Kyle Glass: Warning. Pro Tri News is a podcast with different opinions, knowledge, and possibly fake news about triathlon racing. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and some stories may be dramatized for comedic effect. Enjoy. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Pro Try News. I'm your host, Kyle Glass, joined by Mark Matthews, Pat Lemieux, Tabit Cox, and we are joined by Gillian. If you don't know who Gillian is, she's been Making sure that our Instagram is immaculate and pristine and clean and all the logos are the same and all the fonts are the same for the last two seasons. Is that right, Jillian? Yeah, I think I joined you guys beginning of last year, beginning of twenty twenty five. So yes. Hello. I'm super excited to be here. It's an honor. Thank you. Thank you guys. Just so everyone's clear as well, every time we post something sexist that's derogatory towards women. And you guys jump in our comments and tell us we're being sexist towards women. Jillian's the one posting it. ⁓ so you know, that's why we've put you on. Yeah, every every time you comment that, you're calling a twenty four year old woman a s w woman sexist, so but it's okay. So good. Kyle, how was your weekend? What did you do? Dude, my weekend was good. I ⁓ actually I spent a lot of time working on Pro Tri New stuff. I I did a article, ⁓ did some data aim admin stuff, and then embraced my inner nerd and went to go see the new Spider Man movie, which was really good. Nice, nice. Mark, what'd you get up to? Triathlon stuff, mate. ⁓ I went to the pub Friday, cat came down, little gen and tonic, and then we've done some training session. I've actually watched a lot of the tour de France avec Swift Femmes, whatever they call it. ⁓ thoroughly enjoying that. It's just finished now. Some would say more ends ten in the men's. ⁓ but otherwise chilled weekend, mate. Yeah. Nice. And Julian, what did what did you do this weekend? You're back in the ⁓ on the mainland, the US of A. I'm back in Indiana. I've been taking my weekly trips to Kokomo just for Pat. ⁓ no, I've just been hanging out with my family this weekend. I fly back to Europe on Tuesday. So it's been a pretty chill weekend with my family and I started running again. So I was able to do four by eight minutes running with two minute walk yesterday, which is going well. So I'm excited about that. Nice. And Pat, speaking of Kokomo, where where are you broadcasting from? I am calling in live from Omaha, Nebraska right now. So there's ⁓ There were two really nice criterions over here this weekend. So I drove, it was a seven and a half hour drive, and Gwen and the boys, she flew in yesterday morning with the boys. We both raced last night in the pouring rain and a six corner criterium. ⁓ both finished with all of our skin and bikes working. And then tonight we're doing a really hard figure eight criterion on a hill. And then she'll Gwen will fly home at seven PM and I'll I'll be home. I'll just drive straight home and be home at about eleven thirty or twelve. So Yeah, really ⁓ adventurous weekend, but super fun to get out and explore and just check out some different stuff. Like like Peyton Manning screaming Omaha. How are we feeling about the hill, Pat? Hill criterions. I can't think is your bread and butter necessarily. This is this is a big that look, this is a big ring hill. So this is gonna be totally fine for me. So ⁓ no no issues. No issues there. And then hey. As no surprise, I got precision fuel and hydration on my side. So I'm gonna have the gels, I'm gonna have the chews. Look, PTN fifteen, go check them out for yourself. The big guy in blue from Pro Try News sent you, please. Have you have you tried the new watermelon ones, Pat? Or are you just I crocking the OGs? I have not tried them. I've heard amazing things. ⁓ but but for me it's all about The thirty gram gels, both the plane and the caffeine. I hit those I'm doing f I did four races this week. I used them every single time. So Do you guys get free precision hydration stuff through the podcast, by the way? Yeah. Yes. Well, Mark, if you trained, you could get some too. It all you gotta do is just I ran I ran ten K to the swimming pool this morning and I swam pat. Which you can't do either of those things, so stop The crazy thing is is I don't train and I still get it. So make sure Yeah. Well we'll sort you out we'll get you sorted, Mark. This is annoying. Jillian looks lipid. Jillian's like what's Wait, wait, but I train and I change for nutrition every month. Jillian's the only pro athlete here. ⁓ As much as Pat wishes he was here. We'll get you sorted. Yeah, with Pat or while speak to HR, Jillian. Yeah, I'm right here. Mar Mark would be very proud of me. I have ⁓ I missed last week's podcast. A week and a half ago my wife and I went out to Kona and I've been doing course recon for Lionel for the last ten days in Kona just studying the course. ⁓ I know Mark loves going to Kona, do Kona camps and stuff, so we've just been out there taking notes for Lionel. Is Lionel race in? ⁓ he's not gonna race this year, but we're studying for twenty twenty seven. That's good. That's good. You know what? Tal, but do you still have the footage of when you did when you had the Globe camera? Yeah, no, I sold it. I sold that for five thousand dollars, I think, to Ruby. ⁓ what Pat's talking about is one time I mounted a camera to my front hood and I drove the entire bike course. And during COVID I got this random email from some random company, and they're like, We found this on YouTube. Can we buy this from you? And like this is when everyone was riding indoors, and I was like I think I'm the only one that has this footage and no one can travel there. So I sold it for like five grand. But no, it was fun. Just had a ⁓ stayed over at the Lieto's house and hung out for a long time, about ten days in Hawaii, so you can't complain about that. But ⁓ yeah, ready excited to be back on the podcast. We have a pretty big show ahead of us. ⁓ we're gonna really talk a lot about seventy point three worlds and then dive into ⁓ Should we talk about the special project you're working on while we're in Kona? While you're in Kona? ⁓ well It's still coming to fruition. ⁓ we're gonna be doing daily live shows every single day, ten AM from ⁓ Laverne's ⁓ win when Republic House still working out some details on that. But we are super, super excited. Well I think we're gonna have some special guests. This will be a little bit different from our podcast. We are actually still gonna do our Pro Tri News live show on on Thursday night in Kona. But w this is gonna be more of a race week episode and then hopefully, fingers crossed, we haven't even told our main talent, Mark, yet, but we're hoping to do a ⁓ Mark's pr very anticipated on what he's Wait, what what are we doing? A three hour live show from Bike Check In. So Mark, do you wanna commit now? I thought I got us banned from that last year or two years ago. Well ⁓ Yeah. We're trying to lift the band. So we actually are having the convers we're gonna chat to Iron Man this next week. We're super hoping they will let us do it. Nothing stiffer than a white claw, okay? I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Wait, Mark, what did you do? I had a I had a white claw drink whilst doing it. The guys setting up the finish line are doing whatever the locals are doing that are building the stadium, we're just gonna observe drinking and and ⁓ parallel. Jillian, what Mark did was I'll explain it. Every weekend there's commentating, especially during football season, basketball season. There's c famous sports sports broadcasters commentating everywhere, and they're all walking off camera and sipping whiskey, chugging beers, and they walk back onto camera. The problem was Mark accidentally for just a little bit did it on camera. So he has to walk off camera this time. I actually didn't even do it on camera. I got I got a dirty snitch ⁓ for having a an icy cold white claw. And I actually what I did was give one to a member of the crowd that was like there to watch us. And we had them in coolers and ⁓ I gave one 'cause he looked really hot and ⁓ it didn't It was electric. It was really and you can go back and watch it on YouTube. It's on our YouTube still. Some would say it was the greatest bike check in in history. It was electric. So if you wanted the white claw, you could just pour it into something else and hide it. Well that don't stop because that's what I was doing the whole of the rest of the time. I just caught with a fresh can. That was the problem. What was funny is I had a giant sippy cup full of it and I was interviewing Scott Dareo holding it. That wasn't