He’s obviously getting some good advertising for his podcast as well so not losing out.
I’m sure there’s 2 sides to this but Ironman don’t have the greatest reputation to start with and aren’t helping matters.
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What a load of nothing - storm in a tea cup.
The only person getting worked up was the interviewer himself. I thought messick handled himself well, and kelly should wind his neck back in. Maybe listen and understand the answers he’s getting.
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I was thinking the exact same. Then Messick started eating and I lost a bit of respect for him. Will listen to the rest a bit later.
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I’ve not heard the ‘interview’ and won’t bother after reading the above thoughts and also this little summary from the Triathlonish email newsletter that comes out each week (which makes for good reading as a summary and some links to what’s going on in the tri-world).
Since we’re talking about things that didn’t add anything new to the triathlon oeuvre: I actually listened to the much discussed ‘Andrew Messick walks out of the How They Train podcast’ episode. And I’m here to save you a click: No one “walked out” of anything. I’d also like to point out—as someone who’s asked a lot of tough questions of many people, including Andrew, over the years (and also lobbed plenty of softballs just to see how they’d get hit)—there’s a way to ask questions that actually looks for answers and there’s a way to ask them that’s really just because you want to make a speech. Save yourself the hour here and get the same experience by scrolling in all caps on tri forums.
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More digs at Messick in this week’s episode of HTT interview with Sam Renouf the PTO CEO
When asked a difficult Q:
‘Im sorry I only scheduled 45 minutes I’ll have to go now’
Generally a well meaning chat though. Talks about desire to make sport a media success in belief that’s the only way to grow it as a pro sport. Long term future plans for a 200km race but not until got media support for LD.
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I like what the PTO is doing but I’m not sure you can make Triathlon more of a spectator sport in the way they are imagining it. I don’t mind being wrong. 
I joked earlier that you want Peter Aliss style commentary. Golf is long ass and boring to watch - I loved watching it and falling asleep in the afternoon. Same with LD triathlon.
Talking at a million miles an hour over long course is just daft as assholes. Slow commentary for the long haul.
A stadium Ryder cup of triathlon is kind of okay.
Super league is more media friendly.
But I think they should engage Amazon/Bezos and go full-millennial, drones chasing the athletes, onboard cams, underwater cams, live online “reactions”, HUD athlete analysis, training footage, same coverage of AG elites, have amateur virtual racing at the same time interwoven - you know: spend way more than the coverage is worth. And talk slowly. And hope.
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Do it like the NBA just demo’d and replace the athlete in the race with your avatar!
I don’t want to go all ST on this, however, I do think that Messick’s time in charge at Ironman should now come to an end. He’s been CEO of Ironman for 12 years - no matter how good he is, that’s too long. It’s not as if he has driven a massive creation in value, Ironman is not a financially healthy company. However, there are 2 other reasons why he needs to now move on:
Firstly, Messick is showing some very poor judgement, he appears to have become rather narcissistic, and is unwilling to accept any criticism. Events at Hamburg are tragic, but these things happen, however, it is hard to see how Messick could handle the situation much worse
Secondly tone from the top, my impression is that the culture at Ironman is changing, which I believe is largely down to Messick’s tone. The value that Ironman has is its brand, it’s a brand which is closely linked to its culture and people. I believe that Messick is now damaging that brand value. If Mdot is no longer the pinacle of the sport, Ironman is dead
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I have noticed a few Pro,s actually started speaking up against the brand steelman more and more recently ,which isn,t good with the PTO getting involved with middle/long distance events
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I’m not sure about that, Mdot is a completely different business to PTO and ITU. It’s just that they have similar products and customers.
As long as local business/authorities will pay to have Ironman bring tourists to their region they’ll be alive and well.
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I’ve said it before, but I’m not convinced that most people care about the pro races and the WC 
The nature of the events means that the stars are spread very thinly across the calendar. There aren’t that many showdowns between the big names outside the WC. I think most people only take a passing interest in the pros in the races that they’re taking part in because they’re more concerned about their own races.
Ironman has been around long enough that most people will have heard of it even if they don’t know what it actually involves. That brand awareness has to be a bigger draw for their customers than the pro races. Everyone wants to tell their friends, family and colleagues that they’re doing an Ironman and they want the merch to prove it 
I think the pro racing is an expensive distraction from their core business.
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Yup, i tend to agree with this. A bit like a smaller version of marathon running - take London as an extreme example. 99.9% of people will not follow athletics or road running in the slightest beyond knowing who Mo Farah and Paula Radcliffe are.
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Totally agree, I’m not too interested in the pro racing apart from when it is a stacked field, even then I’m never going to watch that much of an ironman.
I like watching the ITU a bit more, particularly on a challenging course but wouldn’t make a special effort to watch it.
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Was thinking about where would the perfect, super fast long distance course be located. I realise that Lac Leman, Geneva or Lausanne would be perfect: lots of accomodation, beautiful lake swim in clean water, ride round the lake is 180km and almost flat (one small climb out of Evian). In Lausanne for the ITU grand Final in 2019, the run was 10km - just do it 4 times.
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Ironman Scotland.
Swim start at balloch. Cycle up to the trossachs, up round to Callander back down to Balloch. Run into Glasgow.
Easy ( to plot. Not to do lol )
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Messick announces retirement. Let’s see where IM goes now
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getting out while the going is reasonable??
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jumped or pushed
Suspect it was mutual i.e pushed