, a favorite going into the race, like, in good position, it just felt like Kona.

And I was like, what is happening?

Like, another leader woman has collapsed, so to speak.

Not quite like Kona, but just.

Yeah, like, it was intriguing, it was dramatic.

And so that happened.

And then it's okay.

We've got now a group of, I think five still were together.

Four or five.

And even not long after that, it Might have been on the next time they went down this downhill section.

It's like the downhill of death.

That's when Beth Potter got dropped.

So another World Championship kind of locked.

Like she.

If she just stayed there and maybe even finished like second or even third, maybe she would have won the World Championship.

But then she was gone again.

Similar.

Like you had Lucy Charles fall off in Kona and then Nib fall off and this one you had Cassan fall off and then you had Beth Potter.

It's just incredible drama.

Although here it seemed like they were just shelled.

You just had these other women who just shelled them.

Like it just.

I don't know what happened on that bike.

Maybe they just overextended themselves.

But I wouldn't even say it seemed like they were based on what I saw.

What's the World Championship?

Maybe they went too hard in training leading into it, but just weird how both of them.

Yeah.

Collapsed at the biggest moment.

And so in the end, Lisa Turch was running with Bianca Seregni, I think from Italy.

She had a day and Turch dropped the hammer in the last kilometer and took the win, became the World Championship.

World champion, rather.

Won the World Championship series and kind of sandwiched the season.

She won the first race of the year in February, had a mid season lull and then just goes through.

If you come out and perform when it counts, right?

It was.

Yeah, it was incredible.

Just like Cassandra did for the Olympics and that was her premier performance and that when it really counted.

And so clearly Lisa Turch following in that mold.

So why not?

It's just, it's sometimes you would think, okay, like a Cassand who went all in for the Olympics, home Olympics won.

Coming off that, you'd think maybe the whole year would be a little bit of an off year just to like recess or reset.

But she was having a great year.

Like literally up until this race, it was pretty rock solid.

Like she was on track to win.

And then the final race of the year, that's it done.

Wow.

Did she speak afterwards or have you heard it?

I haven't heard anything.

I honestly haven't really looked for anything, but I haven't seen anything.

That's where you need.

We need our inside.

I could, I could.

She's our woman on the ground right there.

Yeah, for sure.

I know I could probably send a DM to Cassan's boyfriend, but I'm not gonna do that.

We can.

I'm sure she'll.

Something will come out eventually.

But also, yeah, to go back to Kirsten, I was super happy for her.

She finished 24th.

Just great to see her back out there.

Like in some ways, like she never left.

Obviously I think she wanted more.

That's what happens with these athletes, they always want more.

And so where did she feel the rust most?

Was it the swim, the bike or the run?

Like the swim.

She was great for the first lap, faded on the second lap and funny.

Like she.

I saw this on the footage.

You could see her just off the front five or whatever and she had.

It was like three of them lined up together.

It was her some athlete and then another athlete.

Kristen was in the middle.

So she's in this tough spot where these people are.

You're fighting each other and you're all losing the feet and no one has the energy to do that jump, to get on the feet.

So then somebody else can sit on the feet and then you can come out together.

Like it just.

They were battling each other and I've been in that position before.

I've done questionable things to get out of that position to get on the feet and good for her for maybe not doing them, I don't know.

But when you're in a world champs and you're racing, decisions have to be made.

I would say, well, it was good for her.

I'm excited to see her at the 70.3 at a distance where she will be racing in Indian Wells in just a couple of months time.

What is she thinking about making that step?

That's a big step distance wise for.

Her and she doesn't have a ton of Runway to really do crazy volume or anything.

I'm super excited to see her have a go at this distance.

At the end of the day she may do it and be like I'm not into this, like I don't want to.

I'm going to keep doing short course or whatever.

But I think it's good for her to try it.

I think she could be successful at this just because of her skill set.

She's a great athlete.

Like she's always going to be at the front of the swim.

It's just a matter of putting in the volume I think.

And we've seen how the short course athletes are just absolutely decimating the field in these 70.3 races.

And Indian Wells tends to get a variable quality type of field.

So it's perfect for her to slot in there and see how she can fare.

So I think that's great.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No looking forward to that for sure.

But that wasn't the only race this weekend.

It was not there was.

We should just.

Did you plan on talking a lot about the men's?

Too much.

So probably just worthwhile to mention that Matt Houser really, really performed for his home crowd.

It was.

That was the thing, right?

This guy had the weight of a nation on his shoulders, so.

Oh, my God.

Goodness, that was great.

I love that.

Yeah, that was the vibe, for sure.

They haven't had a male world champion in 20 years.

And I don't want to say Australians are.

I don't want to say entitled.

That's a terrible word.

