For this article, we’re looking solely at the viewing experience from this weekend’s IRONMAN 70.3 Worlds coverage broadcast on the Outside Watch platform. Although I could have easily VPN’d myself into a YouTube coverage experience, I wanted to be able to review it as IRONMAN intended the experience for American and Canadian audiences.

Race Action Coverage: B

For the most part, across both days, the critical moves on course were captured. On Saturday alone we got to see, for instance, Taylor Knibb rocket her way past Sara Perez Sala and never give that lead up again. We were with Kat Matthews as she made her critical bridge up to Imogen Simmonds and Paula Findlay. And we saw the gap get agonizingly tight between Knibb and Matthews on the second lap of the run.

On the men’s side, we had a healthy back and forth between the leading group of 8 men and the 9 man deep chase group. We also got to see the pack dynamics within those two groups, as the likes of Lèo Bergère, Hayden Wilde, and Rico Bogen traded places back and forth throughout the lead pack, whereas Kristian Høgenhaug repeatedly tried to break the chase apart. And, of course, we watched Wilde’s lead evaporate in the span of two kilometers as Jelle Geens wrested the title from his hands.

We also saw a fair amount of “the race within the race” battles for positions within the IRONMAN Pro Series. It helped, of course, that Matthews was right at the front of the women’s field, but we also saw Matthew Marquardt’s struggles on the bike and run as he came up short in his bid to take the Series crown. On the flip side, Gregory Barnaby’s run and finish were missed completely. It also was somewhat surprising to not have him included in the immediate post-race interviews, having won the Series.

Camera Work: C-

I am admittedly sensitive to camera jostling and shaky images, thanks to my concussion history and mild visual processing issues. So when, during the broadcast Sunday, the camera feed swapped to chasing Høgenhaug as he looked to establish himself with the chase group on a downhill, I started feeling sick to my stomach. Høgenhaug was, at best, half in frame, and with the image bouncing everywhere.

It, unfortunately, was not much better on the run segment for the men. Even the critical pass for the race featured a fair amount of bounce.

The women’s race was not as bad. Whether that was due to the bike pace being slower, or if there were different camera operators in place each day, it made it slightly better. But clearly there was an issue of either equipment or operator given the conditions that were faced on the day. I was very glad to be done watching at the end.

Studio Broadcasters: B-

Michael Lovato and Dede Griesbauer have a thankless job. Being able to talk for hours on end, with what amounts to the same talking points, and make it at least mildly entertaining is extremely hard. There are precious few traditional broadcasters who are able to pull this off.

Lovato and Griesbauer have good chemistry with one another, and their passion for the sport comes through, which on the whole makes their broadcasting palatable. However, there are two areas with plenty of room for improvement. First is on athlete identification; both misidentified athletes on camera multiple times, but particularly during the men’s race. That would be more forgivable if more information about what was happening off-camera was being relayed to the pair and able to tell that story effectively.

For example: it was not until after the race that we heard of any bike penalties beyond the one to then-leader Mathis Margirier, and we only knew of that because we saw him pull into a penalty tent. More often than not, the duo are being forced to rely on what’s coming in via the tracker versus getting any information from spotters on the ground. That means when you have situations where timing boxes aren’t relaying information — like they failed during the women’s race on the bike — they, and us the audience, are left to wonder what is happening on course.

On Course Broadcasters: B+

Craig Alexander, Mirinda Carfrae, Matt Lieto, and Greg Welch combined to give great detail and analysis throughout their hours on-screen. In particular, Carfrae has proven herself to be an excellent addition to any broadcast she’s on. She is knowledgeable, insightful, entertaining, and versatile; she’s able to go from reporter to interviewer to host relatively seamlessly. Lieto, too, does a good job in his role heading out on course, whether on the back of a motorcycle or at a specific point during the run.

The primary letdown? Technical issues out on the bike course when Lieto was attempting to relay information.

On-Screen Graphics: C

Can we all please just admit that trying to use AI to write race predictions, based on old timing split data, is a terrible idea? It was at its worst as Wilde’s lead was evaporating, as the AI predictor was still trying to say that Wilde would win and run a time that he clearly was no longer capable of.

Perhaps the most useful graphic on screen was the topographic map to show where the lead of the race was. However, the placement of it in the bottom-third, which was cluttered with AI text and other items, versus in some of the empty space at the top, hindered the intended effect.

And, much like with other race formats, it only focused on the head of the race; it never gave splits back through the field, so unless you had your IRONMAN app on the entire time, you’d have never known what was happening for non-podium places until athletes crossed the finish line.

Commercials: B-

I am not counting any of the infomercial / in-broadcast advertising; this is just in reference to the actual ad units that the broadcast would cut to.

It’s very easy to hate on the advertising during an IRONMAN broadcast. You’re pretty much guaranteed to see ads for Qatar Airways, HOKA, Wahoo, Maurten, Breitling, Vinfast, etc. on a countless loop. And the ad breaks themselves often have impeccable timing; for example, starting the women’s coverage, there was an ad break less than three minutes into the broadcast. Coming right off of the back of the ad unit that had to be watched in order to access the broadcast, it can leave a sour taste in your mouth.

