This podcast episode delves into a reflective analysis of the year in triathlon, highlighting the significant developments and notable athletes who made an impact throughout the season. The speakers, Jeff Sankoff and Matt, engage in a discourse that encompasses their top five stories from the past year, emphasizing the evolution of the sport and the rising prominence of athletes who have yet to claim world championship titles. Among the topics discussed are the notable retirements of seasoned athletes, the emergence of new talent, and the implications of substantial financial investments in triathlon from Middle Eastern countries. Additionally, the episode features their selections for male and female athletes to watch in the upcoming year, underscoring the promising future of the sport. With a serious tone, the speakers convey their insights and perspectives, inviting listeners to reflect on the evolving landscape of triathlon.

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

Signup for the Tempo News

Signup for The TriDoc Podcast Supplement form

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

Together with the tridoc medical contributor for Triathlete Magazine, age group winner and coach at LifeSport coaching, I'd say you had.

The makings of a pretty good podcast.

Welcome to Tempo Talks.

Two perspectives, one sport.

All things triathlon.

Here we are.

It is our last episode before the end of the new year.

All is quiet in Nakatomi Towers.

We are.

Love it.

I don't know if you caught the outro reference.

I don't know if you caught the outro of last week's episode, Matt, but I threw in a little bit of Nakatomi Plaza references there.

So, yeah.

So I'm Jeff Sankoff, the Tridock.

So happy to be with you here on Boxing Day.

Joining me is, of course, across the continental divide over in Arizona.

Matt, how are you doing?

I'm doing well.

I'm happy to be here with you.

Our final episode of this year, I think we should take a moment and just reflect on how we actually got to this point.

Like, I think we started, what, back in February?

February or early March?

Yeah, yeah, February, March.

And I don't know, it's.

I feel like we've done a really good job.

We tried to do a good job.

I'm super happy.

You've done a great job producing all this, making it happen.

So I obviously want to thank you for all your efforts.

It's really cool to be here at the end of the year.

I feel like most podcasts maybe don't make it this far.

So I'm pretty happy to make it here with you.

Thanks.

And I have very much enjoyed it.

I think I have really enjoyed interacting with the listeners and they seem to be enjoying it.

We've had some good growth and I think it's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward, yeah, I'm looking forward to another year.

And I know that we will have some good ideas to try and make the show even more.

More interesting and exciting for the listeners.

So we are going to round out the year with our choices of our top five stories from multisport from this past year.

And we are each going to select a top male and female athlete who was not a world champion in any of the disciplines.

So World Ironman 70.3 T100, World Triathlon, whatever.

If you won any of those races as a man or woman, you are excluded from our top picks, but we will choose a male or female who may have made the podium, but wasn't necessarily atop the podium in any of those races.

But we are going to begin with our top five stories.

We each.

We haven't spoken about this.

Running by the seat of our pants here.

We're going by the seat of our pants.

We will alternate.

Let's begin first, though, with some of our honorable mentions because I came up with quite a few stories.

Many more than five.

What kind of stories did you have that didn't make your top five list, Matt?

I'm reading them now and I'm like, man, they could have could be top five.

The one that stands out to me right this second is the Race Ranger age group testing.

Earlier on in this year, they did a test of an age group race that challenged Wanaka.

Very successful.

And it sounded like it actually did influence the athletes to not draft as much based on the data and the findings from that race.

It is something that maybe we'll see more of in the future.

Maybe we'll see more tests going into this year.

Definitely having Race Ranger actually on the ground in an age group race.

It's been in a lot of pro races, as we know, for the past few years.

It's certainly a sign of things to come.

They did a good job by not saying when it would be implemented at a wider scale.

Maybe if.

But definitely a good harbinger.

Yeah.

Harbinger, yeah.

Good one.

Yeah.

Good word of things to come in terms of drafting.

Not drafting.

I thought that was a good one.

Man.

That's a, that could probably be a top five in some ways, but.

Oh, for our audience, definitely.

Yeah.

And I most intrigued about that one, about how they're going to implement it because I just don't see it as being.

I don't think they know across.

But to see how they decide to implement it and in what races, that is what's going to be interesting to me.

So I, I will tell you right off the bat that I left probably the biggest story off of my list and I did that on purpose because I figured you prob included it.

And that's the Taylor knb, Lucy, Charles Barkley, Kona Duel.

So I'm just going to dispense with that right away and say that did not get included in my top five because I didn't want to have overlap.

But some of the stories not in my top five were Shoegate and Imogen Simmons.

So I consider those on the same spectrum of stories.

Alex Y's marathon, which you and I were chatting about recently because stories continue to come out of that race about people having insanely fast times.

It was a woman, I believe, a Canadian woman who's 46 years old who ran 2:16.

That's 10 minutes slower than Alex ran.

So it started to make me think was Alex's.

Cause remember at the time I said to you, I said the thing that blew me away was seeing alex finish in 206.

And it looked like there was like five or six other guys that were all coming across at the same time.

So I found myself wondering, was this about him or was this about the course?

Or was it a bit of both?

It's a bit of both.

That course in Valencia is.

It's famous for its fast times.

It's pb, clearly.

Yeah.

But he.

I think he.

He definitely leveled up since his London race where he ran a 211.

Valencia is always going to be a faster course than that.

I think it's probably one of the fastest in the world.

That's legit, not like a downhill situation.

It's funny to see this fallout from that.

Like these stories of everybody getting amazing times with the super shoes as well.

They help.

Yep.

I've got the T100 Dubai fiasco.

