Tchotchke : a small object that is purely decorative.
His house lacks any personality.
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You learn something everyday !
I prefer older houses but can’t be doing with the grief they bring.
NZ was really special. He was in tears at the end. He explained his Nan died while he was out of the country.
His IM Florida 2019 race was really impressive. He kept his fitness from Kona and he absolutely smashed it.
Two very impressive Kona performances.
Fun videos.
I don’t like the constant suggestions that he is thick. He has a strong regional accent and is clearly a working class lad, which I think leads to assumptions being made. At the end of the day, he races Ironman. I have never seen him sit down to do an IQ test, so unless I missed that video, my guess is that he is plenty bright enough to do what he is doing well.
His 300km ride … we have gutted that one out multiple times now. My own view was that people were curtain twitching. He did not breach the rules, but plenty people decided he crossed their own invisible lines of what should have been allowable. I avoided the Covid thread for about 3 months after all of the early judgement discussions where some people decided to determine for the rest of us what was morally acceptable. Drove me nuts!
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I avoid it generally because of who I work for and couldn’t stand reading all the comments from the genuinely clueless about what it takes to get info.
But we all choose our hill to die on.
Skipper studies Sports Business Management at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Minimum UCAS points for entry is 104, which is a BCC, or ACD.
That’s not thick.
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Florida 2019
Leave Joe alone!
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I’m not saying he doesn’t have good results. (not sure how that can be inferred from what I wrote), I’m saying that’s not what I remember him for.
No intention of leaving him alone. If I have a different opinion than others then it gets said.
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Not sure how this has turned into a Skipper thread from a Starkey thread but given it has…
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You could’ve picked a better Tweet 
Like this one
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Don’t think Joe helps himself with sponsorship doing things like releasing a video of him taking by his pre-race nutrition, grimacing and telling the camera how disgusting it tastes.
Would you risk your sponsorship budget with him?
Racing wise I love him and his approach, he is a superb triathlete. Off the course I find it all a bit painful to watch.
As for Starky, I love his attitude too but he has been absolutely idiotic here.
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Joe’s British, we like to find fault with successful Britons.
I’d actually say he’s our best chance of a Kona win.
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Yep, but he’ll never be a big earner, as he doesn’t play the game very well off the race course. As PCP says, I’d run a mile from him as a sponsor.
Not much sponsorship for pros not in ITU. Why give money to a guy or girl that never makes TV or the press when you can get a plastic pro instawhore to work for free at trade shows, promote you to 100000 “followers” for 10% off a pair of shoes and a box of gels.
vicious circle that one though Hammerer… all the while the IM pros look (mostly) so amateur in their approach to brand management and commerciality, the chances of any serious money heading that way are slim, and the chances of media consequently following are equally slim…
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Yep it is, but The Goss also struggled and she is a sponsors dream, winning races, cancer doctor and so bubbly and fun. It’s just so easy to dupe AGers who want to look pro on social media. We’ve all seen it and they are all being mugged because of their vanity, but taking money from the real pros.
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Yep, its not a simple game, and stacked against them… but an interesting comparison for me with Zwift and the tri academy… they take a handful of complete amateurs and with careful collaboration with them, probably get more PR in a single year than most pros get in an entire career. It needs managing as a part of an athletes job, and not just as a consequence of racing well, but not many of them seem to get that, and think they’re smashing it by sticking a video on Youtube once a month, and tweeting every other day… I worked with a sponsored athlete in a completely different sport for a while, and they took well developed proposals to manufacturers, with proposed story lines, target media outlets, goals for audience sizes, plans for how to access those channels and more… that’s professional brand management
Edit, just remembered that they also cultivated and worked on maintaining relationships with journalists in publications that would interest potential sponsors, including mainstream press… again, they saw it as part of their job.
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Thats the thing isnt it. A lot of athletes talk about their job as doing the thing they love, but making money is about doing what other people want. In any case I think Skipper has raised his PR game last year and I hope that trajectory continues - his distintive personality can be leveraged to his advantage and has. His “trash talking” really brightened up the IMVR races and probably widened his appeal.
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2xIMUK (I think)
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