The forthcoming discussion centers on the impact of recent geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East on the triathlon calendar, particularly as it pertains to the World Triathlon Championship Series event scheduled in Abu Dhabi. With the intricate financial relationships between triathlon organizations and Middle Eastern countries becoming increasingly prominent, we delve into the potential ramifications of ongoing hostilities on these partnerships and the viability of forthcoming races. The episode will also explore how such external circumstances may influence the mental focus of athletes and their training regimens amidst global unrest. We aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of these developments while acknowledging the serious nature of the events transpiring beyond the realm of sport. As we navigate these complex intersections between athletic competition and geopolitical realities, we invite our audience to engage thoughtfully with the material presented.

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

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

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

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

Our goal inform and entertain two perspectives.

One, sport all things triathlon.

Now let's get into it.

Hello.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to another episode of Tempo Talks.

I'm your co host Jeff Zankoff.

The Tridoc coming to you as always from Denver, Colorado, sounding a little less hoarse this week but still not back to my normal self.

Joining me as always from across the mountains, over in the drier, sunnier, warmer climbs, although it's been pretty nice, here is my co host as always, Matt Sharp.

How you doing today, Matt?

I'm good.

I just ripped home from work.

I actually scooted home.

I drive an electric scooter to work because the office is pretty close.

So it's funny, I'm looking at the video here and you're just casual, Jeff, ready to go.

And I'm like in my like work outfit right now.

It's a funny contrast.

I did my bike workout and showered.

I did my bike workout, I showered.

Good as it should be.

Like I'm happy to be out of the spreadsheets, out of the whatever talking about triathlon.

I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, we're talking about triathlon.

In the midst of the world.

I'm seeing a lot of funny memes where people are like, things are going well for my team, my hockey team, or things are going well for my life right now and the rest of the world is blowing up and I feel like the same thing's happening and that we're going to touch on that a little bit.

Do you find like when stuff like this war that just broke out, like when these kind of bigger picture things are happening, do you find it, I don't know, a little bit hard to focus on sport or does it dull your feeling towards sport or just make it seem insignificant, you know what I'm saying?

I find it much easier to train because training is my respite because I spend the rest of the time anxious and anxious to a degree.

But certainly I have this low level sort of anxiety and I definitely am consumed by what's going on.

But when I train, that is an hour to two hours or whatever it is that I'm training where all of a sudden that noise just goes away and I can forget for that brief period of time.

And I have learned this from the time when Lauren was sick that and from my time as an emergency physician, that this is why I continue to train as hard as I do and as much as I do, because it is my therapy, my daily meditation.

And I find that during these stressful times, again, this is really what I that for me is a big deal.

Now, for you, as a previous professional, where it was your job, do you now miss that?

Or are you certainly miss being able to go out and do a run whenever, be able to do a bike whenever?

Although I'm, I think I have a pretty decent routine, like activity routine now, which I think to my co workers seems a little insane.

But to me, it's definitely within the realm of doable.

And I agree totally.

Like, you can just go do your training and just be 100% focused on that.

That's.

There's nothing else that exists in that time.

I would say personally for me, people who are listening and who are subscribers to the newsletter, they know that the newsletter has dropped off the last little bit.

And I do find it myself hard to, I don't know, not get fired up to write about the sport, but just, man, it can be hard to make triathlon seem like a big deal or important when, you know, these bigger things are going on.

And I actually am going to write an addition today because I'm like, I need to get back on this.

But I know personally when these kind of things happen, I do find it hard to just get back to the joy or whatever.

There's no question that I'm less invested in, yes.

Following professional races or there's no question I'm still very invested in coaching my athletes because I know that they also get the same respite as I do when they're training.

And so I want to be there for them and to help them and.

But there's no question, like, I would normally be very invested in Major League Baseball spring training right now.

And I am just not really paying attention.

I am not paying attention to those things because like you said, they are trivial because there are bigger things going on.

And I thank everybody who's still tuning in and listening to us because I think that they're probably coming here for their own respite.

Right?