But I think they feel like they should be in the mix every year because of their pedigree, their history, the champions that they have had in the past.

They've had so many.

But it just hasn't been the same, really, because the sport has just gotten more competitive.

That's the reality.

But you had this guy who came in with a perfect record, untouchable in a lot of ways.

When you.

Like we saw in the women's race, you get to the big stage and sometimes people crumbled.

But this guy, he did anything but crumbled.

He rose be above and beyond to the occasion.

Like I literally from the gun.

And I don't know if you've seen this clip of his swim start.

Have you seen this?

No, man, he, like, you can see him because he's rate.

He's ranked number one.

He's good position.

You could see him off the gun.

He runs and does this massive dive into the water, and he emerges.

It looks like he has an outboard motor strapped to him.

Like, this guy is just full throttle.

He has a body length already off the dive in the run and dive in.

And he proceeds to get, I want to say, four or five body lengths on the next athlete, like, almost by halfway, which is unprecedented in, like, from what I've seen in men's racing, nobody gets away in the swim.

This guy got away in the swim.

So he obviously had the mojo.

He had the confidence.

He was amped up.

He was amped up for sure.

And he looked.

You don't usually see a guy coming in, down the final stretch of the run and taking as much time as he did to grab a flag and high five every single fan.

He really dominated that race.

Yeah.

And one thing I thought was interesting from his race is that he.

It appeared to me anyways that he slowed down starting the second lap of the swim when he realized he didn't have people to get a front group with.

Yeah, it really appeared that he slowed down to get his people with him.

And then he started hammering again.

But he was able to tow a bunch of his friends with him as front pack people, which I love.

I'm biased towards the front pack.

Cause that was usually where I tried to be.

Anyways, he made it.

He basically made the race happen is what I'm saying.

Good for him.

And it was just awesome seeing him cross the line.

He had put everything into this whole campaign.

The emotion on his face, you could see it.

The announcers were losing their mind.

Both Aussies in the booth there.

It was just exceptional.

I watched this clip of them calling the finish a bunch of times because it's just very powerful.

And it makes a big difference to have the announcers at the event as opposed to remote.

Truly, Truly.

Because the sound of the crowd, the sound of the event happening around the announcers, I think is really important to lending atmosphere to the whole thing, as opposed to what we often see with the Iron man events is it's like silence.

It's just the sound of the announcer speaking in a silent room.

And that often is a disconnect between what we're watching and what we're hearing.

And it's nice to have the ambient noise that you get with these other events.

Yeah.

And the commentating duo of Will McCloy, Belinda Granger, they were exceptional.

They showed what it could be after.

One of my rant.

Funny.

Belinda Granger's sort of hit and miss with me sometimes, but she definitely was a lot better.

She's an example of somebody who's really improved dramatically.

She's clearly getting feedback.

She's being instructed on how to do this and because if she was not very good for a long time and she's clearly become a lot better.

And that's great.

Yeah, it was awesome.

I was just loving it.

I don't think many people in our audience would have watched the race just because, to be fair, most people aren't really that engaged with draft, league or world travel and stuff.

But I love it.

Yeah, it was exceptional.

If you can watch even just like that women's run.

I don't know.

It was crazy, for sure.

Yeah.

All right, let's talk about the T100 events that took place.

Just I don't know that we didn't need to spend a huge amount of time on it, but probably just enough to say that our old friend Hayden Wilde found himself running alone for much.

Five for five.

Yeah.

The guy has had quite a season.

He's walking into the grand final.

I think he's already secured the season victory, hasn't he?

Essentially, yeah.

I don't see how he.

Unless he has another collision with a car.

This guy's taking the title.

And he already had one and still taking the title.

That's how good he is.

It's shocking.

Like he.

He really.

This race wasn't the most competitive, to be fair.

It was fairly competitive, but it wasn't like the most competitive.

So it was a layup for him, I would say.

It'll be interesting in the Grand Final because I think there we can expect to see the likes of.

I think Christian will be there.

I think some of the other big names should show up.

Yeah.

It'd be cool to see like a Blumenfeld and whatnot show up for sure.

Hopefully 200 can pull into some Saudi money and make that happen.

Yeah.

And then on the women's side, Kate Wolf got a win.

Just another win.

Second.

Second win of the season.

Now she's tied with Lucy Charles, I believe, for the title lead.

Maybe there's really wonder.

I wonder if we're gonna see Lucy at the Grand Final.

We'll see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't.

I mean, I haven't heard much about post Kona heat issues, but yeah, hopefully we do.

But then we gotta give some airtime to that incredible double.

Yeah.

This weekend.

Yeah.

Do tell.

Yes.

The.

The guide.

The guide.

And then running.

This is one for the ages.

I definitely saw people talking about it, so that's great.

