The primary focus of this podcast episode centers on the recent triathlon events, specifically Ironman South Africa and Ironman Texas, while also addressing the implications of a controversial Nike advertisement aired during the Boston Marathon. We begin with an in-depth analysis of the performance of Matthew Marquardt, who achieved a remarkable victory in South Africa, setting a new record and highlighting the varying levels of competition across different races. The discourse transitions to Texas, where the dynamics of the women's race and the unexpected outcomes for notable athletes like Kat Matthews and Taylor Knib are scrutinized. Furthermore, the episode delves into the broader conversation regarding the support provided to professional triathletes during events and the ongoing debates surrounding the adequacy of prize purses and logistical assistance. In conclusion, we reflect on the societal reactions to the aforementioned Nike advertisement, contemplating its messaging and the implications of corporate branding within the realm of athletics.

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.

Is another episode of Tempo Talks.

I am your co host Jeff Sankoff, the Tridoc coming to you from Denver and joining me from across the mountain range in the desert is my friend professional triathletes I guess retired, but he's always a professional in my mind.

Matt Sharp.

Matt raced, raced recently raced recently at that Billbone race.

But then I, I happened to drop my wife off for her most recent race travel.

Oh, where she, where's she off to?

Heading to Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan?

Do tell.

That sounds like a fun exotic trip.

Is this a world triathlon race?

Yeah, World Triathlon series, her first one of the year.

Excited to see how she goes.

I never got the chance to go to a place like Uzbekistan.

I traveled a bit for my world Triathlon days.

So feeling a little jealous, A little fomo because mostly just because when else are you going to go to Pakistan?

Seriously?

That is.

That's a pretty cool location.

Will she get to spend any time around the race just to see the anything of the country or sample the food or.

I think she did tell me she they had a pretty decent drive to go to the pool and it was definitely, you might describe it as an emerging economy in what she described to me, what she saw.

But it's interesting to just have that opportunity to observe a different culture and one that's just literally on the opposite side of the world from here where I am.

She'll be racing.

I think it's 1pm her time and I'll be up and watching her race.

I'm super happy for her to be able to race.

Obviously things could have gone a different way just based on what we're seeing in that part of the world.

Really excited to see her race and see how she goes and kickstart that part.

That's incredible.

That's such a cool way to leverage what you do to be able to go to new places and see is it a big race?

There are a lot of big names going to be there.

Yes.

So they canceled that Abu Dhabi race obviously because of the War.

So there's a lot of pent up demand.

I would say all the big names will be there.

Cassan Beaugrand, Beth Potter, Lisa Turch.

The big women names in world triathlon racing.

Matt Hauser's going to be there for them.

Actually no, he's not going to be there.

Sorry he's skipping out this one.

But there's a good men's field.

I'd say the women's field is actually much deeper than the men's for some reason, I don't know some of the men are skipping out on going to Uzbekistan.

I don't know why they would do that but they might regret it.

Well, the Uzbeks are going to be treated to an awesome show.

What's the flight itinerary to get to Uzbekistan?

Interesting itinerary.

Phoenix to LA to Istanbul.

Oh that's a long one big flight there and then Istanbul to a place called Samarkand which was the city that they flew into and that's where they're facing.

And she flew Turkish Airlines.

I'm guessing it was nice.

I think it's a nice airline but I don't know if they did much, much enjoyment in that.

I mean economy's economy on a long flight like that.

Economy's economy.

We hope that she will manage the jet lag and manage the soreness and tiredness from the long flight and be ready to go come.

I guess it's Sunday.

Saturday.

Saturday.

Saturday morning for here for us here.

Yeah, Saturday afternoon.

Well we'll wish her and we look forward to hearing about how it goes.

So on this side of the ocean we are gonna be talking about races that occurred on diametrically opposed parts of the planet.

We are touch upon Ironman South Africa which took place in Port Elizabeth over the weekend.

It was a race that we didn't really preview very much on the show last week because we were so focused on Ironman Texas, the other race that we're really going to spend more time talking about.

But we do want to touch on Ironman South Africa because my boy Matthew, he did so well but also because I think it represents definitely something worth discussing in terms of the overall where things are looking for the pros right now.

We will spend the bulk of the show discussing Ironman Texas.

Not just the results of race but also a couple things that came out of the race in terms of race adjacent things.

And we are going to touch briefly on the T100 race coming up in Singapore.

