Skipper had said as much earlier in the week in the comments of a Strava ride
‘Who is left?’
OILELN (anag)
Norwegians on the top two steps and a battle for third
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Sebi for a comeback win 
Sanders will be up there.
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Lonelie?
O’Neill?
Lionel will podium (maybe I’m reading slowtwitch too much)
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From a numbers game point of view t’s certainly a better chance for him. And others less favoured.
But it looks like a race for the newbies, the ITU field. Whilst I had high hopes for McNamee in recent years I don’t think there’s any indication he has upped his game so we hope on Brownlee but his recent outing was not inspiring confidence either.
And with so few long course top flight players I’m not sure what a win from them will mean.
Of the IM specialists it looks like a very open field but you’ve got to be thinking their chances come from mistakes by Iden, Blu and Brownlee right?
Aernouts?
Sam Long and Gomez need to be taken off the linked list.
Nillsen?
Brownlee was ill going in to Oceanside so I wouldn’t use that as a guide to his form. Skipper said AB was absolutely flying at sub-7 training days
I wasn’t reading too much into the Skipper comments, think he is part of the AB sub 7 pacing team so is going to talk up AB, especially given his ‘hype train’ comments aimed at the Norwegians.
So he’s always going to talk AB up. That said AB clearly has a decent block of training in the bank for the first time in a while so should be in the mix.
Question really is has he got the patience to save his matches to be competitive at the back end of the run.
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Yes, it still seems he is fighting the race rather than letting his superior fitness win him the race. I’m a bit tired of the burning matches phrase but he does still seem to put in bursts for position that cost him later,
Don’t think I heard he was ill at the time of Oceanside, still feels like an outside contender to me but I hope I’m wrong. A win would be awesome, and any concern of Frodo not being there would evaporate in a wave of patriotism 
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Looks like Johnny Brownlee is dominating the field at Challenge Gran Canaria Half
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Last years winner, Lucy Buckingham battling for the lead too. Double money this year.
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By dominating, I obviously meant cruising mid pack way out of contention.
Tough coverage to follow as well, I hope no one followed the link I posted.
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I’m not sure JB’s heart is really in the longer stuff
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He got an Olympic gold medal last year, has the commonwealths this year and can still duke it out in super league. That would look more like fun than trying to convert to a different sort of athlete for long course.
I reckon he’ll try and stay short course through to Paris; any long course stuff he does will be long training days.
Agree, although surprising he’s not doing Superleague this weekend if that is the case. I would have thought the money was better and the racing more specific for the commonwealth games.
Butterfield and Laidlow racing today at Texas, so they’ll be out of the running also.
I thought Hoffman was down for Texas but can’t see him on the tracker so maybe he decided to give St George a more serious crack? Or maybe I got it wrong.
EDIT Must’ve been a tracker/user error, Hoffman is hunting down the leaders on the run
So count him out of WC contention
Crikey just watched the last 30 mins, Hoffman and Ditlev shoulder to shoulder, Hoffman finally breaking him about 200m to go.
I believe Ditlev had a 8 min puncture stop and it’s his first IM.
No idea why Hoffman was throwing it down with StG in 2 weeks.
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When The Hoff broke Ditlev he really broke him, thought his legs were going to go from under him!
Doing that two weeks before St George is… interesting
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Yes Ditlev nearly didn’t make it round that corner.
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