Episode 44: T100 Singapore and SuperTri E sport championship breakdown!

Introduction:

• Hosts Josh and Jenna discuss recent triathlon events and share their own race experiences.

Race Highlights:

• Coverage of the T100 in Singapore 
• Discussion on standout performances from Yuri Keulen and Sam Long.
• Analysis of the Ironman Texas start list and upcoming T100 series races.
• The importance of heat training for competing in hot and humid conditions.
• Surprising results and the impact of climate on athlete performance.

Triathlon Controversies and Governance:

• Debate over the PTO Wild Card selection process and its fairness.
• Issues surrounding drafting penalties in races.
• Concerns about the integrity and reputation impacts from controversies involving athletes and coaches.

Technological and Environmental Challenges:

• Review of the Super League Triathlon e-sport world championships and its reception.
• Discussion on water quality issues in Paris affecting race conditions.
• Personal reasons behind notable athlete withdrawals, including Javier Gomez.

Community and Excitement:

• The supportive nature of the triathlon community.
• Anticipation and excitement for future races and events.

Conclusion:

• Recap of key points and what to look forward to in the triathlon world.

Keywords:

Triathlon, T100 Singapore, Ironman Texas, PTO Wild Cards, drafting penalties, Super League e-sports, heat training, athlete performance.

These condensed notes group similar topics for a more streamlined overview, emphasizing the episode’s thematic scope while highlighting specific discussions and controversies within the triathlon community.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to another triathlon podcast, the podcast that brings the electrifying world of triathlons right into your headphones. Journey into captivating conversations, share the excitement of race recaps, enjoy the humor only a triathlete would understand, and join us as we debunk myths and bring you the bare, thrilling truths of the triathlon world. So feel your heart pound, breathe in anticipation and get ready to dive into the world of triathlon. This is another triathlon podcast. Enjoy the ride.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Here we are again with another triathlon podcast, brought to you by Mono Apparel and we have no shortage of things to podcast, brought to you by Mana Apparel, and we have no shortage of things to chat about. The racing is fully on. This weekend was an absolute blast to follow all of it, from T100 to Super Tri, esports Championships, which I think fell off a few people's radars with everything else going on. But we will dive into all of it and get started. Fede is going to be joining us soon, but for now it is myself and Josh. Josh, how are you doing? What's going on?

Speaker 3: 1:18

I'm doing great, just finished a jam-packed week of recovery training and then a weekend of Boston Marathon events and Mana Apparel and Team Mana events that we had organized here.

Speaker 3: 1:23

So I was in the city saturday, sunday and monday and it's just a really cool time of the year to to be a part of the endurance sport industry and and being a part of all that this weekend and open launch human powered health's new testing facility. We're all big testing geeks. So it was like and I knew what I was walking into, but I said to them I was like you just I didn't get a good picture of it in my head and then you walk in in this place is like mecca. I mean it's like a triathlete, total mecca and and everyone that we brought there is like can't wait to come back, can't wait to come back and tell our friends about it. So it was an awesome event for for mana, awesome event for human powered health and and our partners with Wahoo and on. So really really cool day on Saturday and had a nice little three mile shakeout run with with some of the local influencers and all the time instructor there too. So just a just a great day.

Speaker 2: 2:17

So much fun to geek out with other people at endurance sports, like it's such a cool community and the fun part is you're all just crazy enough to do endurance sports. You can just chat with anyone.

Speaker 3: 2:27

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 2:28

I mean you look around the event and there's somebody with a mask on doing a VO2 max test, somebody's on the kicker run like oh my God, they're running 530 mile pace and they're like, so I got on it and it's amazing.

Speaker 3: 2:47

But then you go to free run and you pick up your pace and you're running in in Zwift and it's like you're going up the percentages and everything's erg mode. But you're running and you get faster and faster as your stride gets closer to the front of the machine and you pick it up and the only way to slow it down is to kind of back off a little bit, literally physically back off towards the back of the treadmill. So it's like you're going from a six minute pace and all of a sudden you move back a little bit and trust yourself and it'll start backing off. So I think it's one of those things the more you use it, the better uh you'll get at it and it was really cool to get on and test it out and got to demo some new uh on cloud hypers, um, and walked away with a few new pairs of arms for my, my training for the rest of the year can't help that.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Once you're around, though, it's too easy yeah, absolutely oh, I'd love to try that treadmill. It looks very, very cool. What it's going to be capable of doing definitely next level to anything that's out there right now.

Speaker 3: 3:45

Yeah, for sure. It's the whole technology behind it and everything. Talking to the team that was there and the cool part is, I mean we had this whole event planned and we knew we wanted to get some photography and social media coverage and things done for human-powered health in order for them to promote it.

Speaker 2: 4:03

And.

Speaker 3: 4:03

Wahoo shows up with their whole videography crew and I got we're good, we're going to have some good coverage from this. So kudos to them Great partner to work with and having their team there. And yeah, it was just a really successful event for everyone. And our guys, matt and Nick, showed up after they had already done an 18 mile run getting ready for texas. So they, uh, they were, and then they still got on the treadmills and tested out. So it was just really, really neat, uh, to be a part of that.

Speaker 3: 4:35

And then the whole weekend just kept carrying shakeout run after shakeout run and pop-up events all over the city.

Speaker 3: 4:41

It's like it's almost like the expo doesn't even exist because there's all these other things going on in boston around that.