Not because we don't want to show it love but just because we have so many other things to talk about.

We'll probably catch up with that race on the flip side next week when we discuss how it went down.

But we'll give a brief preview of that today.

And we are going to finish with the mini controversy, the mini tempest in a teapot.

That was the Nike advertising ad that seems to have caught a lot of FL Black at the Boston Marathons.

We'll finish up with that.

But let's begin first with the goings on in Port Elizabeth.

The Ironman South Africa took place this past weekend and Matthew Marquardt really left a stamp of authority on that race, shattering the record that was set last year.

Took home the victory in a very impressive 7:42.

What do you think, Matt?

Did he make the right call in skipping Ironman Texas and all of the glamour of that very stacked field and went down to South Africa not just to win but really win with authority?

It's funny because I guess if he didn't win, you're like, maybe he could have gone to Texas.

But no, he put his stamp on that race.

It was just a very good decision.

And I think he's.

He's not a guy who's chasing the pro series and a lot of the people who are in Texas, I think they're chasing that pro series.

So different incentives, I suppose for him and for other athletes.

But in a pure Kona qualifying slot standpoint, yeah, this guy, he's smart guy, he's a doctor.

He does all this crazy doctor things and he's a smart man when it comes to planning his races.

Because although it wasn't easy, you don't want to say anything like that is easy.

Ironman's not easy.

Just even doing one is not easy.

But it was less difficult in some ways.

Just there's no.

There wasn't as many deep athletes in South Africa and he got what he needed to do.

Yeah, well, I mean, it wasn't a nobody field, right.

Joe Skipper was second, so it wasn't like he had nobody to contend with.

But he certainly didn't have the depth of the quality depth that they did in Texas.

You have to wonder even if some of the bigger heavy hitters were there, would they have managed to get close to what he laid down.

He had an incredible bike time on a pretty challenging course.

And then really based on his result.

And based on his skill set, you would think he'd be on the podium in Texas.

Like I actually believe that.

Well, third four.

You go back to last year and he's basically won every non world championship race that he's been in now over the course of the last 12 months.

And at the world championships he was, I want to say sixth or seventh.

He's really put together quite a string now.

So what do you think his chances are when they get to the Big island now?

Is it like his one time as a pro there?

He was.

He feels like he's got unfinished business there.

What do you think he has the skill set to do incredibly well.

And I think the biggest takeaway or signal from this race wasn't even the win that he had, which is very impressive.

It was the no cramping.

He did not cramp in this race and a no cramp Marquardt animal.

So the fact that maybe he has it under control, I like, I don't think he's talked about or I've seen anything about necessarily how he avoided the cramping.

So I would love some insight on that.

But the fact that he didn't cramp and he's got that supposedly I would think figured out like now that he can go into the rest of the season and his preparations with that in mind, that just gives him even more confidence.

Huge result, obviously.

Win's great, but more just the confidence that'll come if he's figured out this whole cramping thing because that's clearly what held him back in all these championship races.

The women's race did not feature any of the big names because they were all, as far as I could tell, in the Woodlands.

So let's shift our focus over to Ironman Texas, where we had the kind of shootout that we were expecting, especially on the men's side, although Patrick Lang was not there as we had expected him to be.

And.

But the women's side went down pretty much the way we were expecting it to until Kat Matthews had her mechanical.

But is there really anything else you could say at this point about Solvag Lick, who really, I think I said last week, until she beats Taylor Niv up on a one up race, I think that I was gonna favor Taylor.

And wow, she did it.

She did it impressively in the end of the bike.

What?

There was a 92nd, 92nd gap between Taylor and her.

And Taylor, you thought, okay, maybe Taylor's holding back so that, let's say, solve it caught her on the run, she would be ready to go with her or she was just pacing a little better.

But I definitely, I watched the moment that Solve eg went past her on the run and there was no attempt to even go with her.

So in a straight up duel, Solveg took it to her and yeah, I don't know why my, my picks are pretty easy this time but I'm actually kicking myself a little bit for not picking her to beat Taylor because I think I put Taylor second because really she just has this momentum about her.

There's a lot of just carefree energy.

Obviously she's world champion, but I don't think she puts herself definitely not on a pedestal or anything like that.

I think she just loves racing, obviously loves doing well, winning and she's clearly a dominant athlete so she knows she's going to get a good result if she executes typically each time.

So I think there's just a really good energy about her at the moment.