Not on my top five.

The Norwegian rookies.

Nice breakouts of Solvig and Casper.

And then I have things like the debut of tempo talks.

Nice.

Do you have any other honorable mentions on yours before we get to our top five?

Yeah.

Like recency bias.

You've got all these athlete retirements that's still playing itself out in the news.

I put the T100 investment and then slash bailout because they were basically going to go bankrupt without this huge investment for the Saudis.

So that was a big one.

Didn't make top five iconic collapses.

So I guess it's the same thing as you talked about.

That was.

That was pretty.

It shook the tri world for sure.

The Ironman, Tri Dot Blow up.

Remember that?

Remember the blow up?

Oh, my gosh.

How could you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Of course I remember it.

Do you remember what was that about?

They just.

They just didn't want to work together anymore.

I honestly.

Well, I think Tridot decided that they weren't getting a bang for their buck.

It was Tri Dot who ended it.

Yeah.

Yeah, they were.

But Iron man was not disappointed because I don't think Iron man was getting what they thought they were going to get out of it.

Yeah.

Now that we're a few months out, who looks like the winner here?

Who do you think is the winner?

Of that breakup, I don't think Iron man lost anything.

I think Tridot definitely seems to have lost something.

From what I can tell, they seem to be somewhat diminished in the world, but I don't know how much they got out of being a part of Ironman.

So it's hard for me to tell, but I feel like I got something out of it because LifeSport is back in the game of working with Iron man and doing our race previews and doing the webinars that we had done previously and were very well received.

And so we are.

That's a better product.

Doing those.

Again, way better product than Tridot.

Sorry.

I think so.

Yeah.

All right, let's get to our top five stories.

Why don't you go first, Matt?

What was your.

And we're not doing these in any order.

So it's just not that a random list.

I'll blow it up here with the return to Kona.

Like, that's probably number one, is it not?

That's on my list as well.

So we could talk about that at the same time.

That was one of my five.

I knew this is.

This has got to be the biggest story, really.

Obviously the split after that Covid time they were trying to accommodate more athletes because the island just couldn't handle the amount that they wanted.

That was a huge news.

I was correct on that.

I'm usually one out of three on my predictions, as we know aren't.

They're not typically great, but this is one that I was able to get.

That was big, Jeff.

Remember when that went down?

Oh, absolutely.

And it dovetails with the rollout of the new qualification standards because I think of those as one and the same story.

Because they introduced the new qualification standards at around the same time that they made that announcement that they were bringing the race back to Kona.

Now, the qualification process has worked much better for the 70.3 than it has for Ironman.

And even in 70.3, I think we've seen a skewing of slots going to the older male age group.

So I wonder if we're not going to see a little bit of a kind of rebalancing of how they do things coming into next year.

We'll see.

But definitely, all in all, I think people have been much happier with the slot allocation process for 70.3 for Ironman.

Obviously, there was initial growing pains with how things were really getting skewed to the men.

Things have been balanced out a little bit better more recently with the way they kept slots on the women's side.

We'll see.

I think that as we've talked about, you're never going to have everybody happy.

It's going to be hard to do.

But everybody wanted to race back in Kona.

They got that.

And now they said in the data.

To be upset about.

Yeah, they did the survey every.

The majority of people wanted it back in Kona.

So I guess now half a year on, I think so or so from that decision, you think it was the right one?

Jeff, I know you like.

I. I like Nice.

I liked having the race rotate because I think as we've talked about it favors different kinds of athletes.

I recognize the attraction to Kona.

I've done the race twice in Kona.

I understand the draw.

I also understand how nice it is to have the men and women together.

I love doing 70.3 worlds with the women there.

At the same time.

I wish they would flip it.

I hate that it's always women on Saturday, men on Sunday.

Because I want to race first and be able to be done and then watch the women race.

But that's a minor quibble.

I think it's great to have the women and men together.

I understand the logistical problems with not being able to do that for Ironman.

And yeah, listen, Kona's Kona.

I get it.

Kona is not the most difficult race course.

It is the most difficult environmentally.

And that selects a certain type of athlete.

Look, obviously people are wanting to go.

The slots are getting snapped up.

We're not.

See, although they're charging an arm and a leg for them.

But yeah, I don't know.

What do you think Nice itself is part of.

Was part of the big decision.

What if they had gone to, let's say, like you talked about rotating.

Let's say they just started rotating the Ironman World Championships and they started off in like a Hamburg or Frankfurt or something.

A place where the course itself isn't too demanding, like a nice.

Do you think that could have changed the calculus at all?

Do you think people might have been like, ah, I guess it's okay, or is it just never going to happen anywhere?

I just don't think it's.

I think Kona is Kona and I think that's what they've learned.

Right.

People just want to go to Kona.

It's got this.

It's got this history.

It's got this legendary after they can't go anywhere.

Else.

Right.

Because after what we saw with Lucy, Charles and Taylor this year, it's just adding to that legendary kind of status, that mystique.

And you do have to have a world championship type of course.

Although Kona is not a difficult course, it is difficult because of the environment.

If you put the race in Hamburg, it's not a hard course.

At least when they rotate the 70.3 worlds, even when they put it in a place where traditionally the course isn't that hard, they make the course hard.

Right.

And so they.

They've done a good job of making the course hard wherever they put it.

So you can't do that with everything.

Listen, if they had a select group of Ironman locations like Lanzarote, Lake Placid, right.

Those are difficult courses.

Wisconsin, even Lake Placid could be a.