They all, they want to get away from the noise and from everything else going on, not because they want to ignore it, not because they want to put their heads in the sand, but because they probably want 30 to 45 minutes where they just don't have to think about it.

So I understand that and I know we're happy to be here for them in some ways way, shape or form.

Although it is going to creep into the podcast today because it's relevant.

Yeah, it's relevant from.

So with that said, what are we going to Talk about today?

1.

1 non.

1 non sort of news story and then one related to it.

Actually, I'm bringing a walk on.

I don't know if we even talked about this beforehand, but I don't know if you've noticed this.

There's a bunch of these Challenge Roth announcements from athletes.

Yeah, I did see one from Sam Laidlaw that was pretty funny.

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, he's always doing a good job with his social media.

We're seeing some announcements.

So I put together a little list of the announcements so far and we can talk about that Challenge Roth obviously escaped the purchase from the T100 of challenge, so maybe we can touch on that a little bit.

Ironman New Zealand.

It's happening tomorrow.

We're recording Thursday.

I think it'll be happening by the time we put this thing out.

But by the time people hear this.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So we'll talk about the race.

I kind of want to do my podium prediction, so hopefully this year my podium predictions are a little more accurate.

Spending your time with spreadsheets, man, I.

Much more in the data.

Right?

Seriously, I'm not a spreadsheet guy.

I'm trying to pretend to be.

I'm not.

I'm not a great data guy, but hopefully, yeah, we'll do some predictions.

Hopefully mine are a little better this year.

I feel like I was always good at getting one out of three, but never a two or a three out of three.

Here we go.

26 is your year, Matt.

Yeah, no doubt.

And then I think a topic for today, we're going to be talking about the.

Basically we have this war in the Middle East.

There's a lot of triathlon interest that has grown in the Middle east recently.

All These major players, T100 Ironman World Triathlon have a lot of interest in there.

And so we're going to talk about that and discuss the effects of all this on the triathlon world.

Let's begin first with the Challenge Roth and the various announcements that have come out around that.

It's been.

It's still a ways away, that race, and it is, but I feel like the athletes really enjoy committing to that race, and they have gotten into this kind of.

They relish the announcing that they're going to be in it.

What do you.

Sam laid low piqued my curiosity because he basically went out there and said, oh, Christian, too bad.

I'm going to be here.

Which I thought was pretty funny, but

what do you say?

I wonder what Blumenfeld thinks of that.

I wonder if he's like, if he even cares or if he's.

I want to smash this guy now.

I really want to.

I'm really wondering if that affects him at all.

But I think we need a little more of that kind of trash talk.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

A little bit more of that in.

In the sport.

So I always like when Sam laid lower.

Whoever can bring that up.

So he's.

He's a defending champion.

Like last year for that race.

He was coming into it as an unknown due to, like, injuries and everything.

So that was a great win for him.

So he obviously has great memories from that race, wants to go back, wants to get another title.

It's super cool.

Obviously, Blumenfeld has announced he's going to be there.

He's never raced it before.

What do you think, the two of them?

Jeff, have you seen many of the other announcements from the athletes?

I really haven't.

I.

No, I can't say that I have.

Mostly I would say that it's not the time of year that I'm really paying attention to it.

I just.

If it catches my eye, I notice it, but I'm not really looking for it.

And again, I'll be very honest, I'm not really dialed into those kinds of things right now because they seem frivolous, but those are the ones that have piqued my curiosity.

What else have you seen?

So, on the women's side, Cat Matthews is actually committed to challenge Roth, which is great.

So, yeah, that'll be good.

Laura Philip as well.

So we're basically another Laura Philip, Cat Matthews matchup.

Yes.

Always one to look forward to.

And I don't know, typically they would do like the one of the Frankfurts or the Hamburg.

Yeah.

Iron man is that close to Challenge Roth.

Are they in the same periphery?

I think that's May.

Right.

One of those is May or June, and then Roth is July.

Yeah, that's a little too close together.

Yeah, maybe.

So obviously with them putting their name up for this, you're kind of like, okay, maybe that frees up some space on a different Ironman start list.