And it deserves all the airtime because you had this athlete, Sarah Perez Salah, who's a solid athlete.

Never really like on that many, I guess, like big podiums or anything.

She's had a few for sure, but.

So she is a guide for a blind athlete.

Susanna Rodriguez, who has won the paral.

I think they won in Paris last year at the Paralympics.

Anyways, she guided for Susanna in the morning.

Saturday morning, they won the race and.

Then I don't know how many hours distance was that?

It's a sprint.

Sprint distance.

Yeah.

But she.

Yeah, she guided this woman to a world championship victory and then hours later lined up in the women's T100 race and got on the podium and came shows third.

Yeah, third.

Incredible.

Yeah, incredible.

It's just very cool.

Like obviously the podium's great and stuff, but then the whole thing of supporting your teammate and going all in for that and then backing, it's just.

I don't know, it's incredible to me.

And that's going to be in one of my top highlights of the year for sure.

Even though maybe it won't get the same airtime as other things.

I just think it's incredible.

Yeah.

Couldn't agree more.

I think it really was a great story and I hope, I hope that people noticed it.

And if they didn't, I'm glad we can bring some attention to it because it really does deserve all the attention it can get.

I think it was a great story.

All right.

I do want to mention just the fact that it was the age group World Championships and I want to send a little love to a couple of people I know, Kelly Pois, who is a Australian representative.

She lives in Brisbane now.

She will.

She's a very dear friend of mine.

I am very much looking forward to seeing her in Marbella where she will be representing the 50 to 54 women.

She had a heck of a weekend in Wollongong.

She won the silver in the draft legal standard distance.

She won the bronze in the sprint distance, and she won the gold as part of the team relay.

So she had quite an amazing little weekend.

Yeah, it was a really.

And I think that her.

One of her highlights was that she went toe to toe against the great Michelle Jones for her leg of the team and the team relay and she beat Michelle handily.

Wow.

So, yeah, she beat an Olympic medalist.

Exactly.

So she is, as she put it, she is still up there somewhere on cloud nine, has not yet come down, and she is enjoying the afterglow of a really sensational weekend.

Now maybe I can get her to actually listen to this podcast and she'll hear the kudos I just gave to her.

Now the other person is my son's cross country coach.

One of them, anyways.

When I first moved to Colorado and started participating in triathlons, I would get soundly beaten by a man in my age group who would just trounce the heck out of me.

Never knew who he was.

Just recognized his name cause it was always up at the top.

He disappeared for a while, I found out because he moved on to doing draft legal racing and he does a lot of Spartan races.

Anyways, I found him again when my son Adam started running cross country at Denver south, where Kirk Framke is one of the coaches.

And Kirk was in Wollongong this past weekend and won the bronze medal in his age group for the standard distance draft legal race.

And I want to send my heartfelt congratulations to him.

He is a class act, just a remarkable athlete and just a very humble guy.

And his daughter Anya is a senior on the cross country team and will be Graduating this year and going on to college, where she is hoping to run in college.

And she is also a class act.

Awesome.

Shout out, Kirk.

Shout out to the Framkes.

All right, we are going to talk more T100 because it seems like there's always T100 news.

There's something always going on with these guys.

The point they need to in the conversation.

All right, so what's the latest.

What's the latest iteration of the T100?

Yeah, it's funny, this news dropped, like, on the Friday afternoon or whatever, which is usually the time when you want to bury these kind of, like, things in the media.

That's from what I understand.

The first one there is.

There's advertise nine races.

So that, yeah, they're advertising, but they're.

Only releasing, like, two locations, which is.

I think three are locked in, which.

Is already a worrisome sign given their track record.

Yeah, we need a few more of those by the end of the year for sure, but we've got some on the board anyways.

But the.

So the design of these races in the.

And I get.

Not the format per se, but I guess the breakdown or the makeup is that instead of having typically they have the men and women at all the races, they are going to be splitting it up by gender.

So four of these T100 Pro races will have men's races and four will have women's races.

And then they will both meet and race together on the same weekend day, whatever, at the grand final in Qatar.

And this isn't new.

Like, Iron Man's been doing this with their pro races for years.

So people are like, whoa, you can't do that.

But then Iron man does it.

So.

Yeah, I just find it funny that T100 is always, oh, we're different than Iron Man.

We're not going to do what Iron man does.

And it's time after time.

It's like, no, we had this idea independently.

Yes.

I can't help it.

They just keep coming off as an amateur hour, these guys.

Like, it's the startup mentality.

You gotta move fast and break your format.

But they've had this terrible track record of announcing a series without announcing locations.

They're doing it again.

Do people, like, fool me once, shame on me.

Sorry, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Are people really gonna sit here?

How many times have we been fooled by their races?

I feel like more than twice.

That's it.

So it's.