Cool world championship, but it probably wouldn't even be big enough for one.

And then the other problem is timing, right?

You get to October in Lake Posid.

It'S cold, shut the ice off the lake.

Yeah.

So, you know, anyways, look, I.

This is what people wanted.

I.

This is what they're gonna get.

And obviously now it's gonna be a lot harder to qualify again.

And so people will start complaining about that.

And I, I get it.

I. I get it.

But what are your thoughts?

What do you think?

Is it.

Is this the right move?

It is.

It was just.

I'm like, man, maybe if it wasn't nice, but no, this is what people wanted.

You like, I do polls of the audience and people are like, we want Kona.

It's the right decision for sure.

So, yeah, it's.

It'll be great to have everyone there.

It just sucks.

The one thing that sucks is, like, there's no separate days because I.

Watching the women's race this year in Kona, I literally, I never watched a full Ironman before.

Full disclosure, like, never, quite frankly, because it wasn't.

I don't know.

I've never been that intrigued to watch a full one from start to finish.

But this women's race, I was glued to my screen.

I would take the dog for a walk and I'd be on the tracker, like, the whole time.

Like, it was just riveting.

And I'm like, man, I don't want to flip in and out of, like, other races, like a men's race when that's happening, even if it's good.

It's just.

It's unfortunate that as of right now, they're not going to be able to have them on separate Days.

Maybe they'll be able to finesse that at some point.

Maybe they'll be able to figure out the dock or the pier situation with the spaces.

I don't know.

It's the island.

They don't want to give up their road for two days.

I don't blame them.

And then the other issue is really, honestly, to me, the bigger issue is just the pro women getting caught up with the fast age group.

Men.

Yes.

Yeah.

So not looking forward to that situation because the women's race this year was just so riveting amongst the coverage and the commercials.

It was spectacular.

Agreed.

All right.

That was my one of my stories as well.

So I'll go to another story and I'm going to stay on the big island and I am going to mention a friend of mine, Nat grabow, the first 81 year old woman to finish the Ironman.

And I thought that was the top story of the year because Nat is just amazing.

This is a woman who loves movement.

This is a woman who embodies just everything about what it means to be a triathlete for life.

That broke through as well, like the main dream.

Yeah, it really did.

Yeah, it really did.

And I think it was the kind of story that was, it brought it all together.

Right.

It brought this whole like anything is possible sort of story of Iron man.

But it also was just a very likable woman who is very well spoken, who has been in the sport for a really long time, has had success her whole career and is just a model of can do kind of attitude and is, yeah, I just love doing this and I'm going to do it as long as I can.

And when I spoke to her on my podcast, she's telling me about her races that she signed up for next year.

70.3 is all of them.

And she's just a wonderful person.

We all want to be her when we grow up.

And I just was so happy for her and so happy for the sport to see her finish the way she did.

Although she was mortified that she tripped going up the slope.

Yes, that's the one negative.

But I don't, I don't remember that.

I just remember like you talked about the incredible accomplishment that she had.

Did she drop any kind of like longevity hacks or tips on how she trained and got to that point?

What's the secret?

What's her secret?

Yeah, nothing really surprising.

Mostly listen to your body.

Right.

She definitely says that she is not, as she has aged, she's been much less kind of invested in the whole, oh, I have to get this workout done today.

She is much more invested in the idea of, I am going to move every day, and if I can do this long bike ride that I'm supposed to do, great, but if that's just not in the cards because of fatigue or because of soreness or whatever, that's fine.

I'm going to do something else, but I'm going to move every day.

And her whole kind of philosophy is that movement has made her younger, movement has made her resilient, and she just keeps moving.

And that was the thing that stuck with me, is just that line about how much she loves movement.

Amazing.

That's such a good message.

And we're only going to see more of these older athletes take on stuff like Kona, right?

Like, it's only trending in that direction.

So I think so.

But it is.

We all look at it right.

We had that 80.

How old was that man, the Japanese man, he was 80 something as well.

And we all look at that and we aspire to be that.

But the reality is it thins out pretty quick after you get to the 70s.

And it's not because it necessarily thins out because they're not surviving.

It thins out because it just becomes that much harder, for sure.

And it's it that is the reality.

As I'm getting into my late 50s, it's harder to recover from workouts.

I get little injuries that just stick around, and I'm much more prone to little injuries.

And that's just life.

And so we have to hope that we have the genes to give us long life to be healthy.

And then we have to really listen to our bodies and get used to the fact that we can't push as hard as we did when we were younger and be okay with that.

Although at the same time too, though, think about the recovery methods, the training methods that you do when you're your age, like, versus, I don't know what she was doing when she was younger.

Like, maybe.

I don't know.

I just think because of improved, like, recovery, all that kind of stuff, training methods, like, people will be able to continue longer.

That's my theory.

I hope so.

I hope so.

I hope.

I really do.

And I know several other athletes who are still pushing along as they get older.

And I'm watching them and I'm just always marveling and I'm always saying how much I aspire to that.

She did it all without an URA ring.

I don't know how that's right.

That's right.

How'd you do it without a whoop?

I don't know.

All right, Matt, what's your next top story?

I've got a few here.

I'm going to go.

Can we talk about the loaf, Seth?

Victory to me.

Yeah, of course.

Top story, just because it obviously intertwines the Kona collapses and just, I guess it encapsulates just how incredible that women's race was.

She came in, she was a Kona rookie.

She had performed well at that Ironman Hamburg race, coming third behind Laura Philip and Cat Matthews.