Or it makes you question, okay, where are these people going?

To be earlier on if they're chasing the pro series.

I'm sure Kat Matthews is.

She's a two time pro series champion.

It's treated her well.

But great to see another matchup between the two.

And.

And it's interesting because in Kona, obviously the last time they competed against each other, Matthews was able to get the best of Philip, like I would say convincingly.

Right.

With that incredible record breaking marathon.

Just fell a second short of a win that day.

So I think they, especially last year, their rivalry kind of kicked off and definitely looking forward to them going at it and creating another chapter in a kind of a really awesome rivalry.

The one that I'm waiting to hear about is Lucy Charles Barkley.

She had that surgery, which turns out was a tendon surgery back in February.

It was to remove part of her plantaris tendon.

Where is that?

In her left leg.

So it's in the heel.

So basically this is a tendon that had become inflamed and enlarged and was causing issues with her Achilles.

So she had part of the tendon removed to try and get her out of trouble with developing any Achilles problems later in the year.

She hopes so.

I'm hearing reports that she could be back in competition as quickly as four weeks after, which would be pretty amazing.

And she did it early so that she could get some targets for later in the year.

But I haven't heard if that includes Roth.

So I'll be very interested to hear if Roth is one of them because that's a really fast course and as a one of the stronger bikers on the circuit, I would think that would be a course you'd like to do.

So we'll see.

I guess it's going to depend a lot on how well she recovers from the surgery, how well her training goes and everything else.

The T100 race in the spring is Singapore, is that correct?

They're doing Gold coast and that's a women's only one, which I totally forgot when I was talking about that time.

And then Singapore is the next one and that's men's only.

And then afterwards, where is it afterwards?

Not San Francisco, is it?

Are they still doing San Francisco?

I thought San Frustine.

Yeah, I don't know.

Sorry, I don't have their schedule up.

Yeah, no, you don't.

No shock.

Lucy Charles, definitely someone we'd love to see announced for that.

But with this injury, you don't know.

Sylvie, love, Seth, would love to see her on the start list.

But yeah, she hasn't announced Quite yet.

But another athlete who I would say is notable, who said there she's going to be attending is Caroline Pole, who's had some really great point three results.

Just a lot of podiums.

So someone who jumping up for the Ironman or the Iron Distance.

That's cool.

And we haven't heard anything from Lisa Perderer since Cozumel.

No.

Although you can imagine.

I wonder if she'll show up in South Africa or.

She'll probably show up everywhere.

I feel like she's very.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just surprised we haven't heard her name come up yet in race plan.

So I guess we'll see.

I guess we'll see.

And a couple others.

For the.

On the men's side you have Jonas Schomberg, who famously attacked last year from the gun basically and almost took it all the way until laid low, caught him down.

So he'll bring some character, some energy to that race and he'll actually be joined by Rico Bogan.

Oh, wow.

Germany as well.

Now, this is an exceptionally fast course, right.

It's renowned for being one of the fastest course out there.

It's got that famous hill on the bike course, but aside from that, just a very flat, very fast course really.

I guess this is a course for the bikers in a way.

If you can really establish yourself on the bike, then you have not a particularly challenging run hot in the run

either, typically like a Kona, where you could really blow up.

Yeah.

Pretty temperate, I think, generally.

So you would think this would attract a lot of the big strong bikers.

And you've all.

We've already mentioned a few of them, right.

Christian and Sam and Rico and even Sean felt that that's shaping up to be quite a.

Quite an affair off the front.

And then on the women's side, Kat Matthews, a very notably very strong cyclist.

Laura Philip, more of runner, but she has done quite well on the bike when she's faced off against Cat.

So I think we could be seeing.

This could be shaping up to be quite a battle royale.

It cements obviously Kona's Kona.

Roth is maybe trying to be the other Kona or maybe.

I don't even think they're trying.

I think they've just become naturally.

It's a.

That's the nice thing about Roth is they haven't really done anything.

It's just evolved.

They have grown their reputation just organically and I love that about this race and I think it's wonderful.