Are people really gonna plan their year around an age group race that may or may not happen.

So Singapore, Vancouver and San Francisco, I think those were the.

Was it San Francisco?

I didn't think it was San Fran, but if it is, that's a good thing.

Actually.

Singapore, Vancouver.

I know it wasn't London.

Oh, Gold Coast.

It was Gold Coast.

Oh, Gold Coast.

That's what it was.

Because that race, age group race is sold out.

Like that one.

That one sold out because they announced it like last year and then they, they dribbled out the slot, the, the places, whatever the registration numbers.

Oh really?

Okay.

Yeah, so they, that was smart of them.

They created demand that way.

But.

And they guaranteed a sellout.

But.

So all their successful.

Like London.

You and I both agree that London is a weird race, but.

Well that.

And that's gone for next year because they're doing a world triathlon race, like a World Triathlon Championship series race in London instead.

And what about San Francisco?

What happened to that one?

Tbd, I guess.

And Vegas is gone.

Vegas isn't coming back.

I don't think that's not happening.

So.

But there's French Riviera maybe.

Like if you look at the World.

Riviera and Spain were both catastrophes.

Yeah, they weren't amazing.

But I'm looking.

So when I'm thinking of what they're going to do in terms of these races, like you got to look at the World Triathlon Championship series schedule which also got released, and I think you're going to see a lot of piggybacking off overlap these wts, WTCS races rather.

And they're trying to figure out which ones fit in where with the calendar.

I think most of them, a lot of them are going to be piggybacking off those because it just works in a lot of ways.

Once again, if they expect to make age group races a part of their fixture for the T100, they need to announce them early and they need to guarantee people that they're actually going to happen.

They need to guarantee the experience and I don't know if they've already shot themselves in the foot and enough people have been burned that they're not going to want to go.

I don't know, we'll see what happens.

But if they don't announce the locations by the end of the year, people are already going to be signed up for other things and I just don't know.

Yeah, I figure they're going to have obviously Qatar is Going to be a race.

They didn't announce that one, but they're signed for five years.

Going to have.

So that's their grand final.

Yeah.

And then probably Dubai again.

It just.

They got the money to toss the T100.

Sure.

Like they're doing.

They're going there again this year.

I just don't see why they don't go back to Dubai unless things go really south.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

I think Dubai will be on there for sure.

That's five.

So four to go.

Four to go.

Yeah, we'll see.

But again, at least now, like, they'll drip these four races.

They'll make it a thing.

And this is the thing with these.

By splitting up these races, it does allow them to do a better job of the storytelling and the.

Because they have the same media team, but only having to focus on 20 athletes, I think they're going to do a better job around maybe the content and maybe the broadcast, who knows?

Because they just have maybe more resources.

So the only 20 athletes, you mean that's because 20 men or 20 women, as opposed to 40 athletes at one.

Yes.

And the other thing that changed was they're not signing anybody to contracts.

No contracts.

I've been railing on them.

Like, I talked to Ranuf about this in Milwaukee that year.

I said, what are we doing?

And yeah, finally they're getting rid of the contracts.

That was a lot of money.

That was just.

I don't want to say wasted, because some athletes were doing right by T100, but many weren't.

Like, they'd sign these contracts and then maybe a couple weeks later be like, my focus this year is Kona or his niece, the Ironman World Championship.

That was always troublesome, and I didn't think it was in great taste.

But hey, that's.

They're getting the bag or whatever.

Good for them.

But then none of that anymore.

None of that.

So the contracts are gone.

But it's interesting because they're not reallocating that money into the prize purse because they changed the prize money as well for these races.

You have to wonder.

The money's going to dry up at some point.

Yeah.

So I think because of this is the thing, they basically went bankrupt last year, but then they had the Saudis come in with that huge injection, 40 million, and they're basically like, wow, okay, we can't F this up again.

Like, that's what it is.

And so I think Renu from them, they've been burned a bunch of times.

They're figuring out the more sustainable path which is great.

Like the.

Instead of 200k, the series bonus is now 100k, which still great.

But now Ironman because I think the Iron Man Pro series was it 200k.

For the process for the winner.

Yeah, yeah.

So all of a sudden now the Iron Man Pro series has the biggest prize purse, like finisher, first place, whatever, by the law.

So that's an interesting turn of the tables.

It's really top heavy.

Is it top heavy like that for the T100?

Yes, but they've changed it actually, so it's better in a lot of ways.

So now like the individual race prize money is I think 275k at every race and.

But it's not split up between genders.

Like that's 275k total for the 20 athletes.

And the breakdown it's very good.

If you're in general it's not terrible.

Like they've made it more money.

But now for the win it's 50k and for second it's 40k and for third it's 30k.