But to have the, I don't know, I guess, maturity or whatever wherewithal to like, when she got away off the front like that, not even on her own choosing to then have the confidence to say, okay, I'm going to continue to ride my own race.

She'd never done it before.

She'd never been to Kona before, so it was just such a mature and just incredible performance.

For me.

It was just one of the top stories.

Like, for me, I don't know, it was just incredible.

Especially because of what was also happening around her.

She just stayed.

It's like a good metaphor for life, right, when things are happening, like, you just stay level, stay calm, stay collected, trust in yourself, all that kind of stuff.

She was able to pull it off.

It was BY like, what, 40 seconds?

It's like still one.

Yeah.

We talked about it before the race and we both mentioned her as an outside person for the podium and I was not hugely familiar with her, but I had been impressed with what she had done in the races she had raced that year.

And I just.

Just given the fact that the Norwegians just in general were doing so well this year.

And it didn't surprise me that she did what she did, but it did surprise me, obviously, the way that she won, just because the two women ahead of her just looked like they had the day so well in hand and then I don't know that we'll see anything like that happen again, but it was quite a remarkable day.

And then Cat coming from behind as far back as she was, and just having that run that she had was just amazing.

What?

That.

That whole day was just like you said, it was riveting and it was a race for the ages.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Make early Kona predictions for next year.

No, I'm not going there.

Oh, my gosh.

Do you think she can pull off the back to back then?

I do.

I think she can, yes.

Do.

I think she will know.

Okay, you heard it here first, Jeff.

No, I think she can.

There's just so much talent on the women's side.

There's just so much.

You have a whole nother love, Seth, come through next year.

That's the thing.

That's right.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think she can.

But Will is a different story for sure.

I thought that was the top five story of the year for me.

All right, my next story is something you alluded to briefly in your runner up stories or in your honorable mentions and that is just the general kind of Middle east in the sport.

We've seen a lot of this year.

A real emergence of Middle Eastern countries in the sport.

We have the Saudi cash infusion into the T100.

Not entirely sure what that's about.

And we know that the sovereign wealth fund just seems to have a lot of cash to burn and they're throwing it into a lot of different sports to try and clean up the image of the Saudi Arabia, of the Saudi Arabian government.

So I don't know if that's really what it's all about or if it's.

If there's something else going on.

Yeah, nine.

Yeah.

27 will likely be North America.

Then 28 is back in Nice and then 29 is Oman.

So we have real like for a region that has been marginally involved in triathlon for quite a while, it was an absolute kind of explosion of involvement this year.

And that is going to be the case for the coming years because T100 is obviously inextricably tied in now with the Saudis and Qataris and I mean Ironman has big sponsorship dollars coming in from Qatar Airways and also with Aman.

So love guitar just splashing out for all the series.

They don't care.

They just want to be a piece of everything.

And why not?

Why not if you got the dough?

I guess Qatar is also the host of the T100 Grand Final, I think through a similar timeline.

But I don't even know if that's what they're measuring.

It just seems like for them sport in general and sports like triathlon are something they value.

It's like I was talking to I think I mentioned this in a previous episode but like any wells you're looking to I was talking to one of the partnerships guys at Ironman and he was basically saying that's where the money is and they're just responding to incentives and the incentives are there.

So good, good on them from I like seeing the sport flourish and have capital infusions so I'm not against it at all.

It's the time zone's not great for watching who cares for me about me that way.

Yeah I feel the same as you.

It doesn't bother me in any way.

UAE pays for were a gigantically expensive professional bike team.

It unfortunately has led to this sort of arms race in cycling and it's imbalanced things a little bit.

But.

They did and they still do.

Yes, but we're not seeing that in triathlon.

We're seeing in triathlon.

We're just seeing this cash infusion to keep T100 and to a lesser degree Ironman in in in the money and if they want to bring races over there, I have no problem with that.

Sports tourism it's just one of these small facets or facets rather that all these places are trying to do to diversify their economies away from oil production and natural gas production.

Basically this is they're throwing darts at the board and hopefully a bunch of them land because maybe oil is not going to be a big of a thing in the future.

One thing that I the one thing that I don't buy is I keep hearing this.

Oh because I have mentioned don't really have great records, track records when it comes to women's rights and when it comes to just human rights and people always say oh by bringing other people to these countries then the local population can see and therefore maybe emulate and ask for change.

But I don't buy that because that hasn't happened.

When they brought the World cup of Soccer to tar they kept women out of the games.

They.

They still did a lot of the things that they said they wouldn't do, but they still did it.

And the basically the slave labor that was not.

It's not really slave labor but it was close to.

It was indentured servitude to build those stadiums.

So I do worry that by going there and supporting those events we are potentially doing some harm.

But we'll see.

Oman, as I said when I looked into it.

Oman is not in the same boat.

It's a little, it's a little on its own for sure.

I don't know.

I feel like.

And the thing is like they're trying to modernize their economy so they are making concessions in terms of, I don't know, women's rights.

Like I know in Saudi I think women are allowed to drive now, which maybe wasn't the case not that long ago.

But I do think, I don't know in anecdotally like I see stories of Middle east women from Saudi, from UAE taking part in Kona taking part in these big races.

So I do think there is some of that.

I think it is getting better, but it's one of those things.

It's going to take time and will we see a sea change different?

Will it be a typical race start line in five years from now?

I don't think so.

Even then most races are what, 30, 70 or something.

Ironman's got that issue too.

It's not just people in the Middle East I think.

I don't think that'll happen in five years.