I think it's really terrific that there is this Sort of.

I don't even want to call it an alternate Kona.

I think you can almost think of it as a mid year.

It's like a mid year standalone kind of Kona equal.

And I think that's great.

I think it's great for our sport.

It'd be great if there was.

It'd be great.

There used to be a bunch of 70.3s that had similar.

Remember Wildflower was its own.

Right.

That's when you had less races too overall.

Right.

There was just less races.

So each one had more meaning.

There was scarcity.

Definitely not scarcity in 70.3.

Not for 70.3.

Yeah.

But I get that it's the bread and butter for Ironman.

It's where they make their money obviously.

And it's the.

It's very popular among athletes.

Get that and yeah, yeah.

Anyways, I think it's.

I think it's just great for overall that you're getting so much excitement.

It sells out so quickly for age groupers and it's become a must do kind of event.

So terrific for everybody involved.

And I'm sure that the people who are going this year are getting excited already just as I am just to see the whole thing.

So it's terrific.

This episode is brought to you by the Ironman 70.3 Boise.

Are you ready to take on a challenge that's as bold as you are?

Swim in the lucky Peak reservoir.

Bike through Idaho's rugged beauty and run with the city cheering you on.

This is your chance to push limits and claim your finish line moment.

Register now at www.ironman.com races forward/im703boise Iron Man 70.3 Boise.

Bring it in Boise.

Okay then let's shift our focus to Ironman New Zealand.

It we probably won't get to watch it live.

It's going to be a little bit of a time I will it be start.

It's actually it's not terrible for us.

I feel like it's a day.

Yeah it's a day earlier but six hours later or something like that.

So midday at noon I think at

noon our time or so they'll have started or be starting the race maybe by the time dinner time.

Whatever rolls around later.

Yeah you'll be able to see the finish.

So that's fun.

Very exciting.

First pro series race of the year.

I would streaming on YouTube.

Streaming on YouTube and also the broadcast team.

I think we talked about wanting to see some Improvement.

Wanting to see a little more effort, excitement.

Yeah.

From Iron man and they delivered.

Will McCoy is going to be the lead broadcaster for this and I've talked about him in the past just being exceptional broadcaster, I would say almost.

I don't say like the voice of triathlon, maybe that's a bit too much.

But like for me he's the best triathlon commentator in the world for sure, hands down.

So he's going to be leading that.

You've got a few others supplementary to him.

Tim Reed from Australia is going to be on the broadcast.

Haley chura from the U.S. she's a former pro.

I think she retired last year like I did.

I think she's probably got some great insights.

Looking forward to having her a new voice there.

And then Carfrae as well is going to be on.

I don't know if she's.

I don't know how many of these people are actually going to be in New Zealand or if they'll just be phone in on the zoom or whatnot and fresh faces.

What do you think, Renee?

Not my favorite.

I don't think she brings a lot of great commentary but I am very happy to hear about those other new names and voices.

I am especially interested to hear Will McCoy because you have spoken a lot

about him for sure.

Yeah, I will be very interested and I will keep it on.

I'm working tomorrow and I will be checking in and having listens to the broadcast as it's ongoing.

I'll also be interested to see how they handle the switching back and forth between the men and the women and making sure or at least hoping that they'll have a little more than just cameras on the first and second kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm a little worried.

I don't know with these fields they're just not as deep in numbers really.

There's good athletes but maybe not as deep as other pro series races we've seen.

It was funny, Tamara was posting today and she said the women's field is

stacked and there's great athletes for sure,

but there's good athletes here.

But it's not like Kona or anything.

No, it's not like Kona.

It's not like an iron man Hamburg where it's just deeper in the middle, great athletes at the top.

But then there's a, I feel like a, I don't know, a gap for sure on both men's and the women's races just because the numbers.

There's only 20 odd women I believe and then 30 something men like, it's just not a huge starless depth wise, but plenty of talent on top.

All right, before I get you, before I pin you down and make you make your choice, I just want to comment about Tamara because we're fans here, we're professed fans of Tamara Jewett.

She came into Wanica sick.