That said, I wound up counting up and timing the broadcast breaks on Saturday. There were 20 total commercial breaks during Saturday’s race, which constituted roughly 11% of the total broadcast time. For comparison’s sake, in your average NFL three hour game broadcast, a full 25% of the broadcast is commercials.

In other words: it’s really not as bad as it seems, at least from a time perspective. But better ad break coordination (especially, say, not missing the finish of your Pro Series champion on the live stream) would improve the experience greatly.

Platform Stability: A-

For as poor of a platform Outside Watch was during the original go-round of IRONMAN broadcasts, it has come an awful long way. There was only one moment towards the end of the bike during the men’s race where I suffered a moment of buffering. Otherwise, the platform was about as bulletproof as it possibly could be.

Overall Grade: B-

IRONMAN produced another decent triathlon livestream broadcast. It’s free for us to watch. We saw the major moments of the race, and it didn’t glitch. Although there’s definitely room for improvement, it scratches the itch for most of triathlon’s existing audience.

The post Grading IRONMAN’s 70.3 Worlds Broadcast first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

We are just hours away from the kick-off of the 2024 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships in Taupō, New Zealand. The nervous excitement for the event permeates through us all, whether or not we are racing. And there’s more than ever at stake here this year, as 70.3 Worlds will mark the conclusion of the inaugural IRONMAN Pro Series. There’s an awful lot on the line.

With that in mind, our two senior editors — Kevin Mackinnon and I — have put some thought into it. Here’s what we think we will see happen this weekend.

The Women’s Race

Kevin: It’s hard to imagine there’s a more prohibitive favorite for Saturday’s women’s race than Taylor Knibb. The two-time defending champion is coming off a stellar year. Last year’s runner-up, Kat Matthews, should certainly be the one to watch for another podium finish and a move to the top of the IRONMAN Pro Series standings, even though its hard to imagine how she’s still in one piece after the tough schedule she’s had this year. Any sign of faltering from Knibb or Matthews, especially on the run, will open the door for the speedy run capabilities of Julie Derron and Ashleigh Gentle, or the sheer consistency of last year’s bronze medalist, Imogen Simmonds.

Ryan: On paper, this should be Knibb’s race to win — the two-time defending champion has dominated middle distance and with this course, it should have her name written all over it. But I also find it interesting that Knibb has mentioned in nearly every single interview this week that she’s been battling either an illness or allergies when outdoors in Taupō. I don’t think she’s playing games with it; she’s always straight-forward in her interviews. But that throws a wrinkle into the mix that could open the door of opportunity.

So strike me as someone who thinks that Ashleigh Gentle will be able to defeat Knibb for the first time in a couple of years at this distance. Knibb battles valiantly for second place. And Kat Matthews will take home the IRONMAN Pro Series with a third-place finish here, beating out a fast-closing Julie Derron for it.

The Men’s Race

Kevin: The men’s race is shaping up to be a barn burner. Look for a World Triathlon Championship Series-style lead pack out of the water as the Olympians and speedy swimmers push the pace from the sound of the horn.

Local heroes Hayden Wilde and Kyle Smith will be enjoying the adrenaline rush of what is expected to be an immense crowd of Kiwi supporters, but don’t expect that to affect Jelle Geens or Léo Bergère in the slightest. Defending champ Rico Bogen will no-doubt swim and bike with the leaders, but hanging with this calibre run crowd is going to be a stretch. If Wilde runs the 65-minute half-marathon he believes he’s capable of, there won’t be any touching him. But there will be a few folks in that lead bunch who will do everything they can to ensure his legs are whipped by the time he gets off the bike. 

Ryan: My prediction? Pain.

This has all the makings of a 1970s heavyweight boxing title fight. It’s going to be a war of attrition. Expect drama from the opening cannon, battles back and forth, and a huge surprise in the closing kilometers.

That, in my mind, makes this a race by those with the most WTCS experience; they’re used to spending hours attacking and attacking on the bike, over and over again, while still having the legs to run extremely fast once the hit T2. And who better than home country hero Hayden Wilde to take the win based on those strengths? I think it’s a battle between Wilde and Léo Bergère for the win. But, just like in Paris, Wilde holds him off. For the third spot, I think it goes to the defending champion Rico Bogen; his recent run time from T100 Dubai would see him run a just under 1:09 half marathon. I think that’s probably fast enough to get the job done.

As for the IM Pro Series: my money is on Gregory Barnaby to hold off Matthew Marquardt.

The racing begins later today. Live coverage can be found in the U.S. and Canada on Outside Watch, or globally on DAZN or at proseries.ironman.com.

The post Our Senior Editors Make Their 70.3 Worlds Predictions first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

There’s no-doubt that the T100 Triathlon World Tour has added a lot of money to pro triathletes’ coffers (or, at least, the lucky 20 or so who have been able to compete). It is interesting, though, that even the top athletes from the series are still looking to keep the door open to be able to compete at IRONMAN races. Certainly the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO), the folks behind the series, have been open to athletes competing at other races. It still has to smart for the PTO, though, that just a week after being crowned world champion at the T100 finale in Dubai, Belgium’s Marten Van Riel is on his way to race in Cozumel.