But I actually do believe that you are seeing more women have access to sport and sports like triathlon.

I genuinely believe that there is progress.

And if this brings any kind of incremental change, great.

I just not sure that it will.

We'll see.

We'll see.

All right, what's your next story, Matt?

I'm going to go with the T100 World Triathlon merger.

I always got to have a world Triathlon angle.

Nobody wants to hear it, but I love it.

I do think I disagree because the commentary and Tempo Tempo News recently would suggest that people are quite invested in it.

So yeah, no, it's cool to see at least World triathlon have some kind of notable thing.

Really this whole merger, it's not a full on merger they're saying separate entities but basically the T100 is taking over the world triathlon like events business.

They didn't really have a great business but they're basically taking it on and commercializing it better.

Like the way the T100 knows how to do world triathlon.

They're not an events company, they're not a commercial entity.

They've been putting on races for a long time but at the behest or at the generosity of taxpayers, public subsidies, like that's how their races happen.

They make a lot of their money from IOC donations or IOC like money.

So it's not like a huge revenue generating operation.

Whereas the T100 at least that's their goal and I think they have a better playbook to make that happen.

And so World triathlon, with this 12 year partnership that they signed last year, I think this was always going to be the end game.

So it happened a lot sooner than I anticipated for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you think there's potential here for them to make inroads on Ironman?

Not under current leadership.

I do believe that Sam is part of the problem.

And the reason I say that is because he has been the steward of so many fits and starts and so many errors.

And I think a lot of those errors have been own goals and you know, even when they had something good, they just have not been able to run with it.

So I wonder if he's the right guy to do this.

He is a typical kind of sportocrat and that's what the World Triathlon likes.

So I don't see him leaving anytime soon.

But I just, I don't know.

They really have not.

And you saw this in the comments that you got from your question in Tempo News.

A lot of people feel that the T100, despite their kind of fits and starts of success, they have not established themselves in people's minds as a reliable entity.

Yes.

Until they do.

Yeah, until they do, they cannot make inroads into Ironman.

Yeah.

I think it's funny because Sam Ranufi, whether he wanted to or not, he's established himself as like this key man.

Like I think of him as the guy who got them the money, these big investments.

Whether that's actually true or not, who knows.

I feel like if he wasn't the guy, he probably would have been gone by now.

But he seems to be hanging around.

It to me it shows good tailwinds for the T100.

I think they've got good tailwinds with sold out races.

I don't know, I feel like they're in a good position.

Easy when you get that big money to be in a good position.

I don't know, I have not a soft spot but I have respect for him for just like constantly at least trying to change things, at least trying to make things better.

Do you think he tries to change things or do you think he's Just constantly on the back foot, having to change things because they make mistakes, because that's how it appears to me.

Column A, column B situation.

He's responding to what's working, what's not working.

And he's in a position now, I guess, where they can still test a little bit more, but they've got, like, a pretty robust race schedule next year.

I just think the combo with World Triathlon provides them with this kind of, like, institutional aura that maybe.

I don't know if they're going around shopping for things.

If they have the backstop of an IOC organization, I think that provides credibility for them.

It feels like the base is there to potentially launch the rocket ship.

We'll see.

The base is.

I think the base is there.

I think it's there.

All right, we'll see.

Time will tell.

I don't know if.

I don't know if the answer will be out in 26.

Do you think Iron man, like, cares about this at all?

Do you think Scott Deroux, the CEO of Ironman, you think he's, oh, like, paying attention or he's these guys.

This is like nothing to me.

Yeah, it's hard to tell.

I think he'll pay attention if he sees their numbers start to slump.

But I think if I'm Scott Derou, I want the T100 to succeed if it brings more people into the sport.

I don't want the T100 to succeed if it's taking people from our events.

But there is still room.

Listen, triathlon is still a small sport when you look at it globally, right.

When you compare to other sports.

So there's lots of room for growth.

And if T100 wants to bring more people into the sport who can then be shared around, great.

And if I'm Scott Derue, I'm all for that.

But if Sam Ranuf is going to start trying to compete with his events and start putting his events in the same cities or up against Ironman events, that's when it starts to become something that Scott's going to pay attention right now.

I don't think he has that issue.

One of the things, though, I think that Sam Vernouf has done a really good job with is getting these kind of like, globally recognized destinations and having them really in these cities like Singapore, like that Singapore race on visuals is spectacular.

They're right at the Marina Bay Sands there.

They've got.

I don't know that anybody's traveling there, though.

I mean, in Asia, people will for sure.

But I just mean we have races In Singapore, Dubai, Vancouver, the Gold coast, like these are pretty a plus like global destinations and not to like crap on Iron Man's destinations.

But I don't know, it doesn't seem like they have as many obviously Kona aside or whatever.

As I've said before, you know the.

London Iron man race.

So I don't know, I think there's a little bit of ego.

There's a, there could be a bit of ego, I don't know, issues going on there.

I don't know.

I just think he's had a coup, a bit of a coup there with those cities.

That's if you consider a city race the type.

As I've said before, Ironman races tend to be more scenic and the T100 races tend to be city based.

If you like a city based race, then great, T100 is there for you.

But except for Vancouver which offers a very beautiful city race, the other ones aren't that nice.

Sure, they're all very picturesque cities but personally, me, I'm speaking for myself, I don't want to race in a city.

I liked racing in Marbella was spectacular.

Riding up through these mountains and through these little villages, that's what I want.

And so every race that I do as part of a 70.3 year in Ironman tends to be in a much more scenic, rural kind of course.

