Thought I’d start a thread for this, as it’s not too far away now. It’s also the only ‘proper’ Pro race showdown we’ll see for a while.
I thought this article by Macca was quite nice. His passion for the sport always shines through, and I like reading/listening to him. Though I know he’s a marmite character, or was more so when racing. But I love his honesty.
Do you have any idea how/if we can watch it?
Haven’t seen anything yet.
Really looking forward to this. I think it’s one of the most significant triathlons ever. Wouldn’t like to try and pick a male or female winner! Seems (with the odd exception) that the good short course racers can also race well at 70.3 distance but less so at full iron distance. Daytona is between half and full so it’ll be interesting to see if the short course racers can hang on beyond a half distance or if the long course specialists will be to the fore.
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Cheers for that, I just looked up the start times and they seem pretty good for us here too.
10:30am Women, 12:30pm men - by my reckoning we’re 5 hours ahead of that.
There will be a 20m drafting rule in force, interesting!
I wondered about that, swings things a bit back to the bikers when otherwise it looks like a course for runners. With the ITU, IM and 70.3 specialists plus very little season form guide this is really going to be hard to call.
Laps will be dull visually but it should allow good TV coverage and much better/more frequent time splits etc. I’m really looking forward to this one, its this year’s Kona. Hope all athletes can get there (I note that UK lockdown allows travelling ‘for work’ so for us pro athletes are ok).
I wonder how the bigger draft zones will be enforced though. It’s a pretty sizeable field, and with laps, which could make it a bit messy. With it only being a half distance there won’t be huge gaps (compared to say Kona) coming out of the swim.
But still, should be a pretty decent showdown on both sides.
There will be a big density of bikers close together for sure. Do you go 500w to overtake and get to the front or do you go 150w to drop back and then 20 people overtake you? First 30 minutes of the bike should be exciting, so for that reason you’ve got to think it’ll favour strong swimmers who get to the front of the bike and can just hit a consistent power.
The bike will be all about being aero and staying aero for 90mins and then running off that position.
We’ve not yet had any info yet on how the bike will work in practice, it’s a 5 min lap so potentially there could be some slower swimmers lapped very early on. Big issue will be ‘dropping in’ and fairness with the bigger names.
Hopefully with all the NSACAR cameras there will be no need for camera bikes or draft refs on bikes which can influence the front of the race. I’d like to see 20m chevrons similar to what we have on the motorway painted on the track.
I don’t see them knocking-out 75 sec kilometres non-drafting!
@gingerbongo Think enforcing a 20m zone will be similar to a 12m; in this case the short laps mean they should be all over the entire field. Truth is straying into the zone by 1m will give much less benefit at 20m than 12m so it’s less critical anyway.
Lapping may be an issue. A long pace line catching another would be messy…
BBS with a known CdA and power gives me that, maybe I’m wrong.
I’m basing it off the 4km Pursuit WR of 4:01; so if Ganna rides 60 secs/km on a smooth track for 4km absolutely flat-out, I can’t see Triathletes riding only 15s/km slower for 80km sandwiched between two other disciplines.
Maybe I’m doing them all a disservice; I guess we’ll see on the day 
Start lists are out.
Sorry didn’t pick the link up from ST.
Are we ready for Lionel’s meltdown…
Should be some good racing. Would’ve liked to have seen Flora Duffy toe the line, see how she got on.
Is Starky racing…
He’s on the PTO isn’t he? SO maybe gave himself a wildcard!