Van Riel will be competing in his first full-distance race. It would be silly to count him out. He’s only “lost” one long-distance race in his career – his runner-up finish to Jelle Geens at T100 Lake Las Vegas. In addition to his other T100 wins (San Francisco, Ibiza and Dubai), Van Riel won IRONMAN 70.3 Xiamen in 2019, Ironman Dubai in 2022 and 2023, and also won Ironman 70.3 Fortaleza last year.

Van Riel is looking to earn himself a slot for the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice next year. By nailing the spot this weekend, he’ll be able to grab that T100 contract and race that series without having to try and fit in an IRONMAN race along the way.

Of course we all know that there’s no guarantees with any IRONMAN race, let alone a first, but Van Riel won’t exactly have to rip things apart to get himself to Nice next September. As the Latin American Championship, the race offers five pro men’s and women’s spots for the 2025 world champs. And, while he’ll be taking on some seasoned IRONMAN types, including defending champion Leon Chevalier (FRA), who took fourth in Kona last month, American Chris Leiferman and Australian cyclist/ pro triathlete Cam Wurf, as long as Van Riel can remain patient and not push too hard too soon, one would think a top-five finish is quite realistic.

Kona for Knibb?

Women’s T100 world champ Taylor Knibb will be going after her third straight IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Taupo next month. The American has long had a “do it all” approach to her racing – she followed her Olympic-qualifying race at the Paris Test Event in 2023 with her second 70.3 world title and then her first IRONMAN in Kona, where she finished fourth. In Kona last year she made it abundantly clear that the goal was to get experience on the course in order to come back in 2025 and go after the win.

There’s no arguing that the T100 racing this year has offered some big names, lots of prize money and very expensive live coverage. The organization has been outspending its incoming revenue at an alarming rate. Which is why one would imagine, at some point, we’ll see the PTO try to put some pressure on athletes to race exclusively at their events. Especially if the first thing its world champions are doing after they win the titles is to get ready for an IRONMAN World Championship.

The post T100 Champ Marten Van Riel Sets His Sights on IRONMAN first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

I think the best way for me to introduce myself to my new home as a Senior Editor here at Slowtwitch is to recount the entertaining Forum thread I came across a few years ago. One of the answers to “You know you’ve been in the sport a long time when …” was “You can remember Kevin Mackinnon racing as a pro.”

Sadly, I remember those days, too. My last professional race was in July 1993. I didn’t know I’d be retiring at the time, but as I tore my plantar fascia on the way to winning the Sarnia Triathlon, I was setting my next career in motion. I had just graduated from journalism school a few months before and became a dad for the first time three weeks earlier. Two weeks later I was announcing at my first race. A month after that I became the director of the Triathlon Pro Tour and media director of a Canadian triathlon series. From there things continued – I soon became communications director for Ironman Canada and Ironman North America, and eventually moved on to being the managing editor of Ironman.com before becoming the Editor in Chief at Ironman.

Along the way I continued to coach, and because all that still wasn’t enough, also became the founding editor of Triathlon Magazine Canada.

After just shy of 20 years with the magazine, I put my last issue to bed two days ago. I’m thrilled to take on this new role with Slowtwitch. I look forward to joining the editorial team and helping to build out what is already one of the sport’s most iconic platforms. I’ll be coming on board to build on the work Eric Wynn and Ryan Heisler, along with all the regular contributors to the site, bring you each week. We’ll provide even more coverage, updates, news, training tips and gear reports. I also can’t wait to start join the gang in the Slowtwitch Podcast. (And that’s just to start! Stay tuned for even more coming at you in the New Year.)

Triathlon and endurance sports have been my passion for a long time. What’s always inspired me to stay involved is the incredible community that makes what we do so meaningful. I’m looking forward to joining the Slowtwitch family and bringing you all the latest on the sport(s) we all love. (That wasn’t an accident – look forward to more endurance-oriented coverage from gravel, trail running and more.)

The saying is “there’s no rest for the wicked,” and, as you’ll quickly learn, I must be very “wicked.” Over the next month I’ll be bringing/ you news and coverage from Ironman Western Australia, Clash Daytona and the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Taupo, New Zealand. I am only on day one, but I’m already thrilled that Eric, Ryan and the rest of the gang have entrusted me to do exactly what I love to do – tell the stories and capture the images of athletes pursuing excellence. Whether that’s an age-group world champion like my wife, shooting age group athletes on the bikes on the lava in Kona, Laura Philipp nailing a huge day in Nice, or Patrick Lange amazing us all on the Big Island, it’s all inspiring for me. I hope you all enjoy the ride as much as I’m going to.

The post Hello Slowtwitch, I’m the New Senior Editor first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

It seems like every year there’s more hype about the quality of the field racing the IRONMAN World Championship. Most of the time that’s media or Internet personality driven, hyperbole trying to drive up page views or social media engagements; the fields are usually somewhat the same.