Speaker 3: 4:48

And I got to be part of one of them on sunday with noon, um and athletic brewing and some other vendors and that was really cool as people walked in and out of the different pop-ups and and then monday was just uh, an all-day thing got in the city at like 10 o'clock and started cheering on the wheelchairs and the hand cyclists and then the elites go flying by and then you're there until five, six o'clock at night when people who are in their fifth, sixth, seventh hour and it was brutally hot and people don't get most of the people don't get to train for that type of weather in this type of year.

Speaker 3: 5:25

So I have a bigger belief in what I did believe in before is that indoor treadmill training means a lot, especially if you live in a colder climate. That is the one way that you can guarantee yourself a little bit more heat training and a little turn those dehumidifiers off, turn those fans off and get a session or two in a week on the treadmill yeah, absolutely now I do a lot of it because it is actually snowing today I'm preaching to the choir, I know oh man, no, it sounds like an awesome time over there.

Speaker 3: 6:09

Yeah, really, really fun weekend and excited to get back to my own training. I actually got a good run in Monday night when I got home for six miles and then yesterday I was just exhausted and I texted my coach. I was like you know what I'm going to do, some mobility stuff, but I need to take a day off and then get back into it. We've got five and a half weeks before my next um 70.3, so nice little build we're back into and and then we find out super tri decides to drop a sprint olympic distance uh event right here in boston. So, yeah, uh, got another event to add to my calendar for august 18th, so we're gonna decide sprint or Olympic. Maybe we'll leave that up to the listeners to vote for.

Speaker 2: 6:46

There we go. See what they say to go for Love it.

Speaker 3: 6:50

How about you? How was all your week? I mean, I thought I had a lot to go, but you trumped me there too.

Speaker 2: 6:57

Man. It was definitely a crazy but awesome week doing some contract work with Cycling Canada through this event. They had the weekend the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup. It was the third round of racing, so the last shot for these track athletes track cycling athletes to get Olympic points and qualifications. So it's very cool to be behind the scenes and be a part of making that event happen on the media and digital content side of things. But when you're working with these race organizers and event weeks, it's kind of a case of everyone just gets pulled in to make things like this happen. Ended up being 12 to 15 hour days on site at the Velodrome. From Monday went straight from the airport to the Velodrome and, yeah, some very long hours. It was very, it was entertaining, but man, was I exhausted when I got back. The day after I got back I slept on the plane and then slept 11 and a half hours that night. I was just cooked but got to meet some really cool athletes, really great media outlets, met a name that some or a lot of triathletes will recognize it's Kevin McKinnon, who writes for Triathlete Magazine. So it was fun to kind of geek out with him about triathlon in the midst of a cycling event and I got to try out the velodrome, which was so much fun On a track bike.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Things I didn't know Track bikes well. One they have no brakes. Two, if if you stop pedaling, the back wheel stops moving. So you have to keep pedaling always or else you'll go head over handlebars, which is not fun, and usually they do like a whole try the track thing to um, get up to speed and teach you how to use everything. Uh, they weren't going to do that for the team until the monday and I was flying out that morning, so got to get a little time on the track with a the team until the Monday and I was flying out that morning, so got to get a little time on the track with a couple of team members. The only problem was that meant I didn't get any instruction from the instructors and basically had one of my coworkers say you know how to ride a bike, just don't stop pedaling, you'll be fine.

Speaker 3: 8:57

And it's single gear, right? Is it a fixed gear?

Speaker 2: 9:02

Yeah, absolutely. And it was kind of like getting up and going wasn't too bad and it was so much fun to get up to the top of um velodrome and kind of those bank corners and bomb down it. But I was going for a while and I realized I don't know how to stop. There are no brakes on this.

Speaker 2: 9:19

There's no brakes on them, yeah so I was like wait a second, how do I? So? Basically, because the bag wheel is connected right to the gear. You just have to kind of put pressure against it and kind of slow down and stuff. But it was crazy.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Those bank corners it's a 42 degree incline and just going up to the top and bombing down. It was an absolute blast there. And then, yeah, we had some great Canadian results with some surprise qualifications for spots for the game. So that was very cool to see. But it was just such a neat atmosphere the whole infield of the Velodrome we had 300 athletes from 50 different nations all competing kind of in this world-class race to try to get to the Paris 2024 game. So it was, yeah, just a blast to be a part of, though it was pretty good at getting some double run days in early by the end of the weekend. It was survival mode. A couple of skip workouts there, we'll say.

Speaker 3: 10:22

I mean, you can only stay hydrated and stay ahead of everything you need so much in those types of environments and it's like it catches up to you just standing on your feet's a lot, and you realize that and that's what hit me on tuesday when I was like I can't do it. So, yeah, I feel for you, but, uh, sounds like you had an awesome trip and successful trip and it's just kind of like those eye-opening moments like these people are crazy next level athletes and then you get to test it out and for anyone who hasn't, yeah, the, the velodrome and that technology and the bikes are completely different.

Speaker 2: 10:56

There's no di2, there's no shifting, there's no mechanical, it's just go just go just power and some crazy big plates on some of these, like the power these athletes are putting out is insane. And well, I got some heat training, speaking of which it's like between 25 to 28 degrees Celsius, which is toasty in there, and high humidity, so definitely it got a bit of that heat training as well. Overall, it was just a very cool experience and now I understand track cycling a little bit better. They have some bizarre but awesome events. One of them they it's like roller derby on wheels. They're in a peloton and they grab one athlete and fling them forward, fling their teammate forward.