a problem apparently. Anyway, we I've probably ruined this for her, but we are going back. ⁓ I'll come and do a I'll do a cameo. I'll do a cameo because obviously I'm not gonna spend three hours there the day before bike checking with cat racing, but I'll do a I'll do a cameo, yes, definitely. And we're working out details for our live show in Nice. So just be sure to be watching our Instagram and the website, protronews dot com, and we'll be putting all that information out. So So ⁓ some pretty hot topics. Kyle, do you want to run over some quick race results from this weekend? If you can hit ⁓ quick. I don't know if I could do him quick. There was a seventy point three in the Philippines in Lapu Lapu, which was from I talked to Natalie Van Coverdon who won the women's race, and ⁓ Ben Hamilton who was on the podium on the men's race, and they said it was just absolutely insane. It was like twenty mile an hour wins. They adjusted the swim course for the amateurs again, but kept the pros the exact same. So The amateurs swam, I believe it was like a one K swim for the amateurs and the pros swam two K, which another win for for the folks that have been saying we need contingency plans for the pros. ⁓ super windy on the bike, it like twenty mile an hour winds again, so ⁓ super crazy and then it was like a hundred degrees on the run. So ⁓ the run times were not very fast, but ⁓ Henry Schumann won the men's race, and Natalie Van Coverdon won the women's race. ⁓ Natalie only ran ⁓ about ninety seconds slower than Henry Schumann, so guy guy has an Olympic medal and only ran a minute and a half slower th or faster than ⁓ than Natalie's. I mean Natalie races more than anyone I've ever heard in my entire life. I'm g I'm I just clicked on a few names. Lionel Sanders, ninety six races, Christian Blumenfeld, a hundred and eleven. ⁓ Gwen Jorgensen probably's Skipped a couple years, she has ninety two. ⁓ a hundred and thirty six professional races. I would say she arguably has more race experience than anyone. And she said in her post race interview that that was one of the hardest races she's ever done. So just FYI. Speaking with a little experience. We'll give her that. Yeah. Just a touch. Why did you pick up By the way, that was really quick. You found that kind of cutting edge information rapid. I was I was actually on protrynews.com where we have so many stats you wouldn't even be able to wrap your head around. I mean, in fact, the most who has the most race experience, we should tip our hats to her because she has a total of twenty-five days of race experience like in her career. Meredith Kessler. Twenty five days. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Forty six Iron Man's. Yeah, forty six is complex. And there isn't a nicer lady on the circuit either. When Kat turned pro we met her at what like Kat's second pro race or something and she was so kind and so lovely. Yeah, big up Margaret. Right, what else? Come on, we move let's move on from Lapo, Lapo, Lapo. There is seventy point three seventy point three in Brazil, ⁓ Rio de Janeiro, where Jennifer Arnold won the women's race, and we've been getting a lot of flack for not saying names correctly. So let me see if you guys can hear this. You ready? And then this guy won the men's race. You ready? Agnin Stoyanovich. Agnin Stoyanovich. One the mental. I listen to a podcast and they do this. They do when they talk about like a topic in China or something like that, they what they don't do is try and get the names right. They just go they go one take, no run up. They just go for it and whatever comes out, they settle on, they move on. And I would prefer it if we just took that approach. So we'll catch we'll catch flat whatever we do. So you just see the name and you're gonna go for it. So I'm gonna go Ognungen Stojanovic. Totally wrong. That's but we're moving on. There we go. So those were the other races that happened this weekend. There was a World Cup. Jillian, you watched that race. Give us a brief like thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Well, the live stream wasn't fantastic, but there was in the women's race, there was about a fifteen Or yeah, fifteen person lead pack. I wouldn't really say it was a breakaway. it and yeah, it came down to a four person run race between Daniel Ori, Angelica Presilla, Beatrice Molozzi, and Tiaja Vertig. Sorry, Tiagea, I but we're going with it. ⁓ Yeah, ended up Dan Daniel Ori won, Angelica Prestia was second, and Bea was third. ⁓ And yeah, that was a super exciting race from the women. I know some of them also raced in Rio last week and got really sick after the race. So yeah, it was great to see that they could come back and ⁓ put together another solid race weekend. And then on the men's side, there was a five-man breakaway on the bike between Toby Powers, Shahar Sageev, Eustace Topper, Martin Damouth, and Dylan McCullough. And then in the end, Dylan took the win, Eustace was second, and Toby was third. And I believe this was Eustace and Toby's first World Cup podium. So congrats to them. Wow, nice job, Jillian. It's like she's a natural Bish Bosh Bosh done names. All of the names are perfect as well. We're happy. We'll just keep going. Thank you. But the the the the the hottest the hottest news of the weekend though was or this past week is the graphic that Jillian made. Which is Chinese shoes are here. And I caught a lot of flack for my comment. And I don't know why people are so mad at me. Because everyone supports these Chinese shoes. I don't support ⁓ I only support American made shoes. And I wrote on here I only support Nike 'cause all their shoes are made in the US in a clean and safe work environment. People are so mad at me for saying that, Mark. Why? So they just don't they like it can't be sarcastic he's American, he's being deadly serious. Secondly Yeah. Most people took it seriously. Agree. And secondly, you are dumb enough to actually think that was true as well. So maybe people did I don't know. I thought it was a brilliant comment. I love this. ⁓ Yeah, we ca Talbot, all the time that you've spent there, I can't believe we never saw the factory where we went. I know, I was looking at it so I didn't see it. We saw the pond where Drake shot the music video, you'd think we would have seen ⁓ with everything else. It actually made a it was sarcastically made a really good point that a lot of people's arguments behind these Chinese products is like build quality. ⁓ it's just more Chinese crap. You're like, Where do you think everything else you have comes from? Like It was a it was a very well delivered, sarcastic comment that made actually really quite a valid point that yeah, we're not surprised they're here. Yeah, so but ⁓ big ups to ⁓ Jillian on ⁓ a lot of these we're excited about on the show, but more importantly, I know we said it earlier, massive thank you. A lot a lot of these graphics wouldn't even be able to be made without her and they get a lot of interest, so big ups to her. Been to plenty of races the rest of us haven't bothered our ass to go to. Like 70.3 worlds like a lot of these other races. So yeah, fair pay. 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I I don't know how many pe I don't know if Iron Man did this to like pressure people to say, Yeah, I'm racing or no I'm not racing. Like I d I don't really know. What do you guys think? Because There's a lot of people on this list that I've had personal conversations with that they're like, No, I'm not racing, but they're still on this list. But then there are some big names not on there. So people have had the chance to take themselves off. Like George Taylor Brown, who I thought would be unbelievably good on this course. Like I really think she could win this race, isn't on the list. So she's she has taken herself off. So I guess it's at this point, like you might hear you might talk to people and they might say, I'm not racing. But have they pulled themselves out? So I think then the guy that lives with her, Vincent Louie, he's he's said he's not doing the race. He's focusing on Kona. I yeah. I I think I mean this this I don't want to harp on this. This goes back to what I said about their start list procedure. I like that they put it out a month early just to get the hype and start building it. ⁓ you know, I think what they do is they just did this preliminary start list. Yeah. And then now they're gonna be able to rock They're gonna be able to drop another one, you know, effectively Monday of race week, right? ⁓ but I think it was the right thing to just get the ball rolling and and say, hey, look, we got an amazing lineup. And no matter who ends up racing, they do have an amazing