And that's what Ironman does well is they give you these much more prettier kind of courses.

So sure, it's very nice to have these very picturesque postcard city kind of things.

But again, it just boils down to what you, your preferences as an athlete.

Point taken.

I'm trying to manufacture some, some conflict here so it's all good.

But the.

I will say the only thing that I actually maybe factually would make someone like Scott Deroux take notice and put the T100 on notice would be if say an endemic, non endemic sponsor came on board, maybe one that Ironman would like to have.

Like once they start making moves like that in terms of revenue and just signaling really I think that's something that Iron man would notice and would start to try and respond to.

But otherwise I think like we talked about, like Ironman triathlon is seeing growth and so I don't think they're too bothered because Ironman's doing well.

It's not like Ironman isn't doing well and T100 is coming up.

It's like everybody's doing well.

So it's more like that's the end game.

The partners that's the end game.

Yeah, yeah, no, I got you.

All right, my next story is again something that you alluded to earlier on in your runner up stories, and that is the retirements.

I was somewhat taken aback this year by the number of high level retirements.

I.

Every year we see a certain number of athletes pull the pin on a career, but it just seemed like this year, starting in September, it just seemed every few days it was another pretty big name.

Obviously after Matt Sharpe, it, you know, that was.

There was more big names, let me tell you.

Yeah, it was just a lot.

And I don't know if we are just.

We've had a lot.

We've a huge infusion of young talent in the last couple of years and really fast kids.

And I wonder if that made more of the athletes who generally who were really mid-30s, who probably could have kept going, but I wonder if they saw the writing on the wall and were like, eh, there's no money in this anymore.

I'm gonna have to look and go somewhere else.

So I, I don't know, I don't know if that was part of it.

I don't know if I don't know what it was, but it just seemed like there was just this wave of big names that just all retired at the same time.

And that to me was a notable story.

No, and you're right there, there was a lot.

And it's like, why this year?

Why not last year?

What is it about this year?

Because if you think about it, Jeff, the money in pro triathlon for at least payouts, like prize payouts.

Like, I feel like it's never been better.

Like, I feel like with the T100, like you look at the prize money list at the end of the year and so many of these T100 athletes are on there.

You look at Ironman with their pro series, like raising a bunch of more money and putting, injecting a ton more money into pro racing.

So like, I don't know, in some ways, like it's never been better, but like you alluded to, there's this huge pool of athletes coming up that just put pressure on the older athletes.

For me, like I, I knew I'd probably get one more year, but I was probably going to be done after that, but maybe, maybe I would have done it next year or something.

But there's a lot of athletes who, who were older, like Mel McQuaid, DeeDee Grease Bauer, Meredith Kessler, like, man, they're like 20 years older.

Long time.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's Definitely.

It's not just like the same archetype of people who are retiring, but it was just so notable how there were so many athletes.

And I really do think, because of just how competitive it's been.

And yes, maybe.

I guess there is more money on offer, but out of.

I guess maybe, like, the sponsor money has dried up.

Like, I just know athletes who are out there, like, doing whatever they can to get, like, sponsors.

Unless you're a marquee athlete who's already doing quite well, like, you're not getting paid.

Like, that's just how it is.

There's probably a bit of compression that way that's going on with the pro, like, the money that's available to athletes by sponsorships.

Because if you think about it, we're in an era now where, you know, maybe a 20.

And there was also just less competition in terms of.

Think about the rise of gravel racing in the last few years.

Think about the rise of trail running in the last few years.

So for brands, like, I don't think maybe there's been more brands, but I don't know if there's been that many more brands.

So available brand dollars maybe are getting smoothed out over a way bigger pool of potential athletes.

So maybe that's part of the equation, too.

That's a theory.

Yeah.

A lot of things going into it, but I. Yeah, hopefully next year we won't have quite as big of a wave.

So we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

Who could be the biggest retirement next year?

I think like a Patrick Lange.

What about Lionel?

Lionel is getting there.

Right.

He says he's going back to Kona next year.

I'm gonna say, like, my prediction next year.

I don't know if he's gonna qualify.

He has to nail this winter of training.

And it's just hard when you come off a big injury, not getting other little injuries that slow you down along the way back up.

And could see him not even qualifying.

There's your big prediction.

Matt already getting out of the gate with your big prediction.

Okay, what's your final story?

Your final top five story?

I'm looking over here at this list.

I think maybe just in general, the growth of the sport.

I don't want to say it's blown up this year, but it just.

After the COVID lull and, like, even before COVID things are on the down.

It feels and it's, it's based on the numbers too.

Like even the last couple years, from what I've seen writing the Tempo and reading all the reports and stuff, like the sport, just endurance sports are blowing up.

Like, you think about all the rise of run clubs and just the marathons that have wait lists, like 17,000 or whatever.

30,000 people sign up for the London Marathon and they only have like half that amount actually do it.

So I think triathlon is definitely enjoying like a period of growth.

I think it just feels like there's just a lot of tailwinds too.

There's like demographics, like people who are my age and maybe a little younger who are more getting into endurance sports.

There's a big cohort of that population that's coming in now.

They have the disposable income.

They maybe have the time right now to actually do the sport.

So you are seeing a lot of growth in like the 30 and under category too, which is a huge part of it.

That's growth across the board and it's growth even in women, although much less, but still.

So it's.

There's reasons to be optimistic.

We'll see what happens with the economy next year.

There's a lot of kind of fear and loathing around the economy, so we'll see what happens.