Speaker 3: 11:39

Just that was crazy and I knew they had like the team pursuit and that type of stuff. Is that like I had never seen. That though. Like I literally texted j like the team pursuit and that type of stuff, and is that like I had never seen. That though, like I literally texted jenna, I was like that's like freaking roller derby. That's the only time I've ever seen anyone grab hands and tell somebody it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 11:54

It was the madison it's called, and, yeah, basically you got two two athletes from the same nation and one is racing and the other one is kind of resting in between, but to tag off, they grab each other's hands and fling the next person racing. And then they have this other one, the kieran, where they ride behind a motorcycle on the velodrome to get up to crazy speeds and then they start racing it. Just man, I want to know how that madison one got started, though, like who was like let's just in a group of cyclists, all tightly packed together fling each other across.

Speaker 3: 12:26

This is safe.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Seems like a great idea.

Speaker 3: 12:30

I'll have to message Christian Vandervelde now that he's back in Peloton as an instructor again and he's been responsive to some of my messages. I'll have to ask him about that one.

Speaker 2: 12:41

Oh, totally, it was absolutely crazy. And then we saw someone who um was part of sub seven, sub eight. Dan bingham was out there racing with the british team and they absolutely destroyed everyone, which is no surprise when you look at the crazy aerodynamics with their team, and there it was like they were next level to everyone else.

Speaker 3: 12:58

So that'll be exciting to watch at the olympics too what I mean speaking of like the aerodynamics and stuff like that. Was there like crazy suits that they're wearing, like the helmets, like how does that compare to some of the stuff you've seen in triathlon and all that? Like, just give people a picture of that.

Speaker 2: 13:16

You know what I would say? You see more of it in triathlon overall, because there is so much drafting. Like all of these events, there's a lot of drafting in there and there's the consideration of the temperature in the velodrome as well. So you definitely see some aero helmets. You see some fast suits, but all of them are wearing their nation's sponsored suits, so you don't see a ton of variety there. You see some toe covers, but really I'd say triathlons or triathletes go a lot more hardcore about it. You're not going to see any arrow caps, sleeves going on, but yeah, I think they have their. Yeah, you see some very aggressive positions.

Speaker 2: 13:54

They don't have to run afterwards, so that's cool to see, but there are so many restrictions with the UCI that there's not a ton of room to play around. We're definitely a lot more free to do that in the triathlon world.

Speaker 3: 14:06

Yeah, everyone definitely looks the same.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Oh, they even have restrictions on where your body position is, how far forward or back your seat post is. They make it complicated for sure. But we had some triathlon racing this weekend. I was hoping Fede would be on here to do a recap of the weekend's racing. We can give a bit of a rundown here.

Speaker 2: 14:31

We had the T100 in Singapore going on and, speaking of heat, there were some crazy temperatures in Singapore, both in the water and on the land, and we started off with the women's race we had. You know I will say they did better with the broadcast in Miami but still didn't seem to be quite on par with actually what they've done in Singapore in the past. They're missing a lot of information out there. You know they say there were some complications with the heat, but I remember they're having like segments and like seeing who is fastest around different segments before and they didn't do that. Um, they started to get a little bit more like heart rate data on there and some splits, but it still just didn't seem to be kind of what I was expecting. Now and says it's their first couple races. Let them ease into it, but it's the pto, it's not their first couple races. They've done this on this course before. Definitely a step up from Miami, but I it was pretty good pretty good.

Speaker 3: 15:33

Well, it's so it was. I mean, I happened to stay up because my wife was doing her. It was her one year anniversary of her acl surgery. She's like so I'm gonna go on the treadmill and I'm gonna run my longest run ever, and I think she did 60 miles. So by the time she was done it was like midnight, one o'clock in the morning here and I was like, well, the race starts at two eastern standard time. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna stay up, I don't have anything to go, wait, I have a takeout run to get to. But whatever, um, so I actually stayed up and watched, uh, most of it live, and it was just very, very similar to miami in the swim, lucy and lucy on the swim. And here they come, one, two again.

Speaker 3: 16:12

Um, and I thought lucy charles was in a different mindset to this race. So I thought she was actually going to stay out front and and kind of hold on to this. But and ash was gentle, was was down a decent bit a couple minutes coming out of the swim, so she had a lot of room to make up and lucy was hard on the bike, so she knew she needed to get away from her, and I don't think she ever really did and by the time they got to the run, I think Ash had that mentality that she typically has in the one hundreds and she knew she had room, and those conditions are brutal and it's it's amazing how they have adjusted, though, from Miami to Singapore. I think if there wasn't Miami, in the conditions it was before Singapore, singapore would have been an even bigger mess.

Speaker 2: 17:00

I think you're right, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:01

Because that strategy of packing ice in your shoulders coming out of the swim and out of the bike. They were very much ahead of where they were a few weeks ago in Miami in terms of being prepared and trying to heat train and things like that. I think they're also all relieved that these two races are over.

Speaker 2: 17:21

Definitely.

Speaker 3: 17:23

And ready to go forward. But yeah, we had Lucy Charles in second again for the second race in a row. We've got a little theme going here with the men and the women for second place. But Ash Gentle, as she does the T100 queen, comes out of no racing yet this year to cobwebs and just dusted off and boom right to the front on that run. And just a killer run in those conditions and followed up by Els Visser, I mean man, she had a heck of a race, coming from the back and moving her way up.

Speaker 3: 18:00

and another thing for these, these swimmers who can't swim, coming back through the bike and and up on the run and in these races and she even referenced lionel and sam and her, her post-race talks and they're all kind of rallying around each other, but those conditions got to a lot of people. We saw some rough go for Chelsea, indy, lee, dnf. So there was a struggle at the back of the pack, for sure, and it seems like these guys are all ready to move on to San Francisco and beyond. They'll take all the climbing whatever you want to throw at us. I mean sharks in the San Francisco, better than sweating while you're walking your bike to transition.