lineup. And the thing is, here's the other thing. If you've earned your spot to qualify, you've already earned yourself on this list, right? Yeah. So GTP did some you know, this is a race you have to qualify for. So they they can just put up all of the names and just say this is who's are this is who's qualified. I and and I'll and I'll jump into that too. A lot of this ⁓ just like what Mark alluded to is probably almost more so the athletes problem here. Because here like a perfect example, Lionel's put his name on plenty start list and when it rolls around time where they're needing to post it. No one's heard. They're trying to get Lionel scheduled to do like press conference or something like that. No one's heard from him. So like Iron Man Pro membership will even try to reach out to him to see if he's racing. No response. They'll reach out to me and be like, is he is he racing or not? And so you can I mean, think about that's that's a hunt. There's seventy eight women, seventy whatever men who'll reach out. What is the plural of woman? Women. Women. ⁓ seventy eight I mean to reach out to a hundred fifty plus athletes. There's seventy five women and seventy men. Just have far. I mean, it's just it's more of a nuanced thing. I'm not boggered down by that. And then also some athletes too will just leave their name on there because they're like, you know what? It's five weeks away. Maybe I'm feeling really hot. And maybe I want to jump in. I'm not gonna take my name off 'cause then we've seen this what happened before of a Gustav Eden and a Lionel Sanders trying to jump onto a start list last second. So why not just leave your name on? So that's just more of the nuance. Yeah. What'd you guys think of I I've been harping on this a lot, the bib number situation? Like you looked why is Hayden Wilde bib number forty four? Like what is the organization behind doing these bib numbers? Martin Ben Real, a race favorite, is number seventeen. There is there the short answer is there is no organization. This would go back to again if they had a proper start list procedure with a pro series ranking as the first credential, this would make a ton of sense. Mark, am I wrong? I would go personally, I would go with reigning champion of whatever that race is, number one, and then the rest just follow down in terms of pro series ranking. Just be done with it. Every race. Every Iron Man race on the circuit. And if you're not on the Pro Series ranking at all, you've got no points. You just filter in the following numbers. Well they but the problem is because Iron Man wants to capitalise on big names. So if they get someone step across to Iron Man that doesn't have any pro Iron Man experience at all, I don't know, like Cassandra Beaugrunt decides to do a 70.3 boise, right? They don't want to just have to give her bib number 54. They want to be able to go. Cassandra's here and they want to stick her in. But I would rather there was just a standard procedure and on those extremely rare occasions, they just have to suck it up. But with someone like Cass, I mean, within a world triathlon race, if you just jump in, you'd be last on the start list. I mean Cass is gonna bring the aura and the presents and the Olympic gold medal in general. Like you're gonna know she's there. So I mean she could go as fifty fourth on the start list. I really don't think that I think it's exactly what you said. Like What 'cause you have a big name, you should be ranked high. Like, I I I don't see necessarily why you should be almost complaining about that. Like, some of these athletes has done so much racing, like like a Mark Dubrick's a perfect example. I don't know where he's at on as far as ⁓ he's bim number like sixty four. They put Hayden Wilde in front of him. He's done way more races. I personally think Mark Dubrick should be higher than that. Like Hayden Wilde, like you shouldn't get the favoritism of just because you're a big name, be able to come out earlier and all that. Like you didn't roll your eyes. He was second place since seventy point three worlds two years ago. It doesn't matter. Two years ago. He hasn't raced like he hasn't raced since. He's been doing other things. Like why should you roll out the red carpet for him? And if it's based on pro series rankings, what would his pro series ranking be? Way far down. Like it doesn't even say we're making we're making him s has he complained about this? Because he definitely hasn't complained about this. No, no, no, no, he's some sort of villain shit. He's he couldn't give a shit. No, no. We're using him as an example, everyone, just to be clear. This isn't Hayden Bashing for the sake of it. To be honest, I talked to Hayden this week and I like number forty four and he was like, I'm Lewis Hamilton, it's all good. What's interesting about the men's start list though is that like ⁓ one through ⁓ ten are like who got first through tenth last year. But the women's there seems to be like no method to the madness. Just like the big names are up front. A great We are are debating this again and I think we put pressure on Kyle to tell us which pros are upset about this. And I'd throw that same question back. No. Which pros are upset about it? Let's be clear. For me it's not that any pros are upset about it, but it's a level of professionalization for the sport that should be met. Because I think that the start list procedures for these Iron Man Pro Series are a mess anyway. And so the the way that they set up the numbers for the racing would be a logical next step. It's not complicated that for every pro series, it should be you're just based on your pro series ranking 30 days out before that race. Super simple. Like this would be a really easy one. Antonio and Scott DeRue met. In Tampa. This would be a very easy thing for those two groups to align on and move forward with. And you're just making it more difficult on the broadcast team like the broadcast team now they're gonna like, ⁓ bib number forty, rather than like looking immediately at the bib list and being like, ⁓ bib number three I know is Hayden Wilde, bib number four is blah blah blah. Now, like if you look number forty through fifty, you got Morgan Pearson, Lasse Priester Nick Thompson, Hayden Wilde, all guys that are gonna be at the front of this race, Ben Fay, like all these guys are gonna be at the front of this race. And they're f so far down the Kyle, that doesn't matter. If they're on their pro series rank, Hayden Wilde's gonna be number sixty five, Morgan's gonna be number seventy two. It doesn't matter. So it it all we're saying is just have a system that's the same every time. I will say Jillian makes a great point. The men's is basically top ten in order of finishing last year. Like with the gaps taken out who isn't racing. The women's is is sort of starts off like that and then they just shoehorned Laura and Cat in there because like big names let's get them in the kind of gone back. Then they kinda go back. And and we talk about pro series ranking. I'm now suddenly not in favour of pro series ranking. I would I actually think they should look through the whole list, decide who they think the favourites are, and just put them in order as well at the top. So the favourites are like one through ten. Amen. I agree. But it but it it it it still leaves it as like an opinionated thing. It's like Lionel Sanders is on here. We have number twenty seven. What are we where where should we where do we put YouTube and Instagram followers on the list? Shouldn't it be like a lot higher? And then you're like, Well it doesn't matter. Well then all right, so we do seventy point three wins. He's the winningest of all time. So should he be higher? No, it's there it's just it'd be I guess if you want to do opinionated rankings, we could maybe New a bit new bib list of that. I see this. But if you go by like r rankings, if you go by rankings or like favorites, at the end of the day and for most of the Ironman races, it doesn't matter what bib you start. It's not like everyone's lining up on a pontoon, walking out in their start number. They're all gonna get in the water and do a swim warm up and then line up wherever they want to be. You guys they do do the call out though. You guys I give world trials. You guys I give World Triathon and T one hundred a a fair bit of shit over the years. You can't really poke holes in their start list procedure. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Like this is somebody has set up a for procedure for this and it should just be copied. But ⁓ just real real quick on that Pat, what happens if you if Hayden Wilde enters a World Traplin Series start list? Is he ranked really high on there because in the past he's gotten silver at a an Olympics? Is his current standing? It's current standing. Yeah. It's your current standard. If you roll on like right before you go last, correct, Pat? That's correct. That's great. So we agree. I I like I like mine. Reigning Champ gets bib number one of whatever race it I don't have any arguments against Pro Series ranking. Mark, for world championships, for world championships, that's the way you'd do it. Boom. Yeah, done. ⁓ Super simple. Now let's let's transition to the athletes that are actually racing. ⁓ do you guys think that this is the greatest 70.3 world championship start list of all time? I way more interest in the bib numbers. Can we go back to that? ⁓ No, I'm not giving it No, it's not. It's not. Let's not get her carried away. Jan versus Alistair Brownie versus Javier Gomez. Javier Gomez, South Africa was the greatest. Yeah, let's not I was gonna say South Africa also. Yeah, let's not suddenly do this thing we do every single race greatest start list. It's an insanely good start list, women and men. But nothing will top that race. Yeah. So if we if we see ⁓ a big group of Hayden, Casper, Christian Yella, I'm not sure if Martin Van Reel's going. ⁓ Gustav, a lot of these guys all come off the bike together and they're all running and we got a pack of ten plus dudes and they're running for fifteen K. ⁓ fifteen K together, ten K together. It'd be pretty cool. I think this is setting up to be an incredible seventy point three worlds, and I think here's the main reason why. We're back to a pre-Kona seventy point three worlds, right? So in this current era, though you can thanks Gwen for buckling up your shoes when I'm talking. ⁓ But the the so so that's why I think we're led to see an amazing race, right? We got a European seventy point three world championships before Kona. The last time we saw that, I think, you know, was in Lati. obviously the men's race was incredible, the women's race was was fine. It was good. I like I think it just didn't have the like the depth potentially. This one seems to be setting up that if ever if the start list that we have today race, we're in for a great show. Yeah. Yep. Kyle, I think it'd be too hard to say the people that are on the start list who are actually racing. Let's just maybe go through the start list and pick a few people that we don't believe are racing It might make more sense. Yeah. I was led to believe that Vincent Louis is not doing this race because he is focusing on Kona and wants to go all in on Kona and that be the last race of his professional career, I believe. I was the rumor that I'd heard. Yeah, that's the last I heard also that Vince will not be there. I and and these all could very well change. I don't believe Martin Van Riel is doing this race either. Sam He is? ⁓ I haven't heard that about Martin. No. I heard he was doing the race. Martin was in Nice like last weekend or the week before. He was just in Nice. So like I said, anyway. Sam Long Sam Long I believe is not racing. Lionel Sanders, maybe? N not racing, no. Trevor Foley, assuming not racing. No, he's I I think that he may be racing. It depends on how he goes after Zell ⁓ C. Yeah. So he's racing Kalmar and Zell ⁓ C. Correct. Okay, got it. By the way, got it. What she's thinking is what the fuck is he doing? Yeah, got got it. Sounds sounds good. Yeah. No call mat. Yeah. Yeah. I hope I hope Sam Dickinson races, 'cause I think that he he has a really good shot at ⁓ being a a dark horse contender in this one. Wouldn't But I haven't heard anything. A Seth Ryder does very well here. ⁓ he's got a stress. Sam Dickinson's had a stress fracture. I'm not sure he's back training or racing just yet. I was looking for my I was looking at my social media scouring guru across the room there. And can we head over and look at the more exciting start list? The women's So who do we think I think like I think Lucy's racing, I think Taylor's racing, I think Kat's racing, I think Laura's racing. I think Marjolane will race, I Judy DeRonal race, Solvigle race for Pro Series. Like the hitters, I think I think the women's is pretty damn complete. Like I think they're gonna run it out. I don't see it I don't think any of these women are not racing. No, the big surprise for me was not to see Georgia not on it 'cause I really thought this this race suited her. ⁓ with some of the forms of Hannah Hannah Berry also pulled her name off kinda right after the startless came out. So Yeah, which is interesting for pro series 'cause she's obviously a bit of a contender on that side. Paula Finley, this course suits her really well. She climbs phenomenally well. ⁓ but I mean you've got the two big hitters out front, Lucy and Taylor. You know, they've won what the last six consecutive seventy point. Dating back to twenty nineteen. Yeah. And they they will race together. ⁓ Lucy's got her work cut out for a holding her on holding Taylor on this climb. But then Lucy has got second on the com, the Queen of the Mountains for this climb from back in twenty nineteen. She climbs really well herself. And then you've got some of the runners coming from behind and charging. Like I think the as far as the start list goes, w this is pretty much what you're gonna see. As in everyone that you you wanna see racing as in for the favourites, ⁓ they're on the list. They're starting. If there is some chaos and Taylor and Lucy don't end up winning this race, it will be the first time that someone other than Taylor Nib, Lucy Charles, or Daniela have won a seventy point three world title since twenty sixteen when Holly Lawrence won. So interesting stat for you guys. That is the girls with the with there's there's girl there's ladies on this lifts that race three Iron Man already this year. You know, and there's there's people like Solvi, people like Kat that have banked a load of racing. So I think that there still might be a couple that'll be like, let's see how we feel. Yeah. Which is the perk of the way the Iron Man do this for the athletes, but it makes it hard for the media team. And the same probably applies for the men. KB, for instance, doesn't really need to do this. So if it's not going smooth into this and he decides not to, I wouldn't read too much into it. I wouldn't, you know. Like if KB 'cause he's undeniable about this. He was he said he wasn't, he said he is. I don't think we tell an awful lot about Kona form if someone chooses not to race this. No. No. I think there'll be enough people that will pull that will pull themselves off this start list to maybe focus on Kona. But th and then there but there's also some short course athletes Like, definitely gonna butcher these names. ⁓ Kathia Shar, is that her name? Yeah. Jillian Job. Yeah, Kat Katia. And yeah, and then also ⁓ Sophie Evans are like two athletes that could one two at Ironman seventy point three Valencia that didn't really I don't wanna say didn't race anyone because they were two incredible athletes there, but you don't know how they would fare against like a Lucy Charles ⁓ or a Taylor Nibb and they could definitely come on and p sneak out of the podium here and surprise a lot of people. Like Kathia Shaw, for instance, you know, if you haven't invested loads of time in your T T setup, the amount of time you can spend sat in the bars, you know, can she sit T T solid for two and a half hours? It doesn't really matter on this course so much. It's way more about your explosivity, your just your power to weight, your And then a bit of descending. She's a phenomenal biker, right? Yeah. Yeah, Katya is amazing on the bike. She's so strong. I'm really excited to see how she does on this course. She may surprise us like Tanya did last year. I am a bit sad to see not see Tanya Neuberg qualify again, but I think Katya will hold up the short course short course women here. I'm I'm really bummed that Pat walked away because ⁓ I was gonna ask him if it was true that Gwen paid her ten thousand dollars to ⁓ To pull Gwen up in that World Cup because that was the rumors going around for a while. Do you remember that, Pat? ⁓ Ten grand in a World Cup to just pull Gwen up to the front and they weren't even anywhere near each other in the race the whole time. That was all the rumors going in all week. I I invested that money. I gotta check, it's probably worth a lot more today now. So ⁓ but yeah, great bike rider. ⁓ Solve Lasta, or she gonna show up and race? She'll race, I'm sure. I mean ⁓ she had a low patch. We saw her very honestly and candidly speak on the mic pre Swansea that things have been hard for her. ⁓ just coming off the back of Hamburg, she'd struggled a bit. But she's she's gonna be fit for Kona. She's