And so yeah, if you're going off vibes, you gotta pick her I think for these next races for sure.

But it was cool to see her just lay down a really impressive end to end race.

And not to say Taylor had a terrible race or anything, but I think it sounded like she was trying some kind of.

I think you heard her say there was some kind of pacing strategy or some kind of change she tried to make.

It didn't pay off with the win or even second overall.

I think maybe it's gonna be back to the drawing board.

Well, she seemed pretty content.

She almost seems like she's experimenting because she feels like she.

And she's got her slot I think, right?

She's got her slot, yeah.

So that's never really an issue for her, I think.

How much does she care about winning an Iron man that isn't Kona?

I don't know.

Obviously that's evaded her now is those like an Iron man victory she doesn't have full distance victory and obviously some people care about that.

I don't know.

She seems to not care about things that people care about typically.

Obviously she wants to win Kona, no doubt about that.

But it's interesting because now she's in this situation where clearly I would think she's going to be competing in Kona, but we have the Olympic qualifying period coming up and I know for a fact that she's going to be trying to go to LA and so there's now going to be this tension between the long course and the short course.

And how is she going to manage that?

I know she's trying to compete in Yokohama, I think.

I don't know if she's on the start list yet.

I think she may get on the start list which would be super interesting to have her go from Ironman to short course like that.

It is this Kona window.

I don't want to say closing.

Obviously she's very young and has lots of chances, but maybe in the next couple years, like has this Kona window almost closed?

I think Nib, you know, this US Home Olympics is a huge draw.

I think she's motivated by that.

So I just wonder in the next years if she'll even be able to have a crack at Solveg just because of the specialization required for her.

If she does want to step back down and competed short course racing.

Like she said.

It's like you said, the tension between the draw of the short course versus long course, it's hard.

It's hard to balance that.

Christian's been able to do it for the most part, but he definitely.

I think he didn't fare as well in the last Olympic cycle.

And I would attribute that personally to the fact that he was doing so well at the long distance.

I think you really do have to focus either on the speed or the ability to hold your endurance over the longer distances.

It's hard to do both.

I think if you were.

You saw Nicholas Spirig, who was someone who was successful at doing the half Ironman short course.

But I don't think.

I don't think you can do the Ironman and the short course racing.

It's too different.

It's way too different.

So be interesting to follow that.

But that's not the only thing that happened in Texas.

Well, let's talk about some of the.

First of all, just Grace Tech had a solid debut.

Didn't crack the podium the way we thought she might.

We had her as a dark horse pick.

I think I picked her as a.

Dark horse pick for the podium and didn't quite get there.

But top seven, I believe.

I think she was seventh.

Fifth.

She was fifth.

Jackie Herring was there, was ahead of her in fourth.

And Lisa Pritterer wasn't there the way we thought she was supposed to be there.

And she.

She got sick.

She woke up sick that morning.

Okay.

Didn't know that.

Yep.

That's too bad.

So someone who would push for the podium for sure.

But then we had the.

We'll talk about Kat in a second.

Let's talk about what happened on the men's side because I think Christian Blumenfeld, unsurprisingly, did perform the way we expected him to.

You could just see that he was coming.

And even when Martin Van Riel was the lead for the Beginning of the run, through.

Through the end of the bike and through the beginning of the run, you could just see their paces were different enough that Christian was going to come and take that lead.

And he did.

And I don't think it was surprising at all.

He just, he's right now he just seems indomitable.

What was the gap like?

Did they come off the bike together?

Pretty close?

V. Pretty close.

So Blume was at the back of that group whereas Van Reel, like Van Real and Yella both were doing a lot of work on the.

I think that punished yellow on the run.

I think it did.

Even though it's a 20 meter rule, obviously the drafting effect is less.

I think the speeds these guys are going, even at 20 meters there's something.

If you're at 20 meters there's something.

There is something.

And so I think it's been interesting to observe Blumenfeld the last year or so.

Like his strategy has been to sit in the group as much as you can say sitting in, like in a lot of these races he's not being at the front, not being aggressive.

He's sitting in because he knows he's one top one or two runners.

Like he's one of the top runners basically on any day.

And he knows if he just gets into T2 with most people pretty close, he's going to outrun him.

And I think he employed that strategy again in Texas.

He just said, hey boys, if you want to go in the front, Schomburg types, Martin Van Riel, Yella, they were going to the front.