It’s a little different this year when you have three former world champions all saying the same thing: this has potential to be the closest and most competitive World Championship race of all time. And that doesn’t just have to do with the margin between winning and second; it’s likely to be a battle all the way through the final paycheck-earning place of 15th. The last time men were in Kona, there was a 24 minute spread from winner Gustav Iden to 15th place Matt Hanson — and it took an 8:04:54 from Hanson to even earn that paycheck.

Here are my bold predictions for this year’s race.

Course Records Will Not Fall

It takes the right mix of athletes racing, weather conditions, and gamesmanship for this particular course record to fall. Although we have seen the record books seemingly re-written all year at big races (e.g., Magnus Ditlev at Roth), that doesn’t look to be the case for today anymore.

Namely, it’s the weather.

There’s a high surf advisory out for Kona at the moment. Even when there’s just “texture” on the water, to borrow the phrase from Michael Lovato, it usually adds time to the swim. There’s an outstanding chance this race starts getting blown apart in the water. That’s bad news for athletes who have deficits to make up coming out of the water. But it also means a slow swim puts things behind the eight ball for trying to go under 7:40.

Once out of the water and it doesn’t get much better — rain showers in the morning, which will give way to cloudy and humid conditions, now with winds gusting up to 30-35 MPH out of the east. It’s all a recipe for your traditional sight of contenders walking on the marathon at one point or another. It will be less of a drag race and more a war of attrition.

The Top 15 Will Be Closer Than Ever

As mentioned at the start, the spread between first and 15th in the last men’s World Championships in Kona was 24 minutes; it was slightly more than that last year in Nice.

That said, there’s more men here this year than ever who have IRONMAN finishes under eight hours. And not only that, there’s more men who have shown aptitude for racing in the kinds of conditions that we should expect on Sunday. It’s unlike any other year. All of the major pre-race favorites have raced well in hot and humid events. And that’s before starting to talk through athletes on the verge of a breakout performance, or the Kona veteran who glues together a race that you never see on camera until they’ve landed a paycheck.

My estimation is that the margin between first and fifteenth will sit at 19 minutes. It should make for some great watching — and furious typing — on Saturday.

My Podium Prediction

My head says this is another Sam Laidlow party. My heart says this should be Magnus Ditlev‘s moment of triumph.

So, naturally, I’m picking Kristian Blummenfelt to win.

It is impossible to ignore Blummenfelt’s ability to race competitively in just about anything. I’m pretty sure that you could put him in winter triathlon this off-season and he’d wreck everyone. Although he wasn’t the tour de force you’ve come to know at this year’s Olympics, he reminded us all about his ability to race IRONMAN well with his 7:27:21 at Frankfurt. He feels inevitable.

I think Ditlev, Laidlow, Blummenfelt and Rudy Von Berg are likely to start the run together, having dispatched the chasers into the wind on the return trip from Hawi. Von Berg does not have the run resume the other three have; I say he is the first to drop from the group, but won’t falter; instead, he’ll hold onto a fourth place finish. The other three should battle into the later stages of the marathon, where Kristian will pull away on the return from the Natural Energy Lab. I expect Laidlow in second, Ditlev hot on his heels in third.

Might as well throw fifth place in here: Patrick Lange. He’ll have a healthy deficit coming off the bike but should be able to run through a bunch of guys, as he always does. The run course record might be in question with him — as it always is when Lange is in the field — but I don’t think that will be enough to catch the other four.

Other Bold Predictions

Quick ones here:

• Lionel Sanders will crack the Top 10, but it’s going to take a true Sanders turn your insides out performance to do so.
• Gustav Iden will not, as he’ll try to race like he did in 2022 but not have the reserves of fitness to do so.
• Antonio Benitez Lopez is a popular pick in our forum discussion. I think he’s thereabouts but eats some Kona humble pie at some point and winds up 13th.
• I’m putting the over/under on bike position penalties at 4.5; I’ll take the over. Too many guys in not enough real estate, especially after what the swim is likely to do to the field.
• I’m taking Matthew Marquardt over Trevor Foley; Leon Chevalier over Arnaud Guilloux; and Jackson Laundry over Matt Hanson.

How to Watch

If you’re in the United States or Canada, tune in live on OutsideTV (formerly known as Outside Watch). Everywhere else, you can watch on either DAZN or via the IRONMAN Pro Series website. Replays will be available on YouTube for everywhere except the U.S. and Canada, where it’s back on Outside.

Lead Photo: Donald Miralle / IRONMAN
Sam Laidlow: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images for IRONMAN

The post Slowtwitch’s Predictions for Kona 2024 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

In 2023, Ironman split the world championship into two separate days and two different locations. The women raced in Kona, Hawaii and the men raced in Nice, France. This year, 2024, women raced in Nice, France and men race in Kona, Hawaii. The men will start around 2400, the women had just over 1100 finish at Nice. While the intention was to have more inclusivity for women, the format of two races, two locations has failed.

Triathlon’s success is based on community. On a recent podcast, Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist, pointed to the fundamental importance for adults to have strong friendships and community. Community and a sense of belonging are main reasons athletes begin with triathlon. It is a “community of pain” and surveys of triathletes, despite our narcissistic bent, return to “community” as the reason for starting in the sport.

So why separate us?