Speaker 2: 18:50

All those conditions are brutal. I've raced in them and it just is absolutely next level. I don't know if I see you exactly. You're walking your bike in and dripping with sweat the entire time and that definitely changes up the race quite a bit, because it's not about being a fast runner, it's just about keeping your body in line for the entire day, because it's a war of attrition at the end of the day, like you can be the fastest runner in the world, but if you are not prepared for those conditions and you know what, like ashley gentle, she's training in australia somewhere that's very hot and humid where she is. So she's definitely in the right conditions to get it done. But shout out to lucy buckingham, like pasty redhead, getting it done in the hot temperatures. It was kind of funny on the broadcast. Her partner was like you want to tell her just to calm down.

Speaker 3: 19:38

Like it's hard conditions for her and we found out recently too, that she was sick in miami. So I mean, imagine what she probably could have done in miami if she had been feeling better there. Uh, coming out of the swim, as she's going to in most of these 100s it's going to be the two of them up front um really leading the way again.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Yeah, that was. That was cool to see. Yeah, lucy charles berkeley, she's got to be the queen of second place now, like in kona, she had that hanging on her back the entire time and now coming into the t100 and I think it's almost worse that it's not the same athlete ahead of her every time. Like it would be easier, I think, to accept if it's the same person always beating you, but every time something comes in and just yeah, but in the back of her head.

Speaker 3: 20:27

I mean this is what happened in Kona, right? I mean she beat everyone who had beat her previously at Kona and almost like right, right behind her. So when she gets to the grand final this year, maybe she's one and Ash is two and Indie Lee's three and everyone that's gotten her all along the way and she wins the Grimpen finale. Then I mean a whole bunch of seconds and a first there might get her the season championship too. So it'll be interesting to see going forward how they all strategically play this. Now Lucy's happy with the two seconds. Problem is she's done the two hardest races and and she might want to take some off and she probably will um, or at least one of them off. So the top three results going into the grand finale are what you get your points for right. So it'll be interesting to see which ones she tries to win going forward and seeing where she can get a better result in the top two. But look, I mean Ash jumps in and gets the 35 points and immediately moves right to the top of the standings, because there aren't many people that had good results in both Miami and Singapore and now Chelsea's got zero with one start. Indie Lee went from 35 to still 35 because she DNF'd Rebecca Clark, what a swim she had.

Speaker 3: 21:53

And she dropped all the way to 16th. So that swim alone. It would be interesting to see what the heart rates were. Rebecca Clark, what a swim she had. She dropped all the way to 16th. That swim alone. It would be interesting to see what the heart rates were coming out of the first Aussie exit and coming out into T1. Because of the water temperature it's not like you're in the water cooling yourself down. And they weren't swimming slow.

Speaker 2: 22:13

No, absolutely insane. It's definitely a fun race to watch and it's nice when we kind of have those battles, although you know, it would have been cool if there was a sprint finish at the end between the two of them. I think Ashley Gentle still would have taken it there, but it was just enough drama and distance between them that kind of kept it interesting and made sure there was a bit of a battle in there which made it a lot more entertaining to watch nature. There was a bit of a battle in there which made it a lot more entertaining to watch. And then we had the men's results so shock of the season in there. I think.

Speaker 2: 22:41

I don't think a lot of people expected one of the wild cards to go in and take the win here. With yuri coolan taking the win, he, I think, surprised a lot of people, especially before. He'd been kind of accused of not being a strong cyclist and doing a lot of wheel sucking in previous events there. So for him to go off the front and just make his mark on this event, especially in that heat, to drop everyone in the field on the bike, was seriously impressive. You definitely saw if anyone watched.

Speaker 2: 23:13

There was an instagram reel where they show him at the finish line and he just looks cooked like almost scary cooked. So he got pulled off to the hospital right away. Luckily it sounds like he's fine, but he definitely left everything out there. And then, like you said, we had sam long in second place. Again seeing a trend coming straight from oceanside heading heading over to Singapore With Sam. I wonder if he hadn't done Oceanside would he have taken that win? Because that travel and doing a 70.3, that has to have some 2,800 miles of travel and 18 hours of flying.

Speaker 2: 23:51

It's absolutely insane. And then we had Peter Heimerick, who showed that it was not just a one-off with his result here last year, getting it done in third place. I don't think anyone would have called that podium uh sam long. I think a few of us thought would be up there, but outside of that it was unreal. And even david mcnamee running up into fourth, cal sm Smith in fifth it definitely was not the race we expected.

Speaker 3: 24:17

No, not at all, and the heat was a huge factor. I think this is the one where we had our little side bet on how many would finish, and Jenna stole my 13, so I went with 14. And we ended up having 15 finishers.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Yay, well done. I think that was Fede's guess fede was like all 20.

Speaker 3: 24:36

Oh right, yeah, yeah okay, yeah, no, he was out so he lost right there when magnus pulled out and there was only 19 that started um, which I mean that was a huge, huge factor early on in the week and before yeah crashed on tuesday when he got there and kudos to mags, I mean, he stuck around. There was a whole bunch of social media posts about the extracurricular activities that they're doing with the local school kids and things like that. And there's magnus with his wrist guard on and hanging out he and lucy doing stuff. So that was cool. Um, you guys were right on my sam lay low pick that I was crazy for picking somebody who doesn't really have it all in.