Like he had no desire to go to the front really.

And he had that puncture too, which I guess maybe set him back a little bit, but he was able to ride it in.

Thankfully for him.

It's interesting because it's like, how do you beat that?

How do you beat that strategy when this guy's such a good obviously all round athlete?

It's going to be really interesting for these guys to try and take him down.

I don't know how they're going to work together.

Obviously the 12 meter dynamic was a little better to have groups and working together to keep away but.

But it's going to be, man, tough to beat this guy.

Interestingly, you saw Gustav Iden way back, way back.

He was pretty far back out of the swim and pretty far back on much of the bike and was inching his way forward.

But once he got to the run, man, Eden was.

He was moving and he came way up the field.

Didn't quite get as high as you would expect him to be, but I was impressed with his ability to come back from a slow start, to be able to make it as high up as he did.

Then you had a guy like Casper Stornis, who also had a pretty solid day and did a really nice job of persisting and hanging in with the lead group on the bike and then really doing his best on the run, I think.

What?

He finished third.

I want to say Stornis.

He was third.

He was third, yeah.

So you had Christian Van Real Stores and Stornas.

He's just a pace guy.

Like, he's looking at his watch every three seconds, his heart rate, his pace, blah, blah, blah.

He's so dialed in on that, which is interesting because obviously, if you know your pace super well, then you can just lock into that.

But if you want to maybe try.

And beat, you're gonna have to drop the watch, start looking at him.

Yeah, no kidding.

We'll see.

We'll see if he tries to risk it a little bit other than outside his.

I know those in certain races.

I don't know if this is the race where you risk it, but, yeah, you're gonna risk it in certain places.

And then a new face for me, anyways, down in sixth place.

Who is that?

Yes.

So I'm biased.

Love my Canadian athletes, but this time I don't even have to show my bias because this guy, Brock Hole, a Canadian young guy from Kelowna, bc, he had a breakthrough race.

He had the best race of the day versus previous expectations.

Like no one.

All this guy had done recently is crash in Oceanside the last two years in a row.

But he's always been a great athlete, always been a hard worker, and he had this breakthrough day, and we see these races every once in a while.

These athletes, unknowns just totally bust through.

And they were saying this race, and looking at the start list, it's essentially a world championship field.

Better than probably a world championship race from a couple years ago, just based on the quality of athletes who were there.

This guy came sixth in this race and just raced very mature.

He's a great swimmer.

So he's in the front pack.

Stayed in the lead group on the bike, obviously.

Incredibly strong on the bike, and then just paced himself.

Had a very mature effort through the marathon and got some scalps in the second half and really tore it up.

So great race from Brock Hole.

Really happy to see that.

Personally, he's a hardworking guy.

We're going to have a. I'm super excited to have a Canadian in the front pack in Kona to cheer for.

I'm getting beat.

Jonas Schoenberg beat Gustav Iden, beat some big teams.

Matt Hansen beat Ben Kanute, Sam Long, Lionel Sanders.

So he now has the Canadian ironman distance record time like he dusted Lionel's previous best by 11 minutes.

And it definitely felt a little bit like a changing of the guard out there, like a passing of the torch.

Obviously Lionel struggled.

He was never really in the race.

Never really even got himself back in the race the whole day.

And you saw Brock just take that mantle, so to speak.

Lionel, who knows, there's a long season, we could see him come back.

But yeah, that was an interesting subplot as well.

Just I was really surprised to see Sam Long not be in that top 10.

And then Lionel as well.

Given the 20 meter draft rule was definitely supposed to give those guys the best chance.

But in a field like this, in these world championships, really tough to give up.

You see those guys, you see those guys just, they just don't have the juice to be up there.

Non wetsuit swim.

Tough to give up as much time.

As they did and not a lot of expectations.

Definitely not performed to the level he was hoping for.

And what we were hoping, hoping to see from him, I think we were, oh yeah, here we go.

We got another super short course guy coming in and let's be honest, he'll have a great iron man someday.

But it was not this day.

It was not this day.

Yeah.

And just to put a bow on the Lionel thing is Lionel's always very vociferous on social media, but afterwards he's posting things like, I thought I was ready for an ironman.

I was wrong.

And I'm like, dude, you've been doing this a long time.

Like you were clearly not ready.

This was not something where you should think you were ready.

You clearly were undercooked for this race.

So I don't know what's going on there, but hopefully, hopefully better days to come for Lionel.