dangerous on any race she does. I know she's historically said she doesn't like climbing that much and it's it's shown not to be like her strength, but She's still young. And you can change and address weaknesses or areas to work on when you're young so much easier than you can when you're a bit older. So I think anyone's a fool to count someone like Selvia out, especially when she can run like a two fourteen in Oceanside like she did. So one fourteen. That heavy ass bite. Why'd tear him up for it? Why'd you tear him up? I don't bring me into the felt bashing. This is Pat's baby, this one. Pat, why why do you hate the felt so much? I don't hate the felt. I it's just a heavy bike. I mean I had a I had a felt the aerobike. It was a great bike as long as you you know you didn't have to climb with the thing. So I think, you know, you get a Dremel, you start filing stuff off of it and and and maybe you think about it. So is the is the big soldier on a road bike? No, she not she can't do that. That would be way worse. I think I d about I'm not convinced it's that much worse. It's it's a miracle she won the Iron Man World title on that heavy ass bike. It's a it's a problem, and their new bike's not ready, so she's not gonna be on that. So th this is w look, I joke about the bike thing, but there's a reason why we've seen Christian on a different bike. ⁓ by the way By the way, that's a that's almost a hot take. Did we or did we not call that? No, I called it. I called it. I called it apparently. What? Yeah, I called it. Okay, as long as some as long as collectively pro Chinese. How do we know he's racing on it though? He's not riding it if he ain't racing it. What happens if his bike got lost and he had to ride? Guys, guys, we gotta c we gotta come clean. It's not like he's in We have to come clean. KB messaged After we posted it, K B messaged and he said that his his luggage got lost. Am allowed to call BS on something? Go on. I said I said you're full of shit. And he said la he just started laughing. I believe I don't believe KB's racing on it. I think he changes to Felt and races on the Felt. What? He's racing the Trinity. I'll tell you, he's racing the Trinity and Nissan Kona. Hundred per cent. And Kona. And Kona. Hundred percent. Alright, then this is what we'll do. ⁓ my my favorite athlete on this start list is Cat Matthews, and the reason why is because that means Mark will be at the race. So make sure you come to the Pro Nice Pro Tri News live show Thursday night. Mark will be there, and we're gonna make a shirt for Mark. We're gonna make actually two shirts. It's gonna say Mark was right and Mark was wrong. And on Sunday when Christian races, you will see Mark wearing one of the two shirts. How about that? Or how about we just have one with the boxes and I'll put a pen X through it. That'd be good. Probably more cost efficient. At least someone on this show is looking after our expenses, Julian. At least someone good Lord. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ Yeah, that will be it will be it'll be interesting, but it it's looking to be an extremely exciting race. Can we do it way too early picks? Well, 'cause we got Gillian on. Should we at least get Jillian's live picks? Gillian, are you going to the race? She's doing the live show with us. Yeah, wait, wait, I'll be on the live show. I get to Nice on actually I go to Nice next weekend for some course recon and then I get there on Tuesday before the race. So I'll be there. We wa we wait. We wait then for the live show. The start list is gonna change a ton. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And you and and so can athletes fitness. I mean, you got Julia Duron who shocks the world, gets silver in Paris, and you're like, This girl's gonna win Talpo. Speaking of Julie, we haven't mentioned that a lot of Sifert's on the start list. Exactly. She could run like a one ⁓ six here. Why is she training at the moment? Is she is she's in no yeah, she's in St. Moritz. She's been in St. Maritz for the past few months actually. ⁓ yeah, she won Alpduez over the week. ⁓ yeah. She won Alpduez. And then she's racing Vancouver this weekend. Yeah, flying across the world. Julie's racing that as well. They're both super dangerous. Alanis on the bike and Julie on the road. There's two buzzwords in performance sport that we hear all too often. Carbs and protein. Protein can get super confusing. We can see it in water, snacks, you name it. But about what about if we just went back to the original source? Good old fashioned meat. That's right. Visit goodrancher.com for your own box of just it can be steak, sausages, chicken, you name it. I love Good Rancher because here's the deal. I can make my own box and have it shipped to my house super easily. Check ⁓ out for yourself. Use code iron at checkout at goodranchers.com. American Meat Delivered. And if you don't trust me, they've got over twenty seven thousand reviews and four and a half stars. Check ⁓ out. Let us know what you think. Let's move on to the T one hundred race. Yeah, go on then. In Vancouver. ⁓ I I'm s I'm super excited for this. It's been s about sixty days since we've had a T one hundred race and about seventy since the women have raced at the T one hundred in Spain. ⁓ after this weekend it'll it'll be interesting to see who's leading the series. I believe it's gonna come down to ⁓ whoever races better between ⁓ Julie Duron and Georgia Taylor Brown. So Whoever w essentially whoever wins the race is gonna be leading the series after this. So. ⁓ Do you think we're gonna get any kind of like earth-shattering press conferences at this race as well? No. No. What makes you think that? Well, no, I was just we still have like the big press conference that we had in London. So I was just like, if they want to keep that momentum rolling and like do another like announce who the photographers are gonna be for next year or something, you know, kind of crazy like that. Dude, the the the craziest thing would be if they announced Talbot was coming back, that would be insane. I got the can for good on that one. I do recall Vancouver last year though. We did get to see a lot of the whales. A lot of the orcas, you mean? The orcas. Yeah. Yeah. So is that what you're cool? Is that all you remember? To be honest with you, it really was 'cause they showed it like seven hundred times. It was the Orcas jumping and it was I mean, it was great. Don't get me wrong. It was really cool, but I was like, Man, all right. They kept cutting that's yellow gines ⁓ running on the gravel path and come back to the orcas. So do the orcas. Lucy Byrum's coming back. ⁓ she hasn't raced since the T one hundred in Qatar. ⁓ Took a lot of downtime, but if you look at her Strava, she's been training a lot. She's gonna be I I think that she could shake things up. ⁓ she's listed on their website as a wild card, so ⁓ it'll be that'll be good. We can run through the start list real quick. ⁓ the top ten is Imogen Simmons, ⁓ Georgia Taylor Brown, Alana Sifford, Julie Duran, Natalie or sorry, Nicole Vandeke. Wow, she's doing the race too. Taylor Spivey Bianca Bogan, Sarah Perez Sala, Kate Waff making her return. She hasn't raced a T one hundred since Qatar last year. Ellie Salthouse, Hannah Berry, Lisa Perder, Paula Finley, home race for her. Lizzie Rayner, Lottie Wilms, Daisy Davies, Audrey Merle, Lena Meisner, and Lydia Russell. This is a shout out to T one hundred. This is a great start list. This is phenomenal. It's great start list. I'm from that start list that you've got I mean, the reality is if it wasn't for the fact she must have been coming back from a really serious injury given how long she hasn't raced for, Kate Wall, ⁓ she would be the favourite because she she won an awful lot of races. She was kinda hard to beat, she rode away fairly clear. But I think Georgia Taylor Brown's a bit of a different beast this year. She seems to be just a little bit stronger all around. And then if Julie Duran can put together a race like she was maybe two years ago and once last year. She's also insanely good. So you've got a really interesting race at the front of that women's race. ⁓ and then there's a few other athletes that kinda sprinkle across it. ⁓ that'll kind of the the rest I'm actually looking at to kinda get what form they're on, really. Like Paula's gotta be carrying a bit of fatigue still, surely. But from some other Yeah, from Placid. Like and Alana Sifer, like she had a really good run in Roth. But for her to actually be competitive and win this on the run It would be the most earth shattering turnaround in run performance we've ever seen. She's never come within five minutes of these girls on the