She was on the back end of just recovering and she had the victory over there.

She's now had, what, a week to get even better.

And like she was saying how much better she felt now that her training's gone really well.

She's gotta be feeling super confident coming into this because if she did as well as she did at the tail end of an illness and now has had the extra time to recover, she looked well rested.

She looked like she just was feeling good and ready to go.

She's.

She's in, in for it.

No question.

Kat's there, right?

Cat is there.

Yep.

Matthews.

So it's not, it's not, it's not like this is a walk in a park for anybody, even Kat.

Tamara's got on paper the best run, but the question is, can she get off the bike in the same zip code as Kat Matthews, what do you think?

I just don't.

I just don't know for someone like Kat, how fit she is, if she's took a decent break after the season last year and maybe getting back into it.

Just Cat's bike really is such a separating skill that I just don't know if Tamara will be in that zone, especially because Cat obviously is now a class, like a world class runner as well.

Yeah, she runs super well.

Right?

Yeah.

So Tamara beat Cat run, I want to say, by what, six or seven minutes In Kona, I think it was.

Tamara had the fastest run in.

I think so.

Yeah, I think so.

I could be wrong, but I think she had one of the fastest runs and she was sick there.

And Cat was also quick.

I may be misremembering this, but I know that Tamara was fast.

And Tamara definitely, she has run down some big bike deficits and 70.3s.

So given the double distance, I can remember people like, gosh, remember this is before your time, but Lori Bowden used to run down like 15 as many as much as 17 minute deficits off the bike.

Sometimes even Rinny would run down big deficits.

Right.

So it is possible, but it's usually possible against people who are lesser runners than Cat Matthews.

So I think you gotta keep it close if you want to have a chance to beat Kat off the bike.

I agree with you.

I don't know that Tamara's got that, but I do think Tamara is in a good position to get on the podium.

So now I'm going to pin you down.

Let's start with the women.

Who do you have as your picks?

I obviously think Kat is the one to beat here.

I think Tamara is in solid at second or third, but I think Kat's the woman to beat.

What do you think?

Looking at the start list and it's a whole new season, everybody starts fresh a little bit.

But for me it's Katt Matthews for the win.

Just how dominant she is on the bike and the run.

And now that they have the 20 meter draft zone, I think that only enhances her opportunity to win.

So I'm picking her for the win.

I think I've got Hannah Berry, local girl, fifth in Kona last year.

She really came on last year, lifted her level to be in that top echelon of athletes.

So definitely have her in second.

I don't think she'll be ready to take down Kat unless maybe Kat really chilled the off season or whatnot.

Hannah Barry second.

Then I'm going to put Tamara third.

I'll put her on the podium, run down some crazy deficit to third.

Whoever is sitting in third, whoever's sitting in third in that race is going to have to run scared, I think, the whole time.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

All right.

It's going to be an interesting race for the women.

What about the men?

Good field.

But you got Christian there.

It's.

I do not bet against that man until he shows that he's not going to win every time.

I just do not bet against him.

So I've got him as my victor.

But who do you have on the podium?

Yeah, every race other than the championship races.

Last year I believe he won.

So it's not a champion.

But he's right there.

He's right there and he doesn't win.

He's like second or third.

So not a championship race.

So maybe mentally he knows he's.

He's got it in the bag.

Yeah.

You can't bet against this guy.

This race.

I have no indication that he's had a tough winter, unlike maybe his countrymen who aren't there, who seem to be injured a little bit.

Blumenfeld, he's ready to rock and roll.

He's going to enjoy a larger draft zone too.

Like this is just.

He just needs to do his thing and he'll pick up an early win and an early position for that Lucrative pro series.

I think he's.

He's the guy for the win.

And then second kind of gets more interesting.

You've got athletes like Mike.

Phillip Phillips.

Sorry.

For New Zealand, who I believe he won this race last year.

Think he's wearing the number one bib for this one.

And he's a great cyclist as well.

He's got the home crowd support.

I could see him on the podium.

Trevor Foley, who himself, huge cyclist.