Yeah, for sure.

Lionel aside, we had this whole thing with the puncture and the kind of not.

I don't want to say puncture gate because it's not really that maybe quite like that, but just go through.

Kat Matthews had this puncture.

She was on the side of the road.

The optics of this weren't great, Jeff.

No, they weren't.

And I'm not really sure.

Part of me feels like we've talked about this before, Matt, when we've talked during your racing days that you did not carry a flat Kit.

I am told that Kat did have a flat kit, but that her tire was slashed in a way that a flat kit wouldn't have helped.

But I know, and you've told me this, you have verified this, that a lot of the pros don't carry flat kits.

They're running tubeless and they're running tubeless.

And tubeless is great until it's not great.

And it just seems to me that especially in an Ironman, why not be more self sufficient and be able to fix a flat on your own?

Why are you counting on support?

And the idea of support is something we'll touch on in a second.

But it just seems to me like you should be able to manage your mechanicals, at least your basic mechanicals.

Am I wrong on that level of expectation?

No, I definitely could have been better at that.

I think, I think you're right.

Especially in a full distance Ironman, if you have a little puncture and you gotta change it, like really in the grand scheme of things, obviously you're gonna lose time, especially in your group, but you should be able to do that.

It's more when you have these kind of catastrophic issues and you have a race favorite like Kat Matthews, who's having a solid day, looking to be having a great day.

One of the key athletes of the race and she's on the side of the road waiting for a wheel.

There was just.

These wheels weren't even.

I don't even think they were 12 speed.

It was crazy.

That brings to mind this whole.

So I had a dialogue with somebody on social media.

This guy, Alex Lorca, 89.

I'm not sure who he is, but he just posted a video where he was saying Ironman is letting down the pros by not having better support on course to help these pros when they have mechanicals like this.

And my response to that is twofold.

Number one, this isn't the tour, right?

This is not a tightly packed group of pros where you can easily have support just following them along.

This is a strung out group of 100 pros interspersed with age groupers.

And I don't know how you're supposed to have support available for anybody who has a problem in that long line.

Second of all, well, triathlon has always been defined by the fact that the pros are racing the same course as the age groupers and we all get the same level of support.

Now, I'm not totally opposed to the idea that the pros get a certain amount of higher degree of support.

But I don't think it's unreasonable to think or to continue to believe that the pros should manage their own mechanicals the same way the age groupers do and not have this expectation that everything's going to be fixed for them.

Them.

Thoughts, Jeff?

I think if you saw those wheels that they brought to her eventually, if they brought one of those wheels to you, I don't think you'd be able to continue.

You've got a nice bike, a nice enough bike.

So there's a gap.

There's a gap there.

There's a gap there.

In terms of the support that they're providing.

Everybody is inadequate support in general.

Yeah, that was embarrassing for sure.

Actually, I thought like Kirsten actually had an interesting idea where obviously these pros, a lot of them, they finished the year, they've got a lot of gear.

Like surely you could come up with, I don't know, 10 to 15 pros who have extra wheels kicking around who would donate them to be the pro pit or something and maybe like halfway through each loop or something you could have a pit stop for wheels.

I don't know.

It was an idea.

I was like, oh yeah, that's interesting because then it's more like the pros.

I wouldn't be opposed to that because then it's their wheels.

They own them.

I don't have a problem with that.

So that's interesting.

You have to get there.

You have to get there.

Donate them to Ironman, maybe Iron Man I can bring around.

But well, and then, and then the other question I had from this is how much is the tech?

Like we've moved to ultralight everything.

We've moved to like these, the tubeless, we've moved to hookless rims, all of this stuff.

The tech is getting to the point that everything is in the, you know, less weight, less rolling resistance.

Everything else is that tech more prone potentially to these failures which then make it so that it's not easy to fix on the spot.

A question not that is purely resolved.

It's a good question.

I feel like Texas may be an outlier in terms of punishment.

There's a lot of crap on their own.

A lot of people.

Yeah, it's a highway.

There's a lot of junk.

Ironman, I think they do their best to try and clear the roads but.

And maybe that's an issue especially for like this.

They want to elevate the pro race with the pro series.

They want it to be like the preeminent pro race in the world.

And maybe that requires an extra level of, I don't know, clearing the road or something.

I don't know.

It just, it reminded me of the Oceanside weekend where I think I was complaining about how I thought the prize money was an accurate inadequate based on the level of competition.