Speaker 3: 25:16

Well, he, he definitely pulled out and bonked again and just wasn't feeling. Well, got sick, um, so Alistair got injured it looks like potentially um on the run. So a lot of them got to the run. Sam kind of pulled off right off the bike, um, and didn't even didn't even finish the bike. So, um, ben canoe pulled out again on the run and then there's sam long running a 104, two and a half minutes clear of anyone else on the run in those conditions.

Speaker 2: 25:51

So I mean, and yuri, heat for a big guy like he just gets it done in the heat, it's not and what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Like he finished that race and they're like jan's like okay, you can go, everyone else is dead. Um, he runs two and a half minutes faster than anyone else, like like way faster than most of the field. Um, but two minutes clear of peter and a minute and a half clear of yuri. Um, now, yuri was toast dead. Like jenna said, that reel was kind of scary. At the same point he's asking somebody to like grab his hand and so he could feel his heart rate. Um, at the end and everyone finishing was getting ice dumped on them and water dumped on them.

Speaker 3: 26:32

Um, but it's also interesting because you talk about yuri being a surprise and obviously as a wild card and there were a lot of wild cards in singapore, especially on the female side.

Speaker 3: 26:41

Um, but the wild card he he had posted recently I think he had updated after miami his progression in some of these pto races and his results and coming from like 30th to 15th to 11th to 4th and it's like well, the natural progression was podium, maybe not first, but I mean his progression's been crazy and it's it's scary some of the posts recently talking about the training that he's been doing and the heat training and he's on a path now where, okay, do you give him a contract, does he get a Javi Gomez contract?

Speaker 3: 27:17

How do they handle the Javi Gomez situation? And okay, well, that doesn't help Mark Dubrick in San Francisco getting a wildcard spot. So how does it all work out? And I think this is one of the big questions for the PTO is how do they handle who they pick for wild card spots, because josh hamburger happened to be there, so he got one, um, I don't know if he would have gotten one if he wasn't there. Um, and we talked about that, we joked about that. They didn't even replace magnus, so we had 19 men start.

Speaker 2: 27:48

We didn't have 20 yeah, no, definitely got to think they give him a contract. Like he's leading the series right now, which is crazy there is there's a bit of controversy around him too. I don't know if you heard about the controversy with his coach in there.

Speaker 3: 28:05

So I did hear some of it. I didn't have a chance to read fully up on it, so I'm not one to be able to speak about it yet. I don't want to just really not know enough about it and then start totally fair yeah, yeah, what. So what? What are your takes on it?

Speaker 2: 28:23

it. Just you know it's. I don't think it's good when athletes in a sport that we want to believe is clean, align themselves with coaches who potentially have been involved in dirty sport before. So his coach was involved with a team that was banned from the Olympics because of doping and a widespread, better like doping operation by their federation with Russia.

Speaker 3: 28:54

So I just and the rise to top in a very short time.

Speaker 2: 29:02

It's hard to believe that everyone in this coach's team was doping and he had no idea or no involvement in it. So obviously we don't know for sure. He was never accused of anything. So it is all hearsay. But it does make me feel warm and fuzzy to hear a coach like a triathlete was involved with that and it kind of makes me question an athlete that would go to a coach like that Right. But it's all, like I said, it's all speculation in here, say in there, and you can definitely see that Yuri has been putting in the hard work and he's had a progression that's moving in the right direction over time. So I'm not by any means accusing anything up there.

Speaker 3: 29:42

I guess from a pr perspective and athlete perspective it just doesn't seem like a good idea yeah, and I mean it's the, the one thing we do know um, especially coming on miami and physically hearing about the, the reports like they're going right into the, the medical tent and and getting tested. So they are getting tested after the event. But then we all know like well, yeah that's not what I think the request from the industry and from triathlon world is well. How do we test these people outside of competition?

Speaker 2: 30:15

and right now there is no um t100 testing outside of competition. And the other thing that's kind of disappointing to see too is there's no drafting penalties, like there was some drafting going on, especially in that men's race, like you got race ranger right there showing red and there was no one athlete doing it.

Speaker 3: 30:32

But I think you have bucket penalties right.

Speaker 2: 30:37

For not getting a swim skin in a bucket, you get a penalty. But for blatantly drafting, no one has ever gotten a penalty. In a bucket, you get a penalty. But for blatantly drafting, no one has ever gotten a penalty in a t100 or a pto race ever. Now we have race rangers showing blatantly that they're within the draft zone and it almost becomes this mob mentality where if everyone's doing it, it kind of becomes the norm, so everyone keeps doing it, which is not great. Now that we can see it like before, we're like okay, it looks like they're too close. Now it's like solid red on race for injury, like okay, we know they're too close, but they've got a draft marshal right there and no one's giving out penalties at all it's on tv, we've got cover.

Speaker 3: 31:17

I mean we can all see this, I mean in the woman's at least. Like lucy buckingham went red a lot and and she would back off, and I think Jan even mentioned I was like you can. You would think at this point she's going to try and overtake Lucy Charles Barkley at some point and maybe share the workload up front, because every time she got she had enough power to get close enough to the draft zone where she was turning red and then you would literally physically see her stop pedaling. That was the only way she could get out of it and okay, well, at one point take the lead and see what that can do too. But I think that was a strategic play on her side where she didn't want to get out and do the extra work in those conditions. But you could see at least she was getting out of the draft zone, whereas the guys were like whatever, no one's docking me for this no one's stopping me, no one's doing anything, you're just like okay, come on, guys like and you're the crazy part about yuri's race.