So I'm thinking maybe this'll be a draw for depending on what the time of year, the season, the focus like this could get the Norwegians maybe to come out.

This could maybe get like solve egg to come out like Lucy Charles.

I don't think she'll be doing T100 next year.

Maybe she will, who knows?

But if she isn't, this might get her to come out like these kind of.

And maybe even Lionel.

Yeah, yeah, maybe Lionel.

It's enough where it just.

It definitely makes it possible to have more marquee athletes at these races which I think is a good thing because now.

And I've, I guess like I've been like railing against T100 for letting their contracted athletes do Ironman races.

But I've realized like I'm wrong about that.

So really if these athletes are going to Ironman races, they are creating awareness with all the age groupers and stuff who are doing these Iron man races.

They'll follow the eyeballs and they.

And the eyeballs will follow.

So I was totally wrong on that I think and I got to put that out there.

Well, this is a smart move, I think.

I think the athletes were right for taking the money and doing what they wanted.

I think C100 was wrong for trying to restrict the athletes to just their also correct.

Yeah, look, more money for the athletes Is great.

I just.

It does.

It is top heavy.

Matthew was explaining that to me last week.

That basically top 10, it pays all the way down to 50.

But if you're outside the top 10, you're not really making any real money.

No, you got to be in that top 10 for sure.

For the Ironman Pro Series, for the T100.

I don't even know what the bonus is for these guys, but at each race, it's generous.

It's compelling, I would say.

Yeah.

And when there's only 20 people in a race, then odds are good.

And there's also now like the kind of how people will get into these races.

A little like unclear.

I think there's some point stuff.

But.

And as it maybe for the T100 should be, they should have a little more discretion on who gets in because they can pick and choose athletes maybe based on their strength, based on the course they can bring in.

An athlete is on a heater mid season, they're like, hey, let's get you on the T100.

And they have wildcard spots to be able to do that.

They're not restricted by the contracts or whatever.

So a lot more flexibility, which I think is better for the T100, not as good for athletes planning.

But hey, they've got the money, so they can dictate the terms.

All right.

To be continued.

Be very interested to see if they actually release some more venues by the end of the year.

That'll be what I'll be watching for.

All right, let's turn our attention to the 70.3 World Championships.

As I mentioned, we are going to dedicate two full programs to our preview of the men's and women's races.

But we did want to just kind of give a little preview about or a preview to our previews about the excitement that is building.

I know it's building for me.

I leave in just about 10 days and yeah, it's pretty exciting.

But what are you thinking at this early stage, Matt?

We're looking at a course that is closer to what we had in Nice than to Kona.

The temperatures will be temperate.

They're not.

Heat shouldn't be an issue.

At least if you know it follows to form, which is that in early November it tends to be low to mid-70s, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Temperature.

The bike course is absolutely an abomination.

I continue depends if you're good at hills or not.

I continue to wake up in a cold sweat every night about this stupid bike course.

But I am looking forward to it at the same amount that I am terrified of it.

And the run is going to be whoever's got the legs to be able to run off of that bike because it's not a particularly challenging run.

It's actually a run that I'm looking forward to simply because it just winds its way through the town and for spectators it's going to be amazing to.

You'Ll be able to the crowds will be out.

It'll be an exceptional atmosphere for that race for you guys.

It's going to be awesome.

But yeah established course.

So when you look just give us like three or four kind of people you're thinking about at this stage for the men and women and we'll talk about it a lot more in the next couple weeks.

It's an interesting dynamic because you have this pro series situation where the athletes who are chasing pro series are all going to be there like the Kona people.

Lucy Charles, Barclay Solve like Loveseth Taylor, Nib Cat Matthews.

It depends who actually shows up with them but they're on the start list which is great.

You've got Finley type character who has been focusing on I think this race is like her, a race of the year.

She is a great cyclist and based on what I've seen in her posts and stuff she's going all in on these hills.

So she's going to be firing.

You got like Jessica Learmouth coming from the T100 front pack athlete.

There's just a lot of different dynamics coming into one race but when you have these hills like it just adds an even another element to it.

Yeah, I see Paula Findlay as very much an interesting kind of character going into this because very strong runner, very strong cyclist.

She obviously is not a front pack swimmer.

She's not going to be far off but she's not going to be with the Lucy Charles.

If Lucy's there, I will not be at all surprised if we don't see Lucy or Taylor.

But we'll see.

Yep.

If they do come, I have no idea what kind of form to expect from them.

So we'll see.

But yeah, I think Paula is a really interesting character and obviously we'll talk a lot more about that when we do our women in detail.

But this is something for you listeners to think about and start populating the comment section of the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group because we want to hear your thoughts in advance of our discussion next week.

We will share that on the program.

So get your comments in there now.

And then what about on the men's side.

Yes.

So the men, it's just like.

