ITU worlds

If funding is performance-related we can pretty much give up on the men’s team in Tokyo, the women on a good day could fill one or two spots on the podium, on a bad day would all miss out completely.

In other news, it’s looking like the BBC have all but ditched coverage of ITU this season.

We had Leeds on BBC Two iirc but this Saturday both races were relegated to online, pretty sure they used to be on the red button at worst but post-Brownlee domination they seem less interested, it’s not as though they had much else to show either.

Is that going to affect sponsorship and lead to less investment/funding again?

Yeah, I wanted to watch back the mens race but couldn’t find it on thr BBC sport site at all. They used to all be available for watching later, as well as being streamed live.

It was on “a” red button as I see it at my parents house. What i have noticed my Sky BBC red button is different to my mums where they get multiple options, sky you get one programme which isnt usually the tri. I have had it before where i wanted to watch it and couldn’t but my parents did. I am subscribed to triathlon live though, its 20EUR a year and worth it for the historical stuff alone!

I’m not so sure, there is a year to go yet. Alex is still young and developing a lot, if he ends up in a decent bike pack he will beat anyone in tri in a foot race. Problem at the moment is a bit of naivety and the fact people arent working with him on the bike. Not sure why his OW times are a bit down as in the pool hes comfortably faster than he’s showing in the recent races, again probably the lack of experience at this level. The 5k at London in July probably took more out of him than he would admit. That was a massive race for him and pb also with limited specific run training. Johnny has time to find some form as long as he stays fit also so cant be written off just yet. I think all the women are capable of a top performance, GTB and Jess are looking excellent prospects.

Not true, all races have been shown live on iPlayer (and the BBC Sport website) and are available for catch up for 30 days after.


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Johnny was looking very strong on the Swim and on the bike in Lausanne. After 20km he tried to make a break but no one went with him. His run form is not brilliant at the moment.

Alex missed an opportunity, the swim was really tight and all came through in one pack, however, he didn’t quite make it into the leading bunch of riders, they put in a bit of an effort initially and put a good gap to the second group. If he had got a bit further up in the swim and got into the lead riding group it would have been a different race.

I think both Johnny and Alex could do well in Tokyo

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Ah, thanks for the links. I searched and searched on Sunday, but just couldn’t find them. I was focusing on the BBC Sport app though, which is how I’m sure I’ve found (and chromecast) them before.

Your local club cycle TT might only cost £5 to enter, but I’ll bet the winner has a £££ bike, speedsuit, pointy helmet, aero wheels, and other assorted expensive kit to make them faster.

Look at the front of your local running race and half the field is wearing £200 trainers.

Those that can afford it will always have an advantage. Unless you can prove yourself enough to get on a funded program.

I got back last night after 4 days working as a TO on the team the ITU had there. I’m not going to comment on whether AG racing is a money pit/waste of time/etc as people have multiple opinions on here and elsewhere - in my simple view, if someone wants to race GB AG, it’s their choice and they don’t have to. simple as.

however, a couple of points from behind the scenes.

  1. the Grand Final nearly didn’t happen and that news came as a big shock to us TOs - it was the 1st comment made at our briefing - we had no idea until we arrived in Lausanne. the LOC (event organisers) who had managed the setup of the Lausanne Tri for the last 20 years resigned en masse after visiting the GF in Gold Coast last year. I’m still not sure why, but general feeling was that they couldn’t put on a Champ event to the required standard so resigned rather than try. this left the ITU with a huge problem but they managed to get a team together who had to plan and set up the whole thing in less than 12 months and from scratch as the previous LOC wouldn’t hand over data. the fact they new team achieved this is staggering. so perhaps the OP needs to look at the comment about the ITU putting on an event that doesn’t compare with WTC - there were extenuating circumstances…

  2. as a result of 1, there were big gaps that us TOs and other volunteers and ITU staff had to fill to ensure the events worked. and work they did. it was tough and we had long days - 4am to 8pm on 3 days. and we are all volunteers doing this for the love of the sport and our commitment to making events great. many athletes thanked us for our work and that always helps us smile.

  3. GB AG athletes did well and in some ways the fact we returned with fewer medals than previous years is a good thing as it means we don’t dominate and perhaps other nations are now upping their game which must be good. the general standards of racing were higher than I’ve seen before - much higher in my view than Gold Coast and on tougher courses.

  4. I thoroughly enjoyed it :ok_hand:

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Thanks for a great response. I was unaware of the circumstances, and in light of that the team did a great job. They put on an event, that ran without any issues (that were evident to competitors at least).

My criticism of not feeling special (make me sound like a self indulgent primadonna): ran out of event shirts, food etc after finish, food/drinks on offer at feed stops, somewhat sad athletes village etc was all very minor and is probably a reflection that the team were focused on getting the basics right and not worrying about the fine details.

The volunteers and TOs did a fantastic job. The marshalling on the course was probably the best I have seen - marshalls were always present, but employed a light touch (although I did see quite a few people in the penalty tent), a real first for me was the marshals being really strict on blocking, which made passing problem-free on a very crowded course.

I also really liked the course, tough and technical and quite different to anything Ironman put on.

Given another opportunity to take part in an ITU event, I will probably do another, so long as it is not logistically too challenging

I certainly haven’t had any negative feedback from the athletes I work with. The standard of racing was very high. The course very good. The mix of international athletes very good - Team USA looked as big as if not bigger than Team GB.

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that was something us Moto TOs were coming down hard on (instructions from above!) on both age group events (more so on the sprint due to the shorter distance with the same numbers of athletes). I have to say that athletes played their part well and we had only a few penalties for drafting (lots of warnings helped reduce this), most were for blocking and littering.

it was bigger - not by much but still bigger. the Mexicans also had a huge team and their kit is by far away the best out there. if you include TOs and athletes, there were over 100 nationalities represented.

I saw no drafting at all, and the biking discipline was much better than at an IM event

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