Why have two different world championship races? How does that format promote and encourage women in sport? It doesn’t. It separates us and puts women into an off-stage corner.

I started triathlon for the group atmosphere, for the social component, to find my people. While I am only one voice, I am a common voice. I was living and partying hard in Hollywood in the late 2000s, but that came to a halt when I stopped drinking, joined AA and lost all my “party friends”. It was a lonely time. In 2010 I was introduced to triathlon and the Los Angeles triathlon “team”. I did new and frightening things like open water swimming in Santa Monica. I bought a bike, like many new southern California triathletes, at Helen’s Bikes in Beverly Hills. I joined a run club. I rode with the 101 Ride in Malibu. I was in a community. I had a new happy hour.

As time went on, I made progress and began to want to see how far I could get in the sport. I hired a coach, improved little by little from the middle of the pack at Ironman to being on the podium. I qualified for Kona with a third place finish at Ironman California (three slots). My dream of going to Kona was realized. But as it turns out, this was the first year of a woman’s-only race and Ironman needed to fill the race with others who hadn’t made the podium. Ironman invited lots and lots of women to Kona. Women who came 50^th in their age group were invited. While this helped with inclusivity in the sport, it eroded the racing excellence of Kona. For women, there was no mountain to climb, just a slot to be accepted. The result: the recent women’s world championships in Nice, France was a ghost town with only around 1250 women toeing the start line. The world championship is for the best of the best demonstrated through proper qualification. It is not and should not be treated as a ribbon participation event. While I am glad so many other women got to experience Kona last year, there was a missing piece: the community in total. The men.

For the integrity of our excellence, for the achievement of sport, for the quality of the world championship, we need less is more. Proper qualifications all around. Make it hard to get in. Make it a pinnacle. One day in Kona (or somewhere). Both sexes.

Will a single-day format hurt women’s racing on the big island? Will the professional women in particular be hindered? Maybe. But the achievements of women on the island are underscored by the witness of the entire community validating our achievements as fellow racers, as spectators, as brands, as vendors, as a collective humanity celebrating our joint achievements. We did it because we could. We did it together. And we bragged about it for the rest of our lives.

The post One Day, One Race first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

This week’s sizable announcement between World Triathlon and the Professional Triathletes Organisation (PTO) is a landscape shifter. The twelve-year agreement covers a wide variety of key items, with the headline one being the exclusive rights to the World Championship Long-Distance Triathlon Tour.

What it also indicates is that World Triathlon is no longer willing to cede long-course triathlon to IRONMAN or Challenge. Why there even is that split can be traced back through our sport’s history.

The History Behind the Split

IRONMAN, up until roughly 20 years ago, sat underneath the then-ITU (now World Triathlon) umbrella. The ITU was set up for one main purpose: to bring triathlon to the Olympic Games. Les McDonald was the spearhead of that effort. And he was ruthless in his pursuit of doing so. National governing bodies popped up across the world, as it was another requirement in order to become an Olympic sport. The ITU also began awarding a world championship in 1989.

It’s that series of two words that got the lawyers involved: “world championship.” The ITU took IRONMAN to court twice over the use of “world championship” to describe certain IRONMAN events. They lost. And then McDonald, together with national governing bodies, voted to toss IRONMAN, Life Time, and any other quasi-series out from underneath the ITU umbrella in 2004.

If you’re wondering why IRONMAN needs to have its own anti-doping program, or its own relationships with the various national federations it has events in, or its own rulebook: this is what it comes back to. And it can also explain why IRONMAN, occasionally, can feel like a bull stampeding in its actions: because it happened to them.

The Present Day

Between IRONMAN, World Triathlon, and PTO/T100, there are a total of nine world championships on offer in triathlon (I’m not getting into duathlon, aquathlon, etc. here).

• IRONMAN 70.3
• IRONMAN
• World Triathlon Championship Series
• Arena Games / eSports
• Cross Triathlon
• Winter Triathlon
• Long Distance Triathlon
• Triathlon Mixed Relay
• T100 Long Distance Triathlon Tour World Championship

And that’s before we start to factor in other production companies or race series and their crowns; Xterra, Challenge, what have you. It’s a fractured landscape at best.

It also results in some of the challenges that the PTO, or IRONMAN, have had in trying to create some of these so called “season long” narratives for their respective series. We have seen some athletes, like Kat Matthews, who have raced eight times this season between PTO and IRONMAN branded events. We’ve seen others, like Lucy Charles-Barclay, who had committed to T100 earlier in the year and then mid-season opted to defend her IRONMAN World Championship. It’s been a lot of back and forth.

That’s not the case with World Triathlon’s Championship Series. (Their biggest problem has been event cancellation or modification, but that’s a story for another time.) The biggest names in Olympic-distance racing race each time WTCS comes together. Alex Yee, Leo Bergere, and Hayden Wilde are all in prime position to potentially take the WTCS world title later this month for men, whereas Cassandre Beaugrand, Beth Potter, and Lisa Tertsch have the inside edge for women. The narrative exists.

