Announced on @IronmanTri’s twitter this morning
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‘easy’ Kona stamp?
Victor Del Corral, Phil Graves, Brent Mcmahon. No huge names … but obviously it’s still only his first race and i’m not 100% whether he’ll take to it immediately or not. Especially after racing Europeans last week, Leeds ITU this week (I think) then a week off before Ireland?
Well, it’s likely that the weather will suit him i.e. not hot!
What’s the chances he and Graves are close on the swim, and they duel on the bike; Graves obvs dies on the run as a result like normal.
Brent McMahon is his main concern I’d say, a strong runner with good IM pedigree.
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Surprises me, given he’d still be giving signs he was undecided on Tokyo. Especially after winning that World Cup sprint recently, which whilst not WTS standard, still shows he has some top end speed to compete.
Interested to see how he fairs. It’s already sold out, so it’s hardly like Ironman have paid him big bucks to top up numbers.
Maybe it’s just the lowest key race (hard for anything to be low key for AB) that he can have a crack at without too much pressure (again not really the case for AB in any race). Wet, windy, local … just see what happens.
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Yup. I’m with @gingerbongo on this.
It’ll be a nice training day after Leeds for him.
Surely Graves can beast him on the TT bike?
Phil is strongAF! Just look at his SPOCO times.
Graves could be his own personal Andreas Dreitz…
I’m not sure Graves can ‘beast’ an in form Ali on the bike, I remember his holding off the Kienle/Sanders train at St George.
I think he’s still keeping options open. A good outing at Leeds, and a feeling that he can get his 10k run speed back sufficiently to threaten Gold at Tokyo and it’s hard to see him risking any of that chasing Kona beforehand.
That makes Cork a fallback and an interesting tester, followed by decision time 14 months out from Tokyo.
My money’s on KOna after Tokyo still (but I’d only risk a smaller amount now…)
Hahaha - we Brit’s don’t care about that!
It’d be nice to see them absolutely smash it together.
The US Tri media went nuts when Lange did that 
An “in-form” Brownlee. Phil’s been kicking out 28mph FOR MOST TTs this season. I wonder how hilly the Nelson 50 was?
But, yes, it’s going to be quite fun to follow
Either way, my money is on Graves lying in a ditch somewhere around mile 13 of the run. Although he did buck the trend in Tenby last year.
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it will be interesting to see how AB goes in Leeds this weekend as he’ll be up against a good field of elite men including Gomez, Schoemann, the French crew, Alarza, Mola, Birtwhistle etc etc and of course JB. if the Brownlee boys can dictate the bike like they did a couple of years ago, then it will be one hell of a foot race over 10k with the fast youngsters chasing. it does seem that AB is over his injury issues so will have gained some confidence with his WC and ETU Champ wins, but they weren’t exactly stellar fields
I’ll be there on the TO team so it should be an interesting weekend of working and watching the races - for me, at the swim and T1.
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Graves isn’t starting in Ireland, declared himself not fit enough - following on from a poor race at Lanza.
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Thorsten needs to get his act together then!
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It be good to see how he goes but I’ll wait to see if he actually lines up on the start line before I get too excited.
Fairly sure AB beat Graves on a few TT’s early last year and Graves had some decent form then, although doesn’t sound like it’s going to happen.
Like everyone says, similar terrain to Yorkshire and possibly conditions, probably won’t be a 30c+ heatwave, not a great pro field, plenty of time to recover for Nice\Kona and likely get a decent appearance fee.
Jeff
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Reading over on ST.
@TROSaracen hit the nail on the head.
“…running the gamut of distances chasing a GOAT palmares…”
C’mon, we all know Yorkshire is THE BEST country ever made.
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BTF are scared stiff of Tokyo. Lose the Brownlees and Alex Yee is the only athlete anywhere near fast enough to run to a medal. No medal, no funding. Wouldn’t surprise me if there is more than a bit of pressure on him to get fast enough to race. He has said Kona is his dream and that he wouldn’t feel complete without it. Maybe a bit of “easier” long distance work is what he needs though to build strength to go into next year?
perhaps only applies to the men; the girls are in with a good shout if Ms Zaferes or Ms Duffy aren’t there. but yes, the lack of medals could lead to loss of funding and is something the BTF are aware of
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Sorry yes, didn’t mean to leave the ladies out but they have big chances to medal so concern will be which 3 to go
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Given the course in Tokyo, Yee and a couple of domestiques might be the best option. Neither Brownlee can win a foot race anymore.
The women seem to be able to cover all the bases, with Learmonth for a swim/bike break, Stanford back running fastest run splits and Holland or one of the youngsters as an all round bet.
Race list has been updated.
Can AB keep up with Harry Wiltshire in the swim? That’d be a good draft for him. Igor Amorelli and Marino Vanshakensplatter (though he’s getting on a bit now) have both been added as well.
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