run, realistically. So ⁓ No, she was like fifth and tenth this year, I think, in other the other two hundred races. Yeah. So I don't want to get carried away on her just because of Roth. But it is a bit of a warning sign for people what's to come in the future, maybe at the Iron Man side. Yeah. She ran yeah, five and a half minutes slower than Georgia Taylor Brown in Spain. Once you won the race, so nail na nailed it. Yeah. Perfect. All right. If you could pick who's gonna come out of the swim first? No, we're gonna No, Sarah Pra Salah. We don't need to do this, but hang on. Let's just let me get up get me up my c my podium picks before you carry on 'cause I'm just gonna fill these in as you say them. Right. And then then Gillian, who's gonna have the fastest bites back? I think Alanis is gonna go for it. No, I think Alanis will 'cause Georgia will be out of the swim mm, actually Alanis has been swimming a little this year. I'll say I'll still say Alanis though. See, that's the thing is there's some good swimmers. Yeah. I'm still I've still And then the bikers, Lucy Barum could be the fastest biker. We don't like she's had a fastest bike split in a T one hundred before. Many times Lucy Barum can really ride a bike. If she's coming back fit, then that's dangerous. But the way Siffet rode in why are we do why are we doing? We never do podium picks through the f the fastest swim bike and run. What are doing? Yeah, what do I yeah, what do I what is giving people extra shorts? Top three. Top three who's Who's just real quick, who of of the riders here, who's the best gravel rider? Is that gravel on this course? Yes, there's gravel on the course. If you look at the course gravel you look at the course map, there's about two K of of gravel section. On the bike. Yeah, do you run gravel tires or T T tires? Toward the end of the trick course. No, it's you just ride some thirties. Look at Pat. Pat's thinking about racing. I got a shot. I got a shot. Pat this is not the WNBA. There actually is rules at World Trafford and you're not able to race in this one. So I just sent it I just sent it in Good by the way. Real real good. Real good. Big fan of that comment. What's her name's Sophie? What's her name? Sophie Cunningham. Big up Sophie. She's a goat. I just texted in the group text. Legend. So essentially the course is there's two loops to the swim per usual. There's there are waterfalls in that rapids? Yeah, just orchards, I Just the whales. Just the whales. And then one eight kilometer section to start the bike lap, and then there's five laps of this fifteen kilometer circuit. And then they head back to transition. And on their way back to transition, there's about one point eight K of it says Section three caution. Please note that during due to current road construction, athletes will be routed onto this gravel section. That will be covered with a hard surface during race day. Please be cautious. Okay. Okay. Also, Georgia's the best gravel cyclist in this on the star list. Sh she's won a couple gravel races before. Yeah, I can't. And she was second last year in like GB Gravel Nationals. And yeah, she can hold her own against the gravel cyclists of the world. I just I kinda I kinda think that GTB is gonna just mop the floor with this thing. I'd so I sort of totally agree. And I and I'd love to watch it. ⁓ I'm the one that picked her. I have her right now, my podium picks, fastest bike split. But I think the mo most important thing on this is section two, lap start and then lap decision point. You get to decide how many laps you want to do or that's the question. You get to decide if you want to bail, you get to decide if whatever you want to do. Can you do an extra lap again? You can just decide what lap you're on, I think. Jenny is quick. I love that. It's like Dubai last year. You just exactly Morgan Pearson's like, I'm deciding I'm on this lap. Pick and choose. I think it was more Hayden deciding what lap I ⁓ sorry, sorry, Hayden, yeah, Hayden. So I I was I was I mean I'm sure it means something if someone said I don't I just saw I thought it was interesting take lap decision point on the map. But what does that mean? Hey You might as well just say like I'm sure there's gonna be some questions. It should be written more clearly as like that's where the lap card will be positioned, right? That's what they should have said there for in that in that guide, but whatever. Are you guys looking at the course map at least? We texted it in the group text, just make sure you check out the bottom left corner. Really important. No. ⁓ if if you're looking on YouTube, I'll pull it up and I'll show it on the screen. It has the orcas on it. That's good. That's good, yeah. I want one of ⁓ We gotta make a graphic. One of them needs to be free Willy and the other one needs to be free Talbot. Jillian? Jillian, there you go. Usually she has to listen to the podcast before she gets her her graphic instructions. I don't I don't know if we could I don't know if we can ask Joel, but on the podium picks, maybe for the swim section you could select the orca. That would be really cool. The worst part about it is it would be like the US elections where they a lot of people picked Harambe ⁓ for president when he was up the You're Americans, you're not you're not following the British. So we have Clacton, which is a small constituency and there's a guy that's basically head of our right wing party and he had to stand down as a member of parliament, so he's running for re election, right? And because he wins that area by so far, the major parties, which would be the Republicans or the Conservatives for us, aren't running against him. So his main rival to get elected to Parliament is Count Binface. And this guy wears a giant bin costume and he pretends to be from an intergalactic planet full of bins. And at the moment he's set to get about twenty five percent of the votes. So So it's Nigel Farage versus Count Ben Face. I s I genuinely serious. I'll try and get a photo of it. I just got so excited for a second because I thought you were about to say Joe Skipper. I know Joe's not that far from that. Joe should have ran. He could have just ran for the polic publicity. This is Count Ben Face outside our Houses of Parliament ⁓ my gosh. Anyway, boring for the British listeners, you'll have all heard of that already many times, but for the rest of you, yeah. That was a dive. That was a sidetrack. Right. Okay, can we can we do our podium can we do our podium? Everyone thinks Georgia Taylor Brown's gonna win, so Yeah. Give us second and third. Julie Duron, Kate War, Paula Finley, Ellie Salthouse, I've got. Our picks are pretty much the exact same. Mark, I Georgia Taylor Brown, Julie Duran, Kate Waff, Paula Finley and Alanis. Jillian, but you're the one people actually want to hear from. Like we we all get it wrong. Come on, Jillian. Okay, let's see. I think no, I agree with the Georgia Julie I want to say Kate, because when she did race earlier in the year, she ran well. So I'll say Georgia, Julie, Kate. Lizzie Rayner. Like then. See ⁓ maybe Audrey. Audrey Merle. Yeah, Audrey Merle. Yeah, fair. Good run. All right. I got GTB, Julie Duran, Paula Finlay, Alana Siffert, Kate Waugh. Nice. Talbot? I got Kate Waugh for third, Georgia Taylor Brown for second, and I would say the hometown hero But sadly the race is not in Edmonton where it actually should be with all the history of Trathlon. But she's a phenomenal gravel rider as well, Paula Finley. You got Paula for the win. Yeah, of course. Canadians. Why not? Love the Lord. That's good. I guess we also can't forget Taylor Spivey, who got third in Spain this year. Yeah, I feel silly now. Maybe I switch her out into fifth. Yeah, sorry. I'm gonna swap I'm gonna swap Alanis Siffrodell for Taylor Spivey. I've I've just swap I've just swapped Trinsamine as well. Yeah, all right. You guys are so easily persuaded. Who do you who do you guys think wins between GTB and Taylor Spybe? Georgia. Well don't forget Yeah, Natalie's not on the start. That's this shit. Anyway, what's up next? ⁓ you can watch that race. It's the race is on Saturday at eleven o'clock Pacific time, so check your local listings and local TV providers. Be sure to go to ProTri News dot com and get your podium picks in for that one, as well as this one coming up. this week, which is Iron Man, Sweden and Kalmar. You got eight dudes that have already have Kona slots. See ya Pat. Eight guys that already have Kona slots and I believe ten women that have Kona slots going into this one. ⁓ interesting start list. You got the guy and second place of the Pro Series, Matt Hansen. ⁓ you also have Trevor Foley, Capsir Stepniak, Jonas Hoffman, Antonio