But yeah, let's hope that growth continues.

It is a great sport.

I think we need to see more grassroots small races at the local level.

But, and that's another question.

If there is growth in the sport, which there clearly is, does that actually filter to the grassroots race or does that just go to the macro providers, namely Ironman?

I gotta think it's going both ways.

I've spoken to race organizers locally here and they have had.

They've seen pretty good numbers at their local races.

Yeah.

So I think it's going everywhere because most people who go to an Ironman or a half Ironman are doing smaller races to work up to it.

Yeah.

I have one last story and it is basically Hayden Wilde.

I just think Hayden Wilde season was just remarkable.

He started the year gangbusters, had that really scary, pretty amazing crash.

And then we.

We didn't write him off, but we definitely.

I remember that's when we started the show.

Basically.

We started the show when he had that really terrible crash and we were talking about would he be able to come back from that and what would it look like?

And the guy never missed a beat.

He just came back and won every race except for the one where he got an extra lap and Even that one he could have won.

So it was just a sensational season.

I don't know what he does for an encore.

I would love to see him do a full distance Ironman.

I would just love to see what he's capable of because the guy just seems like he can do no wrong.

Do you have any idea.

Is he thinking Olympics again?

I think he's thinking Olympics again.

I just don't know if it's like he's going to try and win a gold medal again if he's just going to try and go and win a medal.

Because those are two different things.

If you're trying to win a gold medal, you're not doing an Ironman like in your leader.

You're not like Blumenfelden them showed that like you it doesn't work.

Especially with Alex you running the times that he's running.

So it's more like what he wants to do.

And of course on top of all his exploits, he had the shoe gate as well.

Which I think was.

It definitely pierced the mainstream narrative.

Like people were talking about the shoe thing because it was a little concerning the fact that he knew he was using the wrong shoe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there was a lot even with that.

The guy is.

I'm just a huge fan.

I just think he.

Yeah, no, he's incredible this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was a little slow.

I don't want to say a little slow.

He.

You could tell he was like coming back.

Like even that London race where he won on return.

Like he had a bit of a rough swim but then obviously came back on the bike in the run.

But that was the only time that people could get him.

And no one could get him.

Nobody did.

And yeah.

And in all the races he won, it's not like he ever had an easy field to beat.

He always T100 races are brutal and he dust in the mall.

I'm wondering is he gonna be the same invincible guy next year in it's.

So hard to duplicate that.

Does he even Want to do T100 races next year?

Because the money now is better in the pro series than it is in the T100.

Like he could still do well in the T100 to make a lot of money.

But there's no 200k on the line for the win.

The series win.

Whereas pro series there is.

And maybe he wants to win a 70.3 world championship.

Like maybe that's a big goal next year and then crack on with Olympic stuff.

So it'll be interesting to see how he plays out his season because, yeah, maybe he'll do an Ironman early on just to do one and get it out of the way.

I don't know.

Super interesting.

It's really been fun to watch and I am excited to see what he has in store for us.

But like I said, I think the likelihood that he duplicates what he did this year is pretty low just because it was so a sensational year.

All right, so we are going to finish up the program and finish up the year with our selections for our not, I mean, it's pretty hard to say top, but just notable male and female athletes who were not world champions at any of the disciplines.

So we're knocking off Solveig, we're knocking off Casper, we're knocking off Yella, Lucy Charles, Matt Hauser.

I am not sure who won the women's short course world championship.

The German girl.

This is the thing like, yeah, okay.

So, Matt, do you want to start with your choice of the man who you think is somebody that was notable this year and is going to be someone to watch next year?

I just pulled up his results from this year just to get a lay of the land because this guy, he was a character in the races that he was in, he was a main character.

He was always at the front, always in contention somehow for the podium when I never really would expect it.

But my guy for.

Is it underrated?

Man of the year.

I don't know what the title is, but it's Jonas Schomberg of Germany.

Ah, great selection.

We talked about him a lot.

So I'm looking at his results here.

He started off the year with a big third at Ironman South Africa.

And I think that actually result.

I don't know if he had planned on doing the pro series or what his big plan was for the year, but I think that dictated his season because you podium at an Ironman, you're going for the pro series.

That's just how it works now.

So at that big result, he DNF'd at Frankfurt spectacularly with that breaking bars.

Yeah, those bars breaking again.

Just like the character he's at.

He was in a breakaway off the front and then decided, hey, I'm going to fix these bars.

And then the next weekend went to challenge.

Roth came second, like leading again, leading the race most of the way ahead of Sam Laid low, just putting himself out there.

He then not long after that, we did his first Ironman World Championship in Nice.

Was in the front pack, was pushing the pace, especially at the beginning of the bike.

Ended up sixth at that race on debut, like, incredible.

And then I think the next weekend he went to that T100 Spain race, came third, got on the podium somehow a week after.

Just nuts.

He was fourth at 70 point.

Three Worlds and then a couple top 10 T100 races.

His body of work this year without winning was exemplary.

Yeah, he really was.

He was amazing.

And I should mention that T100 champions were Kate Wolf and Hayden Wilde, so we're excluding them as well.

So my choice for.

And that's Matthew Marquardt.

He raced as a professional this year while in his third year of medical school and had his first professional win in Cairns, despite some cramping.

Cramping.

Watching the guy fight Those cramps in T1 was really painful to watch.

Came back and just took over the race latter half of the bike and then in through the run.

He then went on to have his second professional win in Lake Placid where he.

Again, no more cramping.

Yeah.