Speaker 3: 32:19

I mean from start too, but the bike. He had a trail of like eight or nine guys trying to catch him and they couldn't. And typically when you've got eight or nine guys in a trail they're going to make up time on you, and we see that in the Tour de France and all of the road race cycling all the time. But these eight, nine people couldn't catch him. He was just getting away and there was no catching him on the run either, because he still threw down an amazing run as well.

Speaker 2: 32:47

He held it together there. It was very cool. One thing I will say about these races is the Jan Frodeno edition is epic. He is great at this. So many times we see ex-pro athletes come in as these commentators and they're just not great. Jan is like. He's like just good at it. Is there anything this guy isn't good at? Because he's like, he's personable, he's honest, he cops to it.

Speaker 3: 33:11

He has a good vocabulary.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yes, totally. But like he calls Jack out when he doesn't think he's right, he cops to it. When he's wrong he's not. Like there seems to be no ego associated with it and it was really. You know, it was really um cool to see the comments from yon when alistair had to pull off, like they were brutal rivals for years and even he's like, cheering him on and hoping for the best and stuff. So I will say, one of the best commentators out there, he's been an incredible addition. I hope they keep him around on these.

Speaker 3: 33:44

I absolutely agree. And on the other side of the pulling out, he was not happy with the way Chelsea decided to back out of the race. He let everyone know that he's like look, you're having a bad day, you have bad training, you have we all have this get to the finish line. Yeah and get through it and finish 18th, but get through it.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Yeah, kind of respect your competitors, respect the course and don't just pull off by your hotel.

Speaker 3: 34:13

Yeah, he didn't hold anything back, so I love it, it's so good, but he has every right to say those things too, oh totally.

Speaker 2: 34:21

When it's coming from the goat, you can't really say too much against him, for sure.

Speaker 3: 34:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was an awesome weekend. It seems like everyone's psyched to be done, that's for sure. Two heat races for now or in the past, and I don't think we'll have that type of temperature in San Francisco, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 34:46

It could be like entirely the opposite, with some rain and crazy winds and stuff. Who knows what that'll throw at them. So it'll definitely be an interesting race and see what difference it makes with who's on top. Like, do we see an Ashley Gentle, who's so incredible in the heat, not respond well to the cold? I know athletes like Paula Fin finlay. She doesn't do well in the cold, all you know. She's canadian, ironically.

Speaker 3: 35:03

But and she's not a big alcatraz fan. That was like she let eric have that weekend yeah, that was his deal.

Speaker 3: 35:11

Well, she's gonna be doing saint george, so I think that might be something that will, uh, get her ready. Um, so we'll see how how that works out in her schedule. It's funny you mentioned paul. I just watched their youtube video and one of the clips in the beginning of the video she was talking about she's like I feel good about this weekend and they're just asking her how her her vibe was and she's like, as long as taylor doesn't beat me by like 15 minutes, and they're like, oh no, it'll be more, like six. What are we foreshadowing? Right?

Speaker 3: 35:45

you split the difference and that's exactly yeah oh crazy but so here's now that I bring that up too. The other thing about that taylor nib factor was her race. She won by 15 minutes, but it was nowhere near as good of times as there was a year before, so they were all really slow compared to typical oceanside states, which I did not realize until I heard a different podcast, I think, talking about it. It was like, yeah, she won by 15 minutes, but everyone else was 14 10 minutes slower than they were the years before too. So that was an interesting aspect to that race. But we did have another race this weekend too, which was super cool.

Speaker 3: 36:31

Speaking of another former friend of the podcast, redeeming himself Mr Chase McQueen. Make sure he got the right tread this time.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Didn't do better. But, queen, yeah, so you got the right tread this time. So we had this uh, super try e world, e-sport, world championships in there and I have to say this seemed to come out of nowhere. Really, it doesn't seem like there's much of a series kind of leading into it and not. I mean, there's some solid names in there for sure, but it just all seems like kind of a weird format. Addition the it wasn't great to watch. Like I am the biggest supertri, previously super league fan. Like I have been to their events, I absolutely love them.

Speaker 2: 37:22

This was brutal to watch. Like I tried to watch it on the treadmill and it just they had no, no context, no information. They had some splits on screen, but they're usually a bit behind, like at least. So, if you guys don't know, they do three rounds of racing with 200 meter swim, 4k bike and a 1k run, and they mix it up in the finals with swim, bike run and then run bike, swim and then swim, bike run with a pursuit start for the third stage. So first of the line wins and what they do is they swim in a pool and then they hop on their bikes on Zwift and then they hop on two woodway treadmills on Zwift, which are all self-powered, so they have to get the treadmills up to speed. But what I found with the broadcast was you didn't know where they were. They didn't have countdowns of how much time or distance was left. They kind of crossed the finish line in Zwift and you didn't really see that. You just see them jump off the treadmill. It's like oh, they're done, oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 38:26

It definitely seems like it's tailored towards the live audience. They're watching it and they can see what's going on. It's probably up on all the screens and you can see where everyone is. It's almost like.

Speaker 2: 38:39

I was watching the screens in the background. They were seeing exactly what we were seeing but they didn't even see what. So if you're there, you have even less idea what's going on because you can't hear the broadcast there. You just got the announcer on course, like like at least they're running, and they're running in swift.

Speaker 2: 38:55

It's like you don't know how much distance is left. You don't like you can see their treadmill pace, but it's like, well, at least show us even the zwift screen, like give us some context of where people are it's like if you go to a carnival and you're playing the water balloon or the water game with the racehorses, like at least I could see who's something like that that would be amazing.