It's savage.

That's the only.

That's the word that came to mind when I looked at it.

You've got the defending champion, Yellow Geens, in great form.

Rico Bogan, previous champion, great cyclist.

He is going to blow up this bike.

He's going to kill people or die trying.

That's his mo, right?

Yeah, of course.

Then you have Stornas, Iron man world champion.

The other Norwegians, Blumenfeld, Gustav Magnus, Ditlev.

He'll be after a bad race in Nice.

He'll be out for vengeance.

And he's obviously trained for the hills, so he's still going to be ready to go on these hills.

You also have this.

You've got people like the front pack in at the Ironman World Championships, like Jamie Riddle, who absolutely dusted that swim with Jonah Schomburg showing up as well.

You have Vincent Louie, who is a front pack lord from short course racing and he's going to be there.

You also have a couple other short course guys who were on recently on the podium.

Miguel Hildalgo from Brazil, very good athlete.

He has one of the fastest 70.3 times in like history or something now after earlier this year.

And then you have Alessio Crocciani from Italy who was I think third in Wollongong.

So just this crazy mixing and melding of Iron man people.

Pro Series 70.3 short course, like it's just.

And then obviously with that course, just who knows?

So there's gonna be blobs.

Lionel not there?

No, I didn't.

I don't think I saw Lionel and start list.

I could be wrong.

He's qualified.

I just.

Because of his injury and everything else.

I thought he was more going all in.

I feel like on Kona next year, I don't know it.

To me it feels like he's realizing not his best days are behind him, but he doesn't have as many best days left.

And so I think he really wants to have another good Kona, whatever that means.

Well, to be fair, he's not wrong when he says although this race course might be the kind of race course that favors him, he's not wrong when he says 70.3 worlds is a difficult race for him because the swimming is so important and the only thing is that the bike is so hard here that it could be a factor for a really strong cyclist like him.

Sam Long not there.

He's going.

Yes, he's going.

So Sam's an interesting character in this race.

He's been interesting since Nice and we know he went all in for Nice this year even though he's doing T100 sign the contract.

But he was all in on Nice and it just wasn't his day.

Like he didn't have the day he wanted I think at the end, at the end result.

So it's been interesting.

He's been pretty quiet on like social media and stuff.

I think it took a lot from him that nice race and so it'll be interesting to see what we get from Sam Long if he does show up in in Marbella.

All right, next week we're going to talk about the women exclusively and the week after that we are going to talk about the men.

So please give us your thoughts now in advance.

We would love to hear them because we will include them when we have our full on discussion.

Our full preview shows for the 70.3 Worlds taking place in Marbella, November 8th and 8th and 9th, 7th and 8th and 9th and 9th.

I should probably know these things.

Are you on the 9th?

I'm on the 9th.

Yeah.

The excellent.

That's something I wish they would do is they flip the dates because they always have the women first, which is in some ways it's good because I get to hear tidbits about the course.

You get to post more.

But it's not so good because I want to be out there cheering my friends.

And it's a bit of a sometimes the race is in a hot environment and you have to stand out there in the heat.

And then other times it's like the women are always like drinking all their beer and having a great party time the next day because they're done.

You're slogging it on the rock.

Yeah.

All right.

We are going to finish up the program today with a subject that we are approaching with some trepidation.

We talked many times during the day today about whether or not we were going to get into this, but it seems to be inescapable because it seems to be everywhere on social media, in our email boxes, in our private chats, with numerous people contacting each of us.

So we feel like we would be remiss if we didn't at least touch on this a little bit.

But we are going to try and be careful about it because we recognize that there is the potential to inflame emotions that we really don't want to.

And the subject is what went down at Ironman California this past weekend, specifically what went down with the slot allocation for Kona World Championships.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's pretty unlikely because it really did blow up quite a bit in the last couple of days.

But basically as Ironman changed the way slots are being allocated for both 70.3 and Ironman World Championships for 20, 26 and beyond.

And basically what's happening for 70.3, it's very straightforward.

For a given race there's generally 30 slots for men, 30 slots for women.

And what they do is they offer a slot for every age group.

That slot is offered to the winner of the age group.

If the winner doesn't want it, it passes to second.

If they don't want it, it passes to third.

If third doesn't want it, it goes into what's called a performance pool.

The performance pool is basically all of the athletes, their result multiplied by a factor so that they get what's called an age graded result table.

I am not going to go into all of the details.

It's like we could actually dedicate a part of an episode to it to, to explain it in full.

We have talked about it previously, but I'm happy to go through it again.

We're not going to do it now.

Just suffice it to say there is a method by which Ironman results can be compared across age groups within a gender into 70.3.

For the Ironman, they actually put all of the results together.

So on the 70.3 you're gonna have 30 slots for women.