And then had just a terrific day in Nice where he was the top American in the race and really just one of the stronger runs on the day.

It was running down a whole bunch of phenomenal athletes ahead of him and wasn't too far out of the top five, really.

Kudos to a guy who is.

And I mean amongst all of this, his charitable work, his work for the.

His cancer Foundation.

It's.

He's just a remarkable young man and I think the world of him and I think that his success in triathlon is just amazing and I really look forward to seeing what he can do next year.

We, in our sport, obviously, we celebrate our champions, the Blumenfeld of the world, the Lucy Charles Barclay of the world.

Mark Watts, a champion too.

But it would be great for him to really.

He's like a poster child for the sport.

He should be like someone who's up just because of.

Yeah.

What he brings, obviously, in terms of his performance on the course, but what he does off the course and how he represents Everyone, like, I'm proud as a triathlete to have someone like that in my community, I'll tell you that.

Yeah.

And he's really taken to social media this year.

So if you don't follow him, give him a follow.

He's quite entertaining.

Just, I was worried about the social media, the cruise ship thing too.

How can we not talk about the cruise ship like that?

Yeah.

Just watching how this guy manages to get it all done is pretty amazing.

All right, Matt, who was your choice for female athlete?

Female underrated athlete of the year was for me, an athlete who, yeah, started again, started the year off with a.

With kind of a bang.

Unexpected.

And she just, for the whole season, just incredible performances across the board.

Very consistent.

I think it was her first year doing long course.

And this is Lisa Perder of Austria.

Yeah, I big her up about her a lot.

Yeah.

Because I've actually trained with her a little bit and she's a nice person.

So there's always a little bias there when you know someone.

But the results speak for themselves.

Like, she started the year second at the Singapore T100.

Famously brutal course.

She's great in the heat, so that was probably tailored to her, but came out with a bang.

And then shortly after, third at Ironman, Texas, behind Kat Matthews, who was second in that race.

I can't remember who was second.

It was Taylor, wasn't it?

Nib.

Yeah, nib.

So putting herself on the podium with those girls, very impressive.

And then went to Ironman Lake Placid, which actually wasn't hot.

It was complete opposite.

It was cold, dreary day.

Came second there onto Hawaii, fifth overall.

Like, for her debut, Love, Seth ruined her.

Having the best debut, but still fifth is incredible.

On debut in Kona.

And then through the end of the year, a few T1 hundreds.

And first at Ironman Cozumel just to wrap up o on the season, just across the board.

Incredible.

So someone who is always a threat now when she's on the start line, you cannot counter off the podium.

Really?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

She's definitely gonna be.

Now, she didn't get her slot in Cozumel so famously.

No.

Was she awarded it or did she not get it?

I don't think so.

No.

I think she didn't make it for the awards, so she didn't get it.

So we will get to see her again in the early season to try and qualify for Konai, where I'm sure she won't have a problem.

My female athlete.

There were so many to choose from.

The women's Fields as we've alluded to, were just incredible.

This year could easily have gone with someone like Julie Darin, Kat Matthews, even Taylor Knipp.

But in the end I decided to go with Georgia Taylor Brown because I thought that we talked about her a lot this year but every time we talked about her she was off in the distance.

She would start.

But towards the end of the year she started creeping up, making it into the top five, making it onto the podium and then she had that sensational race in Dubai where.

Not Dubai, sorry, could.

No.

Where did she set the record?

She beat Danielle.

Bahrain.

One of the Bahrain.

Geez.

Yeah, it was one of them.

She had a sensational race in Bahrain where she broke record.

Just unreal.

And this woman who she silver medalist.

In individual silver medal in Tokyo.

In Tokyo and she had so much promise and I feel like she is primed to really come into her own and potentially have a really terrific year next year.

Somebody who I enjoyed watching just progress along through the year with this really tremendous improvement as the year went by.

And you mentioned that she was doing a lot of heavy duty cycling training, working with a pro team.

So yeah, we'll see.

We'll see what she does next year.

There, there is so many amazing women right now.

It's just such an exciting.

Every time there's a race you just, it's just so many.

So it's going to be really interesting next year.

Yeah.

And I wonder with the Taylor Brown, is she done with the Olympics?

Is she ready to move on?

Or is she maybe going to do some more 70.3s next year?

But once the Olympic qualification window opens, maybe she'll jump back into there.

There's some intrigue there for sure.

There's going to be a lot of athletes like that.

So we'll be tuned to that next year as the Olympic qualification window for LA begins.

Yeah, absolutely.

We can't thank you enough.

It wouldn't be, wouldn't be a show without people listening to it.

So we hope that you will leave your comments about your favorite stories from this year and potentially your favorite male and female athletes.

You can do that over at the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group.

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We'd love to hear your thoughts over there.

You can ask questions as well.

We will get back to our usual programming with stories from triathlon and training tips and tricks as well.

That will be in two weeks time.

I know already that people have been mentioning some training questions.

Do keep them coming and we will be watching and we will look forward to seeing you.

Matt, I wish you a very happy new Year.

It's always a pleasure.

Yes, thank you again.

Thank you for your efforts on the podcast.

It shows the listeners appreciate it and yeah, happy New Year and enjoy your little trip coming up.

It's gonna be a fun time, I'm sure.

I am definitely looking forward to it.

All right everybody take care.

We'll talk to you on the other side.

Tempo Talks is a production of the Triathlon Performance Hub and is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff.

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Have a great holiday season, a happy new year and we will be back on January 9th for the next episode of Tempo Talks.