Speaker 2: 39:19

Give us some context. I like I want to love these and but it just it was not great and kind of. It just seems like this world championship kind of came out of nowhere. Now I know they're trying to get into the olympics when I show a format that it's more fun for that, but seeing the contrast between that world cup that we saw within a stadium, with athletes biking and running around the the pool, compared to this, it just it was not not it. But we do have a few new world championships.

Speaker 2: 39:50

Um, you were talking about friend of the podcast, chase mcqueen. He definitely got redemption and you could see he wanted this more than anyone else and I got. So, if you guys didn't know, last year he says he got a treadmill that wasn't calibrated properly. It was going slower than the others, so he just got fed up with the race, started doing like butterfly in the pool because he's like, screw it, I'm not gonna win, so I'm just gonna mess around here.

Speaker 2: 40:15

Um, he got a lot of flack for that from a number of people within the sport and around, so this time he came in. Let it know, be known, that he was going for the win and going hard for it and I gotta wonder how many times he got asked in that week um about the previous years. They asked a bunch of times on the broadcast during the racing so I can imagine that was the hot topic. But he just from the start went hard and got the job done and he is the new esport world champion, which was very, very cool to see. Uh, then we had max stapley in second and maxime weber, moose broker I'm sure I pronounced that terribly and some of these names and it's so hard to break down the event too.

Speaker 3: 41:04

The one cool part I did like was, like you said, the pursuit aspect of that final round where so chase is in the pool way ahead of everyone else and then the next person goes, the next person goes, it's, it's. It's like the super league outdoor event, where you've got the timer letting them go. Um, so very similar to that um aspect of it. But once they get on the treadmill like, or on the bike, you just have no concept of where they are.

Speaker 2: 41:27

No idea where anyone's making up ground without the commentators, you would have zero idea what's going on, what's?

Speaker 2: 41:34

up right now and still you kind of barely have an idea. So that was unfortunate. But we had some competition and names we all recognize. On the women's side of it, we have a newly crowned world champion with Beth Potter taking the win, with Cassandra Bogrand in second and Katie Zabiris in third. And you know, you know that Beth Potter and Cassandra Bogrand would have been really eager to show one another up because they're both some of the favorites for the Olympics coming up soon here, and I think Beth Potter got a little shot in to showcase how strong she is right now. But the unfortunate part is it looks like Cassandra Bogran may have gotten a bit of a calf issue or injury. When you're gearing up to race the Olympics, to do the eSports championships, and pull up with an injury hopefully it's not something that sticks around, but oh, that is brutal well, and you wonder about that.

Speaker 3: 42:30

Format is not good the starting and stopping, and starting and stopping, and, and continuously going all day long, like that is.

Speaker 3: 42:39

Is any coach is going to be like what are you doing to yourself? Um, so to do that with paris a hundred days, I think today, a hundred days out, um, I mean getting getting close and we'll talk about paris and the news there, um, but yeah, that's unfortunate, um, and and hopefully she's okay and ready to go for par. But you're going to start to see some of these athletes maybe react differently to their schedules going forward with these last few months.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Just wrap themselves in bubble wrap. But it was very cool to see Katie Zafira's getting a result at Super Tri. She was definitely the queen of Super League triathlon back in the day, just dominating everything, and she's making her comeback after having her baby, so it's cool to see her back at it. But we also had some announcements, with SuperTri announcing the rest of their season. It looks like there's going to be some great racing and, josh, it sounds like you're getting lined up to be out there as well and see some of it go down.

Speaker 3: 43:37

We'll definitely see what we can do around the Boston event. That kicks off the whole outdoor series for Supertri this year and we're going to make Mana a part of that. We just did our shakeout around the Boston Marathon, so looks like activation number two will be in August around Supertri.

Speaker 2: 43:55

Yeah, so we got August 18th will be Supertri Boston, august 25th Supertri Chicago. September 8th Supertri London. October 6th Supertri Chicago. September 8th Supertri London, october 6th Supertri Toulouse and November 3rd Supertri in Nyon. So it'll be very cool. Last year we had Leo Berger and Kate Waugh as the individual winners, with the Eagles taking the team's title, so we'll see how that mixes up this year and what teams we have as well. So that's always fun racing. I really enjoy those races, like I said, and mixing up the formats fast and furious, pacing and some good coverage that's the key.

Speaker 3: 44:35

Really good coverage and you know where everyone stands and you know what's going on and we can even do our own little sideline cheerleader and commentating what what's going on. And we can even do our own little uh, sideline cheerleader and commentating on the coaching decisions, on who gets the fast passes. What was don thinking this time? Very cool. It'll also be really neat to see how far neom has come in development in a year too, because last year was just a bunch of sandpiles and dump trucks, and we'll see how that new world is coming along too.

Speaker 2: 45:08

That is a very good call. Now let's talk about the social media world. Josh, what do you have for our social media post of the week?

Speaker 3: 45:16

Well, I think if you haven't seen it yet, you're going to definitely want to check it out, but iron memes underscore one 40.6 is a great account to follow. Anyways, I think they're the ones who put this out first. But if you haven't heard, there's been some issues around the water quality in Paris and we talked about this before the the Paris test event last year and whether or not we were going to be able to swim in the triathlon in in the sen river, and they did, but, uh, they did have to cancel it for the power athletes and some of the other races. So water quality is still an issue and now, 100 days out, they're worried about that. So iron memes put up a awesome post about Prince Harry sitting in a chair in battle, turning around, looking at all his friends running around and saying well, looks like Sam Long heard, paris is now going to be a duathlon and he's going to try and qualify.