And this has felt like another pro misstep where you didn't have the support come until 10 minutes later.

And when they showed up, it was these like old wheels that obviously weren't even gonna work I think with her setup.

So it just, it's another kind of issue.

It's another kind of point of this tension where Ironman wants to be.

They saying we wanna be or we are the preeminent pro racing series and then the prize money is kind of crap and their encore support is inadequate.

So this person, yeah, they did do one thing well with their pro thing.

They did, yeah.

This person also put up something about the prize money saying how it's like they're not doing their pros solid by only paying 10 deep and everything else.

And you and I discussed this.

I'm like, listen, Ironman is not a multi billion dollar organization that's like flush with cash.

Ironman is, I don't want to say they're barely getting by.

I don't know the state of their finances, but I think we all know that they are not a super rich organization.

I'm the one as an age grouper paying my premiums.

I'm the one basically supporting the pro purses for the most part.

I'm not really prepared to double my premium entry fee to pay for more on course support and pay for more prize purses.

I very much enjoy watching the pros.

I love it.

I think they put on a great product.

I think they're amazing.

I get a lot from seeing them race.

I get a lot from being on the same course as them.

But I think I've reached the limit of what I'm willing to pay to support all of that.

I don't have a great answer for it.

I would love to see the pros get paid more, but that needs to come from other sources than the entry fees of age groupers.

No, definitely cannot come off the backs of the age groupers, especially at this juncture of time.

I think for Ironman they must have, I think they have, must have good employees who are out there pitching to sponsors and stuff.

So maybe it's just not possible for triathlon to get a FedEx to get these kind of higher tier like Capital One Ironman Pro Series, like maybe triathlon just doesn't have that scale.

But you would think, though, based on.

Who's participating in the sport, right?

And who's participating, you're just like, man, are they just not doing a good job selling it?

And I know they brought like Oman on to be the producer of the pro series.

And you wonder how much of that money is truly going to the prize money versus just Iron Man's bottom line.

It's super interesting because you would just think from a marketability standpoint, Ironman could attract more premium sponsors.

But maybe it's also harder because it's more global.

I don't know.

I think of golf and tennis, which are two very elitist kind of sports and golf and tennis players out there, they're gonna be mad at me saying that.

But I'm sorry, I just do think of it that way.

And the people who play tend to be fairly affluent.

And the tournaments are sponsored by financial services companies.

They're sponsored by luxury cars, they're sponsored by kind of brands that you associate with affluent people.

Triathlon is participated in by primarily affluent people and not everybody, but a lot of us.

And yes, I do put myself in there because let's face it, this is a luxury sport.

It is what it is.

So it surprises me that Ironman can't get these same types of companies to sponsor them because it's the same demographic.

But I don't know.

We'll see.

All right, we are going to leave Ironman Texas behind.

We are going to move on to another topic, although we would like to hear your thoughts on this.

What do you think?

Is Ironman shorting the pros?

Should Ironman provide more encore support?

What would that look like?

And do we need to provide the higher payouts for the winners?

Give us your thoughts.

Go to the Facebook group Tempo Talk.

Tempo Talks, where you can search for that group if you're not already a member on that platform.

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We would love to hear what you think about these subjects as well as the ones that are to follow.

Before we get to the next controversial subject though, let's just briefly talk about the Singapore T100.

Matt, who is going to be on the start line there.

It's really interesting, T100.

They've broken up their races by gender.

So each race has one one gender.

Gold coast had the women.

Singapore now this weekend is going to have the men and you know, the great athletes on the start list.

These aren't though the Christian Blumenfeld's of the world.

This isn't, I want to say like the Sam Long Lionel sandals of the world.

And really, I guess ever since T100 changed their start lists, change their structure with the contracts and everything, the start lists objectively have gotten worse.

Just the incentives aren't as good.

Not to say these athletes aren't good, it's just, it's not the same as it was.

But really the storyline in terms of the men's race is who can beat Hayden Wild?

Can anyone beat Hayden Wilde?

Only one athlete who I think maybe can give him a go is Matt Hauser from Australia making his T100 debut.

The A world triathlon world champion from last year.

Great swimmer obviously great cyclist and runner.

If anyone can beat him on the start list it would be him.

You've got athletes like Mika Newt.

I know Schomberg is coming over from Texas to be on the start line there.