That’s also helped by World Triathlon’s content distribution platform. TriathlonLive provides best-in-class streaming, whether live or on-demand, for $40 annually. It’s a steal compared to Outside TV’s $90 a year service, which has proven buggy whenever high demand events are live. (To be fair, you can only get Outside TV’s premium tier with a full Outside+ membership, which comes with other benefits. You can also watch events live for free, but on-demand requires a membership.) It makes it easy for World Triathlon to create stories, and tell them cohesively, in their race formats.

So Why the Agreement?

As mentioned at the start: this is World Triathlon deciding that they’re not going to cede long-distance triathlon to IRONMAN. As WTCS stars have cycled out of Olympic distance racing and into longer events, they’ve chased the money and prestige of IRONMAN branded events. A few names from recent history: Jan Frodeno, Daniela Ryf, Gustav Iden, Lisa Norden, Kristian Blummenfelt — all former WTCS athletes who have found great success at IRONMAN racing.

Now, with the agreement between World Triathlon and T100, it appears that pipeline will instead flow more directly from Continental Cups to World Cups to WTCS and then, when the time comes, onward to T100 racing. The beneficiaries of that appear, to my eye, the athletes currently in development cycles. In theory this addresses some of the issues PTO/T100 have had with athlete start lists and getting contracted racers to their events, as the federations have more sway over nominating athletes to T100 starts.

It will also likely reduce overall operating costs for T100 branded events. Many of these races in 2024 have been stand-alone races, which creates a higher financial burden on the organization — effectively, you’re trying to play IRONMAN’s game, and when you try to play their game, you lose. Instead the release announcing the agreement talks about the potential to use existing WTCS or World Cup venues to produce T100 events. It’s a far smarter way to operate; consider, for instance, the outstanding atmosphere at the original PTO Tour event in Ibiza that coincided with Age Group Worlds. Speaking of: it would not shock me if, in the future, the Long Distance World Championship is awarded solely at the T100 Grand Final event, in an attempt to also create more buzz, more attendees, around that race.

Lastly, this should also solve for the PTO’s greatest ambition, which has been on media and broadcasting rights. There’s now a ready-made platform to distribute content over to an audience that is hungry for more triathlon race coverage. And, well, it works. Factor with World Triathlon’s existing list of more than 25 different traditional broadcast partners and it should significantly increase T100’s media footprint.

There are still plenty of questions. Namely — will this actually last the full twelve years? Or is it a pipe dream? Will we see the elimination of series contracts as a result of deepening relationships with governing bodies? Or does this potentially change endemic sponsor behavior, and where they choose to focus their dollars and athlete contracts? Or will athletes in this newer framework be more tied to federation-based sponsorship and contracts?

One thing, though, is for certain: it feels like the divide between IRONMAN and World Triathlon could be as wide as it has been since 2004. And the last time that happened, IRONMAN grew into the company we know it as today.

Photo: World Triathlon

The post World Triathlon, T100 Tie-Up Brings Us Full Circle first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

This year marks my tenth year as co-directing the Hogsback Half Marathon, a road race held in the rural, quiet northwestern corner of Connecticut. Of the four productions that Kelly and I have put on together over the last decade, it is the one that we’ve poured most of our energy into. That’s in part due to the sheer logistics of a half marathon versus the distances of the other races, but it’s also because it was the one we did together first. (She’s been doing it well before me.)

Hogsback is the race we first produced a few weeks after my son, Owen, died. It was a race we produced when our daughter, Ivy, was four weeks old. When we moved to New Hampshire six years ago, it was always the race we were going to keep. And we’ve seen a lot over that time period: shrinking from 550 registrants to a low of 270 or so in our rebound from COVID, inflation impacting our ability to make charitable donations post-event, and different demands from athletes.

Still, despite all that, there are glimmers of hope beneath the surface that could show the racing community is truly rebounding post-COVID.

The Economic Realities and Runner Acceptance of Them

Everything, and I mean everything, is more expensive when it comes to race production.

Let’s start with the bare bones basics. You need race directors. Kelly and I do not take a penny from the race; we get reimbursed for any expenses we personally pay related to the race but otherwise, as race directors we get paid the handsome sum of $0. We also do not have to pay any fees for permitting from either our race host location, or from the state of Connecticut for using state roads on our race route. We do, however, pay $500 for traffic control.

But you also need bibs and timing. And that’s not free. Based upon our total number of registered athletes, this cost $11.51 per runner. Depending on when you registered for the race, that represents anywhere from 12.5% to 28% of your total entry fee paid. But we have also never had issues with results from the company we use. It’s a fee we gladly pay.

Then there’s port-o-johns. You need those. (We probably could have used Dan to help command the lines at the end, but that’s another story.) We ordered five rentals this year, along with one existing one at our race location. It shakes out to roughly one port-o-john per 40 runners, based on those who actually showed up on race day. The cost of those rentals is up roughly 20% over pre-COVID times. We also procured some additional toilet paper at BJ’s pre-race, just in case.

Lastly, under the necessary column, are aid station items. We provide water and electrolyte drink mix (Gatorade this year) across six aid stations, and then gels (Gu) at two of those aid stations. You also have trash bags and paper cups for these. Lastly, each runner is given a bottle of water at the finish line, which they can refill as needed with either water or electrolyte mix provided at the end. Water alone is up about 30% for both refills at aid stations (six gallon jugs) and for the individual bottles at the finish line. Gatorade powder is 20% more than last year, whereas gels stayed mostly the same.