Speaker 2: 46:16

Like, let's go, Yo, yo yo.

Speaker 3: 46:21

Yo yo yo is on his way to paris in 100 days, apparently for the duathlon in the olympics oh, that'll definitely change it up.

Speaker 2: 46:28

As much as I love duathlon, I want to see the olympics be triathlon.

Speaker 3: 46:32

That's the way it should be hey, maybe they need to add a duathlon and then we can get yo yo yo for 2028.

Speaker 2: 46:41

That would be awesome. He would you know what he likes to suffer, and Duathlon is suffering at a whole, nother level. I'll say that.

Speaker 3: 46:49

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 46:51

Well, it's funny because my what the F moment of the week also has to do with water. This week, yeah, my what the F is T100 series, both days being 0.1 under the limit for whether they can run the race or not. Kind of have my suspicions they were dumping some of that ice water in the water beforehand and sticking the thermometer right in to make sure they got just the right number.

Speaker 3: 47:20

Yeah, sounds like they're going to be the same people in paris. To come right, water quality passes by 0.01 yeah, just just for the main race, everything else yeah, no, it's not gonna happen, so a little sketchy there.

Speaker 2: 47:36

Um, one of the things with the t100 pair, or partnering up with world triathlon, is that they do have a lot to do abiding with their rules as well. So World Triathlon has some rules around what temperature the water can be before the race technically needs to be canceled, and I have a feeling that nobody wanted that especially. Yeah, t100. So they made it work.

Speaker 3: 48:02

And it was interesting because I felt like the women's event, lucy and lucy went out pretty hard and there was a huge gap that they created, uh, after, especially after the aussie exit, like it was an enormous gap, um, and so the broadcasters talked about it. Like you, you wouldn't expect them to go out as hard in the, the warmer temperatures, and jan really explained what it, what it does to your body, core temperature and things like that and and then I think the men's group ended up staying a little closer together and maybe they learned from that, from the ladies the day before and.

Speaker 3: 48:40

But it was definitely interesting, um, it definitely wtf that they were able to swim it all and and swim the way they did and and race it all. And thankfully yuri is doing okay, because that was a scary moment at the end of that race. We'll send um, but I'm glad everyone is doing okay after that race because definitely, uh, I'm glad everyone is doing okay after that race because definitely a next level endurance sport finishing for sure.

Speaker 2: 49:05

Yeah, they definitely had to work for it. Some cooler temperatures ahead and I have a feeling we're going to see some change-ups at the top of the race with, like you mentioned, some different trains and courses and setups. I'll be curious to see what that looks like afterwards, but I can't wait to see it. And we've got a few athletes who haven't done any of the T100 series yet, so they're going to have to be locked and loaded for the rest of the series with no, no wiggle room. You can't really have a bad day of mechanical sickness. Um, that is going to make it challenging. So I'm surprised to see if you have held off until this point.

Speaker 2: 49:41

Uh, unfortunately, uh, we do have to report with javier gomez. Uh, there was a lot of speculation with him pulling out of the race and, honestly, some terrible things were said by people with him kind of pulling out again. We were disappointed to hear he was pulling out, but it does turn out that it was a personal reason his mom passed away, so our thoughts are with him and his family. That was very sad to hear and definitely more important things than racing sometimes. So we hope that him and his family are doing well. What that means for the series.

Speaker 3: 50:11

We don't know but more important things to take care of at the moment and it's another aspect and reminder that these people are human and they're going to miss races. And how is the t100 going to handle that type of a situation? Because it's not an injury and he's not letting his contract obligations down. He's taking care of his family, which comes first. So, yeah, unfortunate to hear the reason behind that and hopefully he's doing all right and we'll be out there for san francisco and we can maybe see that that javi allisterair, but now we're dealing with with Alistair and his recovery, so, but he's done two races, um, so he's not obligated to to get to San Francisco as much as some of the others might be true and he was left off of um.

Speaker 2: 50:57

I heard he was going to try to get that Ironman Texas spot but he didn't get a spot because they closed the registration early. So it'll be curious to see what he does there. But hopefully he's back, hopefully he's healthy and it's not something major. Again we can see him racing in top form, because, alcatraz, that race is made for a brown like alistair brownlee. Yeah, of all, the course you could see that could see him absolutely crushing that one. So hopefully he'll be in form and ready to fire there, because that would be very fun to see, yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:26

And I'm excited for Texas too, because that start list is looking pretty epic. That was released today, I did see. Speaking of injuries, it was sad because Elliot Bach has been really working hard to come back and he just announced today that he's not going to make the start list. And after that car accident and getting hit by the truck he made his way all the way back. He was ready to go and then rolled his ankle running in one of his last training runs before Texas. So it's like hopefully he heals up. But man, those start lists in Texas are pretty epic as well. So so Ironman's holding their own against the T100.

Speaker 2: 52:04

They definitely are. It's going to be an interesting showdown, for sure. But that is us for this week. We will be back next week with some more fun. We'll have Fede jumping in and we're going to hear another voice on here soon helping us give some athlete advice. So if you guys do have questions for the podcast for the coaches, send them in and we will do some more focused uh podcasts on that so that we can answer your questions and help you have your best race day out there, because we're all just triathlon geeks and live and breathe and love this sport, so we'd love to share that information as well. But, as always, thank you, Josh, for joining me and we'll be back next week.