Like, this guy's quads are crazy.

He.

And he's a great runner, too.

So this race is setting up well for him.

Smaller field, too.

Helps.

Ben Hamilton from New Zealand, another power athlete.

He's always flown by me on the bike when I've raised.

Hey, Sam.

Pierre Lacour from France, the Olympian.

Fourth place in Paris.

Had that tough go after the relay when he ended up with the crash with Hayden Wilde.

He's coming out of that as his first iron man.

He's a great athlete, but wild card, right?

The wild card for me, which is fun.

We like to have some uncertainty.

And then you have Kyle Smith.

He's a local guy.

I think he lives in Topa or whatever.

Very well.

On the T100 series.

Yes.

Last year, much la.

Last year, he.

I think he struggled a little bit.

I don't think he described his season as being that great.

So he had that rough start in Singapore where he had the rabdo and everything else and.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So I think podium wise, yeah, I'm gonna put Blumenfeld first.

So that's one out of three.

And then.

Ooh, second.

Mike Phillips for second.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I like him.

Second.

And then put Trevor Foley for third.

I feel like you never know what you're getting with Trevor Foley.

No, you get this, like, sensational race or you get this epic kind of.

I don't know what's going on.

He seems to be in a good place, though.

And judging by what's going on, social media, which you can always trust social media.

Yeah, it seems to be good.

And he's a great athlete.

Yeah, that's the pick.

So we'll be able to see soon enough.

I like.

I like that podium.

I like that podium.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Kyle Smith crack the podium.

Truly.

Yeah.

Because he's wavered, got the potential.

He just.

I.

Has he done a full before?

Is this his first full.

No, I think he's raced in Kona before, but, like a few years.

Okay, interesting.

All right.

I'll be interested to see what he does.

I think I think you and I both agree that it's a race for second, that Christian should have this well in control in hand.

But you never know.

You never know.

So we will see and we'll be tuning in and we'll be back to discuss what all went down next week.

Our final topic for the conversation is a little more somber.

Unfortunately, as everyone is well aware, hostilities broke out.

Hostilities.

It's a euphemistic way of describing what's actually going on the ground.

The United States and Israel attacked Iran for all kinds of reasons that we're not going to get into here without a whole bunch of a plan.

But again, I'm being restrained.

I need to be restrained further because I could get into a whole discussion that I'm not going to.

So instead we're just going to say war has broken out in the Middle east.

And this is sure to have an impact on the triathlon schedule because as we all know, in the last several years, triathlons, specifically the T100 and to a lesser extent, the Ironman brand, have gotten very much intertwined with Middle Eastern countries bringing races there, having more and more financial ties to the region.

And now we have to wonder with everything that's going on, a, what is that going to mean for these partnerships and B, what's that going to mean in the near term for the actual events that are scheduled as soon as March of this year in Abu Dhabi with the world triathlon event?

So, Matt, what are your thoughts on all of this?

Besides, let's not on the war part.

We all agree, we all, I don't think we need to talk about that, but let's just think about what we think will be the impact on triathlon.

And again, we want to note right up front, this is completely insignificant.

This is a triathlon podcast and that's why we're paying attention to this.

But we recognize that this is really in the grand scheme of things, trivial and not that important.

Yeah, thank you, said Jeff.

I think really to back it up a little bit, like, we gotta understand there's just been this gold rush.

It's like a gold rush for these triathlon entities the last few years rushing into the Middle East.

These partners, these government partners, they see triathlon as a sport they want their country to embrace.

They see it as something that embodies values that their people, they want to instill in their people.

Hard work, fitness, health, blah, blah, blah.

So the government partners in the Middle east have really embraced triathlon like you've seen.

Just give a little more context Like Bahrain.

They invested so much in their Bahrain 13 triathlon team.

That was a.

That's been a huge thing for a long time.

They've been involved in the sport like Oman, who is involved in this war as well.

They've recently named the title sponsor of the Ironman Pro Series.

Like literally tomorrow they're going to do the race and it's going to be the experience.

Oman, Iron Man Pro Series.