Benito Lopez. Jonas Schomberg, Daniel Backagard, Greg Barnaby making his well, I guess he he did Frankfurt, but he took a break from Racing Ironmans and now he's doing two of ⁓ in a year. So ⁓ Jesper Svensson. Also Tom Bishop, who was a DNF DNS in Iron Man New Zealand, but gonna try and get himself a cone slot. He's had a pretty swift knee injury for quite a long time. Always nice to see Tom Bat racing, not a nicer guy on the circuit. There's nobody more friendly or like helpful. I hope he has a good race. He's had a good I Mans before, you know. Remember his Roth debut was like super impressive. Yeah. ⁓ and Daniel Packagard's finally showing a bit of form with his second place against Kaspar Stepniak over in Poland. Like he's clearly back on a a bit of shape, which is exciting to see as well. Yeah. He's been training with the Norwegians out in Saint Maritz, so it's it's good to see him coming back around. Yeah, he's got a house out there, right? So that's where he does a lot of his training and of course his coach ⁓ ⁓ Philip I believe is still coaching him, right? I don't believe I don't think so. I think they're taking a break. Right, fine, but ⁓ I that's why he's trained with his with groups of people for quite a while. Yeah. ⁓ it'll be an interesting one to follow both on the men's and the women's side. There's essentially like I guess three races within the race. There's the race for the podium or the win. There's the race for the Iron Man Pro series, and there's the race for Coda slots. The women's race is gonna be good. 'Cause Katherine Christensen is getting better and better and more and more dangerous. Like she's been really good this year. She's she's was so good in Hamburg. She was good in ⁓ Denmark as well. And Laura Phillip has not been as dominant as she has been, though I spoke to Philip briefly and it sounds like things are really starting to come together for her. So those two at the front I would say are the like the two standout favourites. But then the rest you've got Jackie Herring coming in there, you've got Rachel's. She's she was pretty damn good in late placid as well. And Gendrich Gendrich, I'm gonna go with Shaw from Germany. ⁓ has some good results to her name. But th I'm really looking forward to the Katherine Christensen Laura Phillip battle. Yeah. That'll be a fun one to follow, especially 'cause they they probably are about the same swim caliper as well. So Laura's better than that, I don't think We should do that to Laura just yet. Catherine's not as good a swimmer as Laura. Laura will have a gap, but Catherine will write her down, and it'll all come down to whether she can drop her or not. Because Catherine's a good runner, but she still needs a gap on the likes of Laura Phillip, who's one of the best runners the sport's ever seen. That could be tight. Yeah. Yeah, I I I could agree with that. Yonas, who you taking in that one on the women. I'm gonna go Katherine Christensen, but if if what I've heard about Laura's right, Laura should get this job done relatively comfortably. But I'm gonna go Catherine Christmas. What does the bike course look like? It's pretty flat. It's quite flat. Flat, yeah. It's got one decent climb, doesn't it? No, I don't think it is flat. Sorry. This is Switzerland, right? Sweden, Sweden is Sweden, Sweden is I think it's I think it's pretty flat. Pancake flat, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Which if anything, I think helps Kathrine. I think she's got a lot of power to push. I was thinking that also. Yeah. On the men, Shirley Schomberg. It's like one it's like one loop. It's just all one loop. Five hundred and three meters. Pancake. Over a hundred and eighty K, five hundred meters is nothing. Yeah, and then the run is eighty four meters. Yeah, flat, flat, flat, flat. Right, men, come on, who have you got? Just take the wins. And then you want to sleep start to start to finish. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. He'll do it. He'll just attack transition. See ya later. I I agree he might not lead start to finish. He might take over in the middle of the bike, but Matthew Marquot nearly goes wire to wire for the W brief here. You've got Marquot beating Schomberg. I mean, two minutes down from Martin Van Reel's performance in Placid a couple weeks ago. I mean the guy's a phenomenal athlete. Martin Van Reel. That was a po I would say arguably one of the greatest Iron Man single performances ever. How many weeks ago was Placid though? Will Matthew be completely recovered from that versus Jonas's good points. He's he's digging himself a big old hole to try and climb out of. Yeah. I think one of the only people stopping Jonas from leading from start to finish would be Andrea Salvusburg, who could lead out of the water. Yeah. Who's also looking for a kind of slot. And then what about what does Trev Dog do? What's what's what's Foley saying, Kyle, as our inside Foley tracking expert? He hasn't done as much volume ⁓ going into this one, but the fitness is really good. So so maybe he's maybe he's a little bit better. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see. I mean, he is gonna come out of the swim quite a ways back from I mean, the the swim here is very powerful. Andre Salisburg, Jonas Schaumberg, both both guys that were in the group text in Kona last or in Nice. So ⁓ they're not gonna just go easy just because it's not world championship. So ⁓ they're gonna make it pretty difficult on guys like Trevor Foley and ⁓ Who's the other ⁓ super strong rider? Robert Callen? Robert Callen, Trevor Foley, Cam Worth. There'll be yeah there'll be some pretty good firepower back there. Coming back coming from the back. Where will Antonio Benito Lopez be? He will sell Matthew? He'll swim front pack. He swims front pack. Yeah, he'll swim front pack. He'll be out certainly with Matthew, worst case. And then he's pretty good at riding wheels. And then he runs pretty well. Like he's a he's a top five here every day of the week. He's a podium probably. He can win these kind of races. He just has to not he just needs to hang on on the bike. And that's where he gets unstuck a little bit sometimes. Yeah, typically at Kona at Kona Nice in Iron Man, Texas, Antonio and Matthew have came out of the water ten to fifteen seconds apart. So same, same. Well the interesting is that you have like Andrea and Jonas that are really good swimmers, and then you have a lot of people like in between. Them and Trevor, which may bring Trevor closer to them than normal. I think they're all a little bit better than Trevor is the problem. But do you don't think there's that many middlemen in this race? Like we've seen that a lot this year, that the swim gaps aren't as big as they normally are because you have so many people improving their swim. Yeah. So Maybe the gaps aren't as big. ⁓ Sven Thalman, he's leading out the swim. It's not gonna be Jonas or Andre Salzburg. Sven Thalman from Switzerland leading out the swim. And Rubens a punct. Like that's a freaking that's a strong bike group as well. Rubens a punct as well, yeah. But yeah, these people th there's just so many riders that then just crumb along. There is so many. There is so many. I mean A ⁓ ha hasn't raced a full since last year. Tom Tom Bishop on the start list. Peter Heimrich as well. Like Tom swims and rides really well. It's a good race, this. It's a good race. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it'll be a fun one to follow. It's on Saturday as well. Yeah. I I I need to correct myself. ⁓ Mark Watts finished four minutes down from Martin Van Reel, so just so we're clear on that. Do you think it Do you think any of these guys have a chance to top ten in Kona? Schomberg. Yeah. Schoenberg. So so racing racing racing this c close to Kona's not not that big of a deal? I think that's There's big difference between top ten and your best personal performance. Schoenberg can drop two minutes 'cause he races this and still top ten, is my opinion. But it might you know, the times have changed. Yeah. But I have a question about your eight week to ten week rule. Why do you pick eight to ten weeks out? Like why why do you say you can't race an Ironman that close? Like I was listening to another podcast and they were saying, ⁓ with the nutrition advancements technologies, they would be comfortable racing like an Ironman a month out or five weeks out. I think I think I say it, Jillian, because I I think there's comfortable to race it for a standard mid season race performance. So like, can you race two Hamburg Frankfurt level races within five weeks? Probably. Yeah. Can you peak when it against everyone else that's peaking to race in the heat on a hilly run course