Matthias Margirier, Sam Dixon.

Sam Dixon.

But like these guys, these aren't guys who have ever beat Hayden.

So really the only kind of wild card in this race is Matt Hauser.

It's going to be a hot race.

So there's always a carnage from that, that.

Jeff, how are you feeling about the T100 going into this?

I mean it's, it's definitely not front of mind for me.

Again, it's a race on the other side of the world.

It doesn't have the star power that we saw in Texas this past weekend.

And Singapore is again one of those courses that I don't find particularly interesting.

It's a city course.

It doesn't have a terribly interesting profile to it.

It's loops of a city.

Yeah, I don't know.

This is one that also has caused athletes a lot of issues with the illness afterwards.

So I wonder if that's also, I wonder if that's also keeping athletes away.

They've been burned before by participating there.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's a tough spot to get to.

It's hot.

It's.

You have to prepare specifically for it.

So maybe that's part of the reason why the start list isn't quite what it could be.

But T100, they've got pressures now from Ironman and they don't have, they're not splashing out for these contracts so they don't have the consistency of those athletes, top tier athletes showing up.

They also have the pressure of the war in the Middle east that's still raging on.

I think it kicked off when we spoke about the T100 last time or is just getting underway.

And the T100 is very concentrated with races in Dubai, in Saudi Arabia.

The grand final is in Qatar.

Like, it just.

There's a.

There's a real risk there.

If things continue to go on, these races could be canceled.

So I think they're really hoping whatever gets resolved there, because, yeah, they've got a lot on the line, especially as it gets towards the end of the year and the big races.

All right, we are going to finish the program today with a discussion about a Nike ad that was apparently hugely controversial that was shown on the course of the Boston Marathon.

It said, if you haven't seen it, it said, runners welcome, walkers tolerated.

Matt, what'd you think about the ad, and what did you think about the kerfuffle that took place around the ad?

I.

There's always controversy.

There's always someone gonna complain about something.

This ad, like, to me, I'm like, oh, I think it's very creative.

And no one's like, sliding walk.

People who walk.

No one's sliding them.

It's just, hey, hey, we're in Boston.

This is, like, one of the pinnacle of running.

And there's, I guess, not elitism to it, but there's, like, a performance aspect to all this.

You have to work your butt off to qualify for this race.

So, yeah, like, walkers aren't tolerating because it's the boss of the game.

Damn straight.

And what is wrong with that?

And why did Nike take the ad down?

Like, yeah, I wish they had not.

That was the biggest mistake of the whole thing.

And there's going to be people listening to this, going, oh, my gosh, come on.

It was insulting.

And I'm like, I'm sorry.

I can't get behind that.

I took my daughter to the Nike Indoor Nationals.

And Nike has a swagger around those kinds of events.

And we walked into this Nike Indoor Nationals, and it was like, Nike to the max.

And it was Nike as representative of a certain kind of athlete.

And what kind of athlete was it?

The kind of athlete who made the standards to be able to qualify for this national tournament, this national meet.

Because if you're here, you're the best of the best, and you should be wearing Nike.

That's basically what this meet was.

It was part celebration of these young athletes and part an advertising propaganda.

Nike is the brand for this quality, this caliber of athlete.

Does Nike not want to sell to everybody?

Of course they do.

But they are trying to.

To associate themselves with greatness.

They always have.

So if you're at the Boston freakin Marathon, to quote my partner Matt here, if you're at the Boston freaking Marathon, I think it's acceptable to say that, yeah, you have made it to the pinnacle of your sport.

You are at the big poobah of running.

So yeah, you should be wearing our.

You should want to be wearing Nikes on your feet because we welcome you as a runner who has made it to the top.

And yeah, if you're just here to.

Of course you can wear our shoes.

Also.

I just.

This was much ado about nothing.

Jeff, you like when you were coming up as an athlete, as a younger man, obviously Nike had this huge presence, I'm sure in your life.

And just in that time, can you just describe, like the kind of golden era of Nike?

Was it a company that wouldn't pull this ad?

It's hard to say.

I will say that they did a very good job.

Michael Jordan, they did a very good job of making themselves the shoe that everybody wanted.

And they associated themselves, like I said, with greatness.

They only put themselves on the feet of the greatest athletes.

And listen, it's not a surprise that originally it was all men, but eventually it started being women as well.

And it was like if you got a Nike contract, you were the best of the best.