So huge investment from them.

With Iron man.

They had a 70.3 recently in February.

They're supposed to have a full distance race in December.

Just a lot there.

You've got Qatar, who I partly has been a huge investor in the T100.

As be basically by, you know, supporting them by being the host of the Grand Final and doing the like the series.

They're tied.

They're like a title partner of the T100 series.

The Visit Qatar, I think a T100 triathlon world tour or the race to Qatar I think was what they were trying to call it.

I haven't seen it as much then.

Huge.

Qatar Airways was very involved with Iron Man.

I don't know if they remain a title sponsor or not.

Not sure.

We'll.

I guess we'll find out soon.

But also Qatar had an announcement with Iron man recently too that they were going to be investing in Iron man and having a race there.

Qatar is diversifying it.

It's triathlon entity portfolio for sure.

Saudi Arabia, with their public investment fund basically brought the T100 from the brink of bankruptcy recently.

So they're a huge component with the T100.

They're going to have a race in Saudi Arabia.

World Triathlon has a lot of interests growing with them as well.

They're going to have a World cup race in November.

Saudi Arabia is heavily involved as well.

You've got Dubai, who's also hosted many Ironman races.

They're going to host a T100 race.

So we just knocked off three T100 races that are supposed to happen in the Triathlon World Tour or whatever.

Heavily involved in the Middle east and then Abu Dhabi, who have for quite a while been involved.

They're supposed to host this World Triathlon Championship Series race in about three weeks.

You're already seeing them say this war is going to go on for four weeks.

So I just don't understand why World Triathlon hasn't announced this race is going to be canceled.

Like Kirsten, my wife, she's heavily involved with USA Triathlon still in the Olympic pipeline.

Like they're basically putting their athletes in Any other race they can knowing like it's going to be canceled.

But yet World Triathlon hasn't announced yet.

Like why haven't they announced it yet, Jeff?

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I don't know what goes on behind the scenes of these things.

I think that they're probably beholden to sponsors.

They probably have contracts.

I'm sure this falls under force measure for, for insurance.

And as, I mean if you ever read an insurance contract that always says the exceptions for getting paid is force measure and acts of war and we don't cover that.

And this is like one of those things.

So if they were to cancel now, they probably would have issues.

So they are holding on and then they'll probably cancel at the last minute.

That's my guess.

But they know they're not gonna be able to have this event.

And the thing is, let's say, let's say ends up by some miracle this whole thing ends in four weeks.

It's, I think we all know that's not gonna.

But let's say that it actually did.

The repercussions of this continues for much longer.

Are Americans going to feel safe traveling to the region?

Are Americans going to be safe in that region?

What is this going to look like for the foreseeable future?

And as much as these countries want to have triathlon in the region for their own population, the reality is they were really doing this to encourage especially Oman.

Oman has pushed this big time as a way of increasing tourism.

That's what this was all about.

And this has undercut the ability to reap any kind of those rewards that they were hoping for.

Remember I said I was very interested in going to Oman after everything I read about the country.

That's not really likely to happen right now and certainly not for the foreseeable future.

Now the world Championships are going to be there in 29, which is far enough away that, God, I can't tell you what's going to happen in freaking three months.

Nevermind three years.

So I suppose in three years time I'll have a much better sense of whether or not that's a place I still want to go visit.

I certainly hope so.

But yeah, I think that the events that are scheduled for this year I think are all in jeopardy.

Yeah, we talked about, I Talked about the T100.

Like that's almost half of their kind of series races or at least a third.

Yeah, yeah.

And that is, that's a problem that's so significant.

So you wonder, oh man, like if it looks like these Races are going to happen.

Could that kill the T100?

If I'm Sam Renu now, we all know Sam Ranuf has not exactly been on the forefront of advanced planning and of handling these kinds of issues really in a great fashion.

But if I'm Sam or Noof, I am looking at the writing on the wall and I am immediately trying to figure out what to do.

I am in crisis mode right now.

I am not waiting until July and August.

You have got to be making alternative plans.