in Kona? It makes it it makes it a tiny bit difference to thoroughly peak. Can you get to a standard that makes you look good in Texas? Yes, probably. Can you get to a standard you need to make yourself look good in Kona against everyone else who isn't racing that you know. Because whilst they're racing, they're now tapering. KB and the boys are up at altitude and Samurit's drilling it. And when you're recovering next week, guess where they are? Samarit's drilling it. I think that's why I think for Kona, I think that's why it's harder, specifically. But they you know, they they I I like they say the nutrition, shoes, everything, the the recovery times have got less and less. So It's become more debatable rather than the rule it once was. It's just that's just my opinion. I got w I got one more person. I I've I've been collecting information about this since we started talking about it on the podcast. Did you guys know in twenty twenty two, Joe Skipper won Iron Man Wales a month before going top five in Kona? He's a freak. He's a freak. But but would he have gone fourth in Kona? That's the problem. Yeah. Doesn't there's no evidence like in these these single small examples. That's why you have to take a bigger sample size and just try and take trends. But mainly I just fall back to Joe Skip as a complete screw loose freak. Which wasn't that when he ran a one two thirty six on the Wales course. Yeah. Which is one of the I think the greatest Iron Man run in history. I I still stand by that. Completely obscene. Freak. We don't want to spend too much time on this. Are you gonna talk about this next race, Talbot? Yeah, there's there's some other races on this weekend. Iron seventy point three, Northern California, ⁓ Grace Stack, Grace Alexander, Rebecca Clark, ⁓ Min Side. There is ⁓ Sam Long, Jason West, Lionel Sanders, and the greatest US runner, Ben Randall. So that will be a ⁓ a race for their North American ⁓ ego. I guess you could say. ⁓ but pretty exciting race. ⁓ not live. Yeah, and paychecks. ⁓ Lionel's first race back in a while. ⁓ I think Jason West takes the cake here, potentially. The bike course is pretty much all downhill. So Yeah, I think Jason West had a really good ⁓ race at Happy Valley and ⁓ I mean Sam Long has proven Lionel's coming back from injury, so I can't you can't expect too much from him, but ⁓ it won't be a good race. There's another race I'm not even gonna attempt to pr Leipzig. Leipzig. Leipzig. It's in Germany. It was the wasn't it the h it was the head of the Stasi or something when it was East Germany. Anyway, that's bullshit. Yeah. ⁓ pretty good little race going on, but let's get into hot some hot takes. We ⁓ And a seventy point three in the Czech Republic. Yeah. So ⁓ hot take number one. This is one that I submitted. I yesterday spent ⁓ the day doing household chores and watching YouTube, which is one of my favorite pastimes, and I watched Jamie Riddle's most recent YouTube and he said he's never creating I don't say never. He said this year he's not creating the swim group chat because he's done helping other people's race. I that personally made me sad. Because I thought that that tactic played really, really well to us, the viewer, of watching the race. One. And two, it brought us back to the era of was it is it MACA? Didn't MACA create a group chat to like get rid of Crowy so that he could win the world title? Ca also c can you just remind me about what was the podium in that race in Nice last year? Wasn't it? All Norwegian. Was it Gustafied in second, Christian Blumenfeld third? Was that it? Mm-hmm. Were any of them in the group chat? No. Nah. Utter bullshit. And they've just realized the group chat doesn't work like the good swimmers will forget. Yes, exactly. And you you like the group chat like what is it? It didn't work, but it was their only card to play. It was geni it was genius. It it was the best thing they could do facing that Norwegian train. I guess. And now there are so many good swimmers. Like you're gonna have a group chat of like what, twelve guys? It's not as fun with you when you have twelve, fifteen guys when it could be like last year like four or five. Yeah, 'cause someone leaks all the racist reels that you're sending in the group chat, Gillian. When it's When it's fifteen people, someone's gonna leak the reels that you're firing out that are way inappropriate. Exactly. That's true. That is true. I guess the question is for our audience, which group chat would you rather be in? The swimmers group chat or the Norwegians group chat? I thought you were gonna say the swimmers, bikers are runners group chat. I I've gotta give it to the boys that were in that one. The Martin Van Reels, the Sam Ladlows. There's gotta be more banter in that. I'm getting that. Just for the drama. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think what do you think the worst reel was? I'm not guessing what the worst reel was. Casper sends me enough reels that it I I could be in the Norwegian group chat for sure. ⁓ here he comes. I'm a friend. ⁓ That's that's the next one. Okay, but are you more loyal to Trevor or the Norwegians? Trevor. Trevor. Trevor. Yeah. I I haven't played Fortnite for hours on end with the Norwegians, so Trevor for sure. Next I've got one more hot take, then I've got to go 'cause the wife's made dinner. I've got beans on toast. We have a lot of hot takes on here too. All right. ⁓ let's let's ⁓ That one was dumb. That one was dumb. ⁓ here's a good one from Josh Spencer. ⁓ Iron Man should offer pro or should only offer Kona slots at pro series races. I thought this and I was like, no. But then I was like, that would actually be pretty good. It'd be pretty much pretty exciting. So there was five Ironmans this year in the pro series. So that would be roughly ten slots at each of those. I thought see what he made. So then that means that all the other Ironmans that they're gonna do then they're just racing for bonuses and prize money, right? And then and then brands will stop playing bonuses because no one's going to them. I like I I My initial reaction was yes, but I don't think so unless we have a pro series unless we have a pro series schedule like Kyle's, I don't think it's worked. That's a great point. When I saw that when I saw that graphic you made and I looked at Carl's list, I just laughed out loud. He's smoking crack. ⁓ Well, I'm making this graphic and Kyle's texting me every two minutes, adding another race, and he's like, ⁓ honorary race, Iron Man, Japan. And I'm like, Yeah, no, no, no. You're done. It was the first time I actually scheduled my list, because Jillian Jeff definitely used a bit of creative license to make mine, 'cause I didn't actually give her any information. And then I read it and thought, I'm happy with that. Yeah, I'm I'm alright with that. I'll take it. Put my name on it. But ⁓ good suggestion. I think it just will constrain racing slightly too much and it just will kind of kill off pro racing other races, which is actually the bread and butter for hundreds of pro athletes. Because people want to have a chance to win a race, and if you only have five races in a year you can go to and th the Norwegians win three of them, Laidlow wins one of them and Martin Van Riel wins the other, and same for the women, Kat, Laura, whatever. You just will never experience a win in your career. And those other races do add a lot of value, I think, to the sport. So On on that same point, Nick Tri said Iron Man Kalmar has three slots while I don't while Florida also has three slots, Cosmel has four and Western Australia has four. Shouldn't the Pro Series have deeper incentive and more world championship slots? I believe Cosmel is a isn't Cosmel a championship race? Yeah, it's Latin American championship, I think. It has incentive the Pro Series in that it's pays you all the money for the Pro Series. And you get to race the big names and it's televised. What the only incentive the other ones have is a small price pot and conos. Yeah. There we have a lot of hot takes on here. I would really I want to go through all these. So how about next week we do a hot takes Pro Try News show? We will leave these on. We won't reset them. So come in here, uptick your favorite, go to protrynews.com. To submit your hot take, like the ones on there. We'll leave a lot all these on here. We hope you guys enjoyed the show. We are essentially one week away from having this series done before we are in championship season. We are super, super excited. Don't forget to send the show to some of your best friends and to your mates and follow us on Triathlon. Thank you for joining, Jillian. We'll see you all on the next one. Thank you. Bye guys.