And that goes to a list of women that's been normalized.

And there's 30 for men that goes to a list for men that's been normalized.

But for the Ironman, There are generally 40 or 50 slots for a race and those slots are going to go again to the age group winners on both men and women's side.

But if the top three of an age group don't take a slot, it goes into the performance pool.

And then the performance pool has been so far made up almost exclusively of men.

And there's a couple of reasons for that.

The first reason is because we continue to see a dearth of women participating.

So at Ironman California this past weekend, there were 2,300 approximately.

It was like 20 to 80 finishers.

445 were women.

15%.

So we had 15% of the total finishers were represented by women.

And as a result of that, you could imagine the top hundred or so is going to be represented by a small number of women.

And therefore when slots go into that performance pool, most of Them are going to end up being mentioned.

The other problem is that although the faster women should theoretically be favored in the performance pool just as much as the faster men, that is not happening and it's not clear why.

So it's not clear if the factors need to be adjusted so that the women.

The faster women get more of recognition in that performance pool or if there's something else going on.

I.

The math is part of the problem potentially, but there's been a lot of angst from certain corners of social media that not enough women are getting slots.

The statistical analysis that has been done to this point shows that the women are actually still being represented proportionally with more slots.

So the last analysis I saw showed that 17% of Ironman finishers were women, but that around 20 to 22% of slots were going to women, just by virtue of the fact that age group winners represent a larger number or larger fraction of the slots being given.

All of this to say.

I don't have an answer as to how to make everybody happy.

You said that you spoke with a bunch of female triathletes.

I did.

Is there anything from your conversations you can share in terms of what they were feeling like we're guys talking about women's concerns in a lot of ways.

And so maybe it's good to.

I think it's worth mentioning that a lot of what we're hearing from a lot of the anger out there is that, oh, it's not fair.

There should be equal number of slots.

And I think just at face value, that's hard for me to reconcile.

And I think you have agreed with me on this.

I have agreed.

If there's 15% of the population at an Ironman event is women, it's pretty hard to envision a world where 50% of the slots goes to that group.

If it was the other way around, if there was any kind of world where 15% were men and we wanted to give 50% of the slots to them, I think the women would justifiably not accept that.

And I know that's not necessarily a fair comparison.

And I know there are gonna be people who say, yeah, but it's not the same the history.

And we're trying to get more women to participate.

I get all of that.

But I think that we've had a couple of years now where women have had their own day and unfortunately, they didn't wanna go.

They didn't want to go to.

Nice.

Not in the same numbers as men.

Right.

That's just the facts.

Yeah.

And when asked to vote on the future of this race, they voted along with the men.

The men voted, I think, in a higher proportion, but a very substantial proportion of women voted.

They wanted to race on the same day with the men in Kona.

And that has resulted in predictably less slots being available.

So I don't think that's too much of a surprise.

The women I spoke to, off the record, because they're not.

I didn't ask permission to voice any of their specific thoughts or names to associate with, but they basically feel that, number one, they like the fact that it's hard again to qualify for the World Championships because they believe that the dilution of the World Championships was not something they wanted to see.

One of the people I spoke to is somebody who has never done an Ironman and was offered a slot to go to Nice because they couldn't get people to go to Nice.

Is that at an Ironman?

She did no.

So she had done well at 70.

She had finished on the podium of a 70.3 and so was offered, hey, you've done well at 70.3.

We'd like for you to come to Nice and participate.

And her response was, that's, I don't think I belong.

I did not earn a slot.

Now, I know that a lot of people would have taken that, and I don't begrudge them if it's offered, why not?

But this woman felt very strongly that, no, that's if I'm going to go to an Ironman World Championship, I'm going to earn my slot by placing on a podium in an Ironman and the other person I spoke to has been very accomplished and has done very well at the Ironman and Ironman World Championships and wasn't thrilled with what she was seeing with the dilution of the World Championships and is happier that it's harder again, but also recognizes that it's going to be really hard for her to get back to Kona because there are less opportunities.

So this is not an easy situation.

And I don't pretend that it's easy, nor do I pretend that I have an answer for it.

But I do think that some of the anger that's come out of last weekend is misplaced and misunderstood because I think one of the things that could be done to fix this is, let's say, if a slot from a female age group, I think what's happening here is, okay, so you've got every age group on the women's side is offered a slot, and sometimes the top three don't take it.

So if the top three from say 55 to 59 don't take the slot, don't throw it into the performance pool where it's automatically going to go to a man.

Throw it in the performance pool.

But it has to stay with the female.

Yeah.

The first woman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just go.

Yeah.

Which, that, that seems great.

I'm on board with that.

I think that would preserve some distribution to women.

It wouldn't fix this.

I don't know if that would be satisfactory to people, but it's at least one way to keep it a little bit more balanced.