So I just don't understand how people are so shocked that they are continuing to throw out ads that have this kind of swagger.

They had an ad a little while ago.

I don't know if it was during this last Olympic cycle or the one before where they said something about silvers aren't won, golds are lost.

And that is typical.

That is typical.

It's not necessarily diminishing the value of an Olympic medal, but it is definitely letting you know that if you're wearing Nike, you're there to win the gold.

You're not there to lose the gold and settle for a silver.

You're there because we're giving you, we're putting Nikes on your feet because we believe you have it in you to win the gold.

And I respect that.

I think it's awesome.

I think that if you're competing at that level, of course you want to win the gold.

Are you happy that you got a silver?

Sure, of course you're happy.

Are you happy you lost the gold?

No, no.

Nobody's gonna be happy about losing the gold.

But everybody should strive.

If you're competing in athletics, if you're competing in a sport against a clock, against yourself, against a competitor.

You always want the best.

You always want to be the best you can be.

And that's all Nike is saying with this.

They're just saying it in a very kind of.

Is it in your face?

Sure, sure.

But that's the way they've always been.

And would they have pulled that kind of ad before?

I don't think so.

I think this is a very social media response.

And then you've got HOKA coming out.

And listen, I like hoka.

I wear hokas.

But.

And Hoka comes out and they're like, oh, we're for everybody.

And I'm like, oh, my God, talk about pandering to the criticisms.

Yeah, they're trying to.

They're trying to take advantage of Dance On Nike a little bit.

Nike's grave or whatever.

It's a different time, too.

Right.

Nike's under pressure in a lot of ways.

There's just a more competitive market.

Like, think of, like, the rise of hoka, the rise of on, and they go after similar, different segments.

And Nike, I think it needs to retain that edge.

It needs to retain that.

I don't.

I keep.

I don't want to say elite, but it's.

Yeah, it's elite.

It's like a aspirational thing.

You want to be the best version of yourself.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

And I think we've lost that a little bit.

Where.

And I think about, like, these remarks from.

I go back to Timothy Chalamet, really random, but he said himself he's, I want to be known as one of the greats in acting.

And I think we've lost that a little bit.

We should all want to be great.

We should all want to be the best version of ourselves.

And that's what I really like about Nike.

And I think maybe that's why I'm disappointed that they pulled this ad.

I know maybe I'm making too much out of it, but it just.

We should want to strive for.

It should be easier for them to pull the ad than to keep it up.

But the reality is that they kept it up.

They would have had more dialogue about it, more conversation, and less people saying, oh, they were wrong.

And now it's everybody.

Ha.

They're admitting they were wrong.

And I don't know.

And you saw all of this.

You saw all of these people on social media.

Here's my response to Nike.

Look, I'm walking and I am just as great.

And I'm like, I get it.

I get It.

It doesn't diminish you.

This app, it's like, can you not see what they're saying?

They're not saying that you're any less for what you do do.

They're not saying that.

What they are saying is that if you made it to the Boston Marathon, you qualified.

You're amazing.

You're better than a better marathon runner, certainly than me, Jeff Sankoff, who cannot qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Then you should want to be wearing these shoes because these shoes are on the best marathoners.

I just, ah, just.

Anyways.

Well, we're aligned.

We're aligned.

I'm sure there are.

I'm sure there are people out there who are not.

We want to hear.

Yeah, we want to hear.

So tell us we're wrong.

Please do.

We want to know.

And you know where to do that.

Go over to the comment section of Talk Tempo Talks and let us know how wrong we are and why.

And we're here for it.

If your name is Brian Dunn, I suspect you'll probably agree with us.

But Brian, prove me wrong.

We'll see.

Whatever you're thinking, we hope that you will let us know because we always enjoy the dialogue.

We had some amazing conversations with listeners over the last couple of weeks and we really appreciate it.

So keep those comments coming.

We promise we will respond.

That's all we've got for you this week.

We will be back again with another Tempo Talks next week.

In the interim, we hope that you will leave us a rating and a review wherever you download this content and that you'll share it with a friend who could be have their day brightened by the sonic qualities of mine and Matt's voice, espousing our very neutral opinions about things like Nike ads.

Good stuff.

Thanks everyone for listening, tuning in and yeah, looking forward.

We'll talk to you soon.

And best of luck to Kirsten.

We're gonna hear all about her results in Uzbekistan next week.

Uzbekistan.

Let's.