The problem, of course, is that he is bound to these countries because of the money, and he has now just spent all of this money to pick up challenge and everything else.

And where did that money come from?

Saudi.

And the Saudis are not going to be like, no, you're not taking your races anywhere else.

So I think he is in big trouble.

I think the T100 could be in big trouble because I don't know how much flexibility they're going to have to move.

I don't know that they have the capital to just suddenly start new races somewhere else.

I think they could be in big trouble.

They're gonna have to pivot big time.

They.

Now that they have this partnership with challenge, you could almost see them, let's say they know that these races in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, probably aren't going to happen.

Just gonna brand challenge races as T100.

Yeah, you could almost see them doing that.

Whether the folks who organize those challenge races want that to happen, it's gonna happen anyways.

You could almost see them pivoting that way.

But there's the whole money factor.

Do they only get paid if the race happen?

How fast.

How fast do you think that their Middle east partners would pull their funding if that happened?

I mean, we're.

I think right now I'm sure the money is okay, or at least in principle is okay.

But as you said, four weeks.

Is this thing going to be four weeks?

Or what are we looking at here?

And as time goes on, these kind of things can definitely.

You could see them getting rid of these line items, so to speak.

Yeah, it's drama.

It's drama.

It's drama.

And again, insignificant, but at the same time, in triathlon, huge possible significance.

So to be continued, we will have to.

We'll obviously follow along and see.

We have heard nothing.

Not surprisingly, it's still early.

And obviously there are other stories that are much more important.

But the first domino to fall has to be this world triathlon race.

And I think that once we hear about that cancellation, then people Will start wondering aloud what is to come of the T100 races.

And at first, Ambrose and everybody else is, oh, it's not till much later in the year.

But that's not the right answer.

The right answer is that behind the scenes they're going to be looking for alternatives because they have to.

They have no choice.

Because I don't think these races are going to happen this year because like I said, even if this thing wraps up mid summer.

But I don't know how this.

Look at.

Everybody said Iraq would be over in eight weeks and look what happened.

I don't know.

I don't know, Matt.

It's not looking so great.

And I guess they invested so much.

There's just been such a gold rush into the Middle east because of the money, because of the resources, the capital.

And yeah.

Do you wonder, will it be available on the other side of this?

Will it.

Will that still be available?

Because I don't know if I mentioned this in one of the previous episodes, but in La Quinta, I think I was talking to someone who works at Ironman's partnerships and they were basically like, yeah, we got to be in there because.

Because that's where the money is.

That was literally the quote.

Because that's where the money is.

And so you wonder, oh, geez, like, how reliant are these major triathlon entities on the Middle East?

Like if they cut that off or it just got reduced by quite a bit, what happens?

Like even Ironman with the pro series sponsorship, like, that's gotta be meaningful capital spent on that.

And I think obviously Ironman's a little more diversified.

It's got more.

It's got a business, really.

Yeah, they'll probably be okay.

But this would.

A pullback of capital, a pullback of resources that way could be pretty rough on their business for sure.

Yeah.

To be continued.

We will.

We'll keep following the story.

And so we will.

We'll keep.

We'll bring you more information as it becomes available to us.

We're in as much of the know as everybody else is.

That's why all the time we've got for you for this episode of Tempo Talks.

We thank you all for being here.

We thank you all for your continued support and if you enjoyed what you heard.

We hope that you'll leave us a comment, a rating and a review wherever you download the content.

And of course, leave us some commentary within the Talk Tempo Talks Facebook group.

If you're not a member, we hope you let you.

Yeah, we hope that you'll join.

Look for Talk Tempo talks on that platform.

Answer the easy questions to join.

And please do join the conversation.

We would like to get back to training questions as well.

So if you have questions that you'd like us to answer on the program, just throw them in there, send us an email, get on our Instagrams, how to find us until next week, this has been another great episode.

Matt.

Good conversation.

I look forward to watching the Ironman New Zealand tomorrow.

I'm sure I'll send you some text messages and we'll enjoy the show.

We'll be chopping it up.

Thanks everyone for listening and thanks Jeff, for being.