When you combine all of those figures together, it works out to almost $25 per runner for your absolute basics. Then there’s the nice-to-haves that help make a race feel more like an event: t-shirts that are included in the registration fee; shirts and items for our volunteers; medals; post-race food; awards for both overall and age group champions; a rental van to help transport everything to and from the race site; gas to power that van; and more.

So it’s clear: costs have gone up. Which means prices to runners go up, too. And I suppose the good news out of this is that runners are understanding of this economic reality, particularly for races that serve to donate all monies collected above expenses to a charitable partner. Despite higher pricing, runner registration and turnout on race day were highest since COVID. The donation to our charity partner was also the largest since 2021 at more than $5,000. It certainly feels less dire than it did even twelve months ago.

Challenges That Still Exist

It’s still not a perfectly rosy picture out there. For example, if Kelly and I actually charged the race even minimum wage for the number of hours we put into the event, the entirety of that profit would have been wiped out. We’d need to roughly double the number of runners registered if we took money in order to then provide a similar donation level, assuming economies of scale.

Race calendars also remain oversaturated, spreading a running population thin across dozens of events that might be taking place on the same weekend. Just within the state of Connecticut, there were more than 40 running events taking place on the week before, the same weekend, or the week after our half marathon. It’s too many events for too few total runners, which simply results in event cannibalization. I would expect to see some of those events evaporate due to low participation volume — which ultimately is brutal for the communities those events take place in, but is ultimately what will need to happen for a sustainable race calendar to exist.

And ultimately cost remains the ultimate question. We raised our prices for the third year in a row, with a maximum price after registration platform fees of almost $90 for a half marathon. Will runners still support a smaller event if that dollar amount sneaks out north of $100? That feels like a price point third rail. Then again, so did $200 for a pair of running shoes, and nearly every pair of carbon-plated racers is above that price point (and seem to be selling well).

There are ways as runners to reduce that cost, of course. Earlier registration grants access to lower price points. More runners registering earlier also generally brings costs down due to lead times for key items. Despite that, though, runner behavior tends towards registering later and later. This year, almost a quarter of the race-day field registered in the final 25 days before the race, with 70% of that paying the highest price to register for the race. It’s likely a response to race cancellations during COVID. Thankfully, we’re pretty well versed in this, and can plan for it — but it does add some additional stress as a race director.

Ultimately, though, we’re glad to have another successful event behind us. And now the planning for 2025 begins.

Photos: Kelly Burns Gallagher / Hogsback Half Marathon

The post Could Small Running Races be Making a Comeback? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

The inaugural season of the IRONMAN Pro Series is about to come to a close. For women professionals, there are just two points scoring opportunities remaining on the calendar: 70.3 Western Australia on December 1st, followed by the 70.3 World Championships in Taupo, New Zealand on December 14th.

As a reminder, scoring works as follows: IRONMAN victories are worth 5,000 points. 70.3 victories are worth 2,500 points. The recent IRONMAN World Championships in Nice awarded 6,000 points to champion Laura Philipp, and the winner in Taupo will receive 3,000 points. That makes for a maximum 5,500 points available — or less than Philipp or second place Kat Matthews earned in Nice. Points decrease for every second after first place you finish. And only five results may count towards your Pro Series points total, with a maximum of three IRONMAN finishes allowed.

So, crunching the numbers and seeing who has already maximized their possible number of finishes, here are the athletes we believe who are in contention for the Series crown — and the cool $200,000 bonus that comes with it.

The Two Favorites

Kat Matthews: Matthews trails long-time series points leader Jackie Hering by a mere 257 points, but the kicker is that Matthews only has four points scoring finishes to her name to close the gap. Her two IRONMAN wins this season, along with her podium finish at Nice, make her the overwhelming favorite for the series win. Any points scoring finish at either Western Australia or 70.3 Worlds gives her the edge, unless Hering can pull a rabbit out of her hat at 70.3 Worlds. And even that might not be enough.

Jackie Hering: It seems unfair to put the Series leader second in this. But given that she already has her five points scoring finishes to her name, there isn’t the same kind of upside potential for her points total that Matthews has. In fact, Hering could win both remaining races and still only improve her Series total points score by 741 points. That’s simply how consistent she has been all year. It’s hard to say that a top 10 finish at an IRONMAN World Championship could be her undoing for the series crown. Yet it’s her lowest points tally from an IRONMAN all year.

Still, having the lead still counts for something. It means Matthews still has to score. And if Nice taught us anything, it’s that even getting to the finish can prove to be an insurmountable task — just ask Anne Haug.

The Dark Horses

Lotte Wilms: Wilms is one of two athletes who have only scored at three races so far in 2024, meaning that she could win both remaining races and score all 5,500 points. If she were to do so, it’d push her up to a grand total of 18,788 points and likely guarantee a podium spot in the series. She’d need some help from Hering and especially Matthews for that point total to hold up for victory. It’s also asking a lot from Wilms, who last won at this distance in May 2023 at Challenge St. Polten, and hasn’t won an IM branded 70.3 event since Sunshine Coast two years ago.