So maybe it's not feasible yet to have 50% men, 50% women in Kona.

What do you think is an appropriate number?

What do you think is an appropriate number, let's say hypothetically, for next year in Kona?

What would be an aspirational or like, realistic.

I am fine with over representation of the women at Kona.

I really am.

I think, I think everyone is.

I think that it's sad to me that we don't have more participation of women in Ironman in general.

But that's not Iron Man's fault.

I think that there are societal.

Societal.

Yeah.

There are a lot of societal things that keep women from participating in Iron man, and that's not their issue.

To solve the fact that we diminish women's value in terms of all of the work they do in the home, and we default to making them the primary caregivers and they don't earn as much as men in the workforce, and therefore the price of entry is more significant to them than it is for men.

These are all, as far as I'm concerned, abominations.

They are unacceptable, but they're also not things that Ironman can fix.

Those are the reasons that we don't see more women participating in Ironman.

And I would love to see those greater societal things change.

That's not gonna change overnight.

So by giving women a higher number of slots relative to their participation in the Ironmans, I don't have a problem with that.

And maybe if they're at 15%, I think seeing them at 25, 30% is double.

Is.

I. I think is reasonable.

I recognize that's not going to satisfy a lot of women who think, no, it needs to be equal.

Yes.

I feel like I might have talked about this in a newsletter before, but yeah, I think, like, I do believe you could have 30% of the slots, like, filled by women.

Like, I really do.

No problem.

Right.

And maybe you started that And Iron man finds a way.

This is like, I don't have an idea how to do this.

I'm not a. I'm not figuring out this factor or whatever.

And then maybe every couple years or every year after that, you raise that and see what you get.

Like at the end of the day, you're ne.

It doesn't really seem like you're ever going to have a lack of supply of men wanting to go.

So it's more try and see if you can fill up these women's slots as much as you can and then go from there.

I just think if you can set these aspirational targets, it's also like a good way to maybe induce more women to compete because they will say, oh, there are more slots and there are going to be more slots.

Maybe I'm not going to do it this year, but in two years I'm gonna make this my goal to go to Kona because they're going to have a hundred more spots or whatever.

Whatever it is.

I think one way you could guarantee the number of slots would be to do what I said, which is you keep the slots on the side of the gender.

The other way to do it, the other way to do it is to basically say before the race based on the number of entries, look, if the women represent 15% of our participants, we're going to multiply that by two so that they get 30% of the slots.

And we're just going to split the performance pool by gender the same way they do it in 70.3.

And so this is the number of slots that the women are getting.

One for every age group plus whatever it takes to fill up 30% of the slots.

And the men are going to get the rest of them.

And instead of letting those slots in the performance pool trickle all the way down into 17 hour people, what you do is you say, look, if it gets to a point, if it gets to a age graded time that is equivalent to, I don't know, number 200 on the men, then that slot slip flips over to the other side.

I am totally making this up on the spot.

I don't know.

Of course we got to make it up.

Yeah, I think I'm wondering too, there's also the Kona factor where they like sucked up all the world class women and none of them were going to be on the start line for an Ironman California because it's too close.

Yeah.

To finishing Kona.

There's that factor.

So maybe as time goes on, we're going to see a reemergence of these world championship women back into the main age group races.

Maybe there's also people who like, maybe because it was in Nice, I don't know, last year, whatever, maybe they're just sat out and then saddle for longer now that it's going to be back in Kona.

I don't know.

I just.

Maybe there's.

Just because they know what's going to be in Kona, they'll be more likely to pursue that Ironman route.

We'll see.

I think the root problem is let's get more women participating in the sport.

And like I said, I wish I had the easy answer for that.

And if you've got the answers, you know where to go with them.

Throw them in the comments.

Throw them in the group.

Yes.

All right.

I think that's all we've got.

Hopefully we haven't inflamed any passions, but if we have, let us know we want to hear and hopefully we've at least stimulated some positive, thoughtful dialogue in this.

We would obviously love to engage with you.

All right, Matt, that's what we got this week.

We have two back to back preview shows coming up in the next two weeks.

I look forward to doing that.

Until then, everybody out there, leave a rating and a review wherever you get the program.

Tell a friend we want to have more people participating.

Actually, we've had some great reviews recently.

Shout out to the two people who wrote reviews on our Apple.

I haven't even checked Spotify.

I should look at Spotify.

But yeah, two great reviews.

Thank you.

We all we have is five star reviews right now.

Surely there's a four star out there, maybe even a three.

But feel free to put five.

Five is great.

Yeah.

All right, Matt, we'll talk to you again next week.

Perfect.

Thanks, Jeff.

Great.

Another great episode.

Tempo Talks is a production of the triathlon performance hub and is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff.

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