Hannah Berry: Berry is the last athlete within 5,500 points of Hering, and she also happens to be the other athlete who has only scored at three events in 2024. She, like Wilms, would need plenty of help from the two athletes at the top of the points standings, along with taking the wins in Western Australia and Taupo. But unlike Wilms, Berry has more recent wins at 70.3 distance events — one this year, as well as taking the win at 70.3 Taupo last December. In fact, she’s a multi-time winner and podium finisher in Taupo — potentially giving her momentum heading into this year’s World Championships. We’ve seen this work with course familiarity before in venues like St. George — don’t count Berry out of it.

The Prize Money on Offer

Although we are looking just at who might be the winner of the series will be, let’s not forget — the bonus pool pays out to the top 50 athletes. But the big money sits in the top 10, with $650,000 divided up amongst those 10 athletes.

1st: $200,000
2nd: $130,000
3rd: $85,000
4th: $70,000
5th: $50,000
6th: $40,000
7th: $30,000
8th: $20,000
9th: $15,000
10th: $10,000
11th-50th: $5,000 each
Total: $850,000

Photos: Jackie Hering – Patrick McDermott / Getty Images for IRONMAN
Kat Matthews – Alex Koerier / Getty Images for IRONMAN
Hannah Berry – Albert Perez / Getty Images for IRONMAN

The post Women’s Contenders for IM Pro Series Crown Post-Nice first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Let’s start with the base numbers for a moment. 1,451 women registered for the 2024 IRONMAN World Championships in Nice, representing 65 different countries, regions or territories. And while yes, that represents a nearly 30% drop in the figure between the 2023 Worlds (held in Kona), there are a couple of mitigating factors in play.

First, there’s this year’s qualification cycle. There were only two races in North America in calendar year 2024 that qualified women for Nice — that’d be IRONMAN Texas and IRONMAN Lake Placid. Otherwise, if you were based in the U.S. or Canada and wanted to go Worlds slot hunting, you needed to travel relatively extensively internationally before another international trip for worlds. And then those races in late 2023 that were also available were in conflict with last year’s Kona dates. It made it more difficult to pull women from IRONMAN’s most populous participatory region. Still, just under a third of the field came from the United States. (The combined European region had the most athletes, with 47% of the field.)

And second is the Nice course. In talking with many athletes, the bike course in particular was a daunting challenge. For some, the descents were a more consistent talking point than the climbs. It was not dissimilar from some talk we heard about the 2021 IM Worlds held in May 2022 in St. George. If you can’t train riding downhill, it’s hard to prep for that challenge.

But even when you factor those items in — it’s nearly 1500 women registering for the IRONMAN World Championships. And by any measure, that is a success. It’s precisely why IRONMAN moved to the two-day format beginning in 2022. And it’s also why there’s no going back to a single day format. The spotlight is too bright, and women continue to star under those bright lights.

This year’s professional race in Nice was one of the best I’ve seen in my career covering triathlon. No caveats. From the surprise of a wetsuit legal swim, to the end of Anne Haug’s podium streak in the first 200 meters outside of T1, to the “could she pull this off?” of seeing Marjolaine Pierre on the front of the bike for a long-time, to the stride for stride run through transition for Laura Philipp and Kat Matthews on through the first lap — there was everything you could ask for. Drama. Tears. Joy. A well deserved first championship for Philipp. Live coverage that had few glitches.

And that’s just talking the professional race!

Let’s also give flowers to the various age group champions, representing nine different nations:

F18-24: Yixuan Chen (China) 11:09:00
F25-29: Caterina Mariani (Switzerland) 10:18:25
F30-34: Lea Riccoboni (France) 9:54:07
F35-39: Joanna Soltysiak-Vrebac (Poland) 9:56:33
F40-44: Jana Richtrova (Czech Republic) 10:25:21
F45-49: Laura Jalasto (Finland) 10:21:26
F50-54: Janette Dommer (Denmark) 10:45:06
F55-59: Loubna Freih (Switzerland) 11:32:17
F60-64: Christine Glah (USA) 12:25:05
F65-69: Judy McNary (USA) 13:14:30
F70-74: Missy Lestrange (USA) 15:13:39

Lestrange was also the oldest competitor in this year’s IMWC, at age 72, and is her 19th IRONMAN age group win.

Nice, too, is a worthy venue for a world championship race. The swim throws a wildcard into the mix (will it or won’t it be wetsuit legal) that you never see in Kona. The bike course brings such a different challenge, demanding all-around excellence along with the iconic images on the descents. And the run lap system, more common for European venues, makes for a better spectator and viewing experience.

It’s not perfect. Our industry and athletes alike would prefer for a single venue World Championships. But when given the choice between a single day race, and all the baggage that comes with it (lack of focus on the women’s professional race; the disproportional impact of age group athletes on that pro race; the late start for age group women and subsequent conditions faced on course), and continuing to split into two days into two venues, I know which one I’d take.

Photos: Jan Hetfleisch / Getty Images for IRONMAN (top, middle); Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images for IRONMAN (bottom)

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