Kyle Glass: Warning! ProTri 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 everyone and welcome back to another episode of ProTri News. I'm your host Kyle Glass joined by the usual suspects of Patrick Lemieux, Talbot Cox, and Mark Matthews. We're here to take you through the racing and... some hot takes that were submitted and talk about what is going on in the triathlon world this week, guys. mean, how are we feeling? 100 sub 150 bike split by Sam Long at Gulf Coast this weekend. I I looked on some Strava and stuff. It's a pretty legit distance. I just think it's a great ride by Sam. He's one of the best 70.3 riders in the world. No one can really debate that. And just a hella fast course. Like that is crazy speed when you think about it. Like the way the sport has moved on the last five years, sub 150. You two hour bike splits were being fastest bike splits in men's races on fast courses four years ago. Mad. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone think that there's an asterisk next to that? Because they shortened the swim. They said it was thousand meter swim, I think looking at the times, it's probably pretty evident that it's probably more of a 600 to 700 meter swim. Nah, I don't think that makes Not for me. No. You've got in, you've got wet, you've jacked your heart rate up. It's because it's when there's no swim, they should be canceled. Because you can be all tricks cleaved up. You can spend time prepping all your stuff. That's that's a legit record for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll jump we'll jump into that and kind of our and our records discussion in the middle of the show as well. But going to be a massive show. going to talk about Ironman 70.3, Gulf Coast, touch on Western Sydney as well. And then a kind of topic of the week that we would love to chat on is Ironman records and are they really relevant? Or I guess triathlon records, are they relevant? And then we have some pretty big racing this weekend. WTCS Yokohama, Axel, France 70.3 and some lower tier races like Chattanooga. So yeah, pretty big show ahead. Mark, how's your week? I had a good week at home. We got back to some normal training and then I've picked up a bit of a cough. So I'm sorry if my voice is a bit raspy. I'll try and make sure I don't cough down the microphone. But yeah, we're just in routine at the moment. And I just found out I'm seeing you in Austria next week for a bit of a Canyon thing. I know. I know going to a big Canyon thing. I'm Very stoked about that. So yeah, we're just training as usual, you know, nothing exciting to report. There you go. Well, I am in I'm in L.A. right now. A quick stop over here. I had to get a brand new passport. I'll actually be seeing one of the Canyon employees tonight at the Crypto Arena. think is LeBron James. LeBron James, I think, is his name. so by that. ⁓ Small part owner of Canyon, but sure. Yeah. Yeah. Got to chat to him. They should be swept tonight. So they'll be done. So maybe he can pay a visit as well. I it'll come out to Austria as well. Pretty big, pretty big little event in Austria. I think he's more excited to go to Cancun. See you, LeBron. Job done. I yeah, I'm what an experience for you, but to get to go see that game. that life. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It could be his last ever. It's a So it'd pretty cool to watch. what are you up to? you, you're now basketball fans, aren't you? the thunder. Oh, You and Kyle didn't care about basketball. Maths. And then you've won one NBA championships and you are both now hardcore basketball fans. They got the jerseys. They got the practice hoop. The craziest thing about it is I'm such a big basketball fan. I completely forgot the Thunder were playing and then I saw a post online that said, all right, all the fair weather fans come on out. We're in the playoffs now. So I was like, ⁓ that's me. That's me. I'm called in now. So I'm stoked. Yeah, all good. ⁓ Addie and I, we had a fun-filled weekend and then I'm thick into wedding planning season. ⁓ Watched a couple of triathlons this weekend, tracked some races and then, ⁓ yeah, just ⁓ ready for the next 12 weeks. I mean, we were joking in the car at Texas because I was so jacked up about podium picks and we got podium picks for the next 12 weeks in a row. So I hope people are excited. Is my invite been lost in the post to your wedding or has it not gone We haven't sent out invites yet. We are finishing the planning on the location and then the website and then we'll be sending out the invites. The what? The website. The website. ⁓ yeah. Sorry. My bad. I thought you said wedding, not business launch. Well, we got to set up a registry and stuff like that. mean, luckily we had a great partner earlier in the year with Caroway Pans. So if you don't have any Caroway Pans, be sure to put that on your wedding registry. ⁓ You can use the link in our show notes and the link in our bio and on our website to get yourself a discount on some Caroway Pans. Yeah, got to get the registry set up and the guest list. Got to do it on a website. Weddings. Pat, I want to talk about Pat's weekend real quick because Pat flew all the way back home to Minnesota because his childhood bike shop was closing. he flew there. Tell us about it, Pat. Yes, the bike shop that I grew up working at lived above for almost 10 years. It's closing after 43 years. So I had to go send him off in style. But of course, I had to do the trip full patty style. And I flew there at nine o'clock on Friday night, landed at midnight, slept in a hotel for five hours, woke up at six a.m., did a hundred kilometer bike ride with the group, then partied from 1130 to 330, got back on a flight at 445 and landed and was able to tuck the kids into bed because I was home at 715. So that was a full day. I would say the highlight of it was I got to introduce a few of my dear friends to one of our dear sponsors, Precision Fuel and Hydration. So in the middle of this 100K ride, I'm handing out gels everywhere. No, didn't say a darn thing. And I got everybody coming up there like, dude, this thing. I love that there's no flavor. Another guy's like, does this one happen to have caffeine in it? Because I feel amazing right now. Next thing I know, we're motoring home into this headwind. So if you too want to try out Precision Fuel and Hydration and have the same feelings that my buddies had, which were awesome, Go to their website, use code PTN15 at checkout. And you would be doing us a huge, huge, huge favor if in there, how did you hear about a section? You said it was because the big guy in blue told you to say so also known as pro try news. So thank you. And yeah, excited for a great show. We took, we took some time. We had prep. What'd we have almost? We didn't have two weeks off, but close to it from our last show, but now buckle up everybody because we're here for the next big block. and this season ain't messing around. I'm really, for our Topic of the Week, I think this is, I'm thrilled to chat about it. This is gonna be a real exciting show. Yeah, before we jump into the Topic of the Week, we'll lead right into, we did miss a race, Ironman 70.3, Western Sydney, Jake Burr went away with the win, Trent Thorpe second, Jared Osborne got third, and then on the women's side, woman's side or womens side? I've almost been canceled like 50 times for saying that wrong. Yes, it's the women's. It's the women's race. Women's race. Okay. Got to make sure we do that one right. We can't get canceled this week. Natalie Goverdine came away with a pretty solid win with over three minutes. So she asked me, stoked with that, taken out Ellie salt house and then ⁓ Reagan hot link that. How do you say? Holyoke. Yeah, Regan Hollyoake. She's a hella good Ironman athlete. That's a really solid all-around podium. I will say the photos are quite funny of the podium because there is some no love loss situations on that. That made me chuckle. But yeah, good win for Natalie Van Koon I thought. That's convincing. Yeah. Yeah, it's huge. Then diving into Ironman 70.3 Gulf Coast. Just saying pretty much just a silver level race. Another race, Sam Long. heads over to to be a provider, collect an easy paycheck. Sam Long took away with the win. Seth Ryder second place Mark Dubrik, I would say career best for him. mean, absolutely phenomenal day with a 111 run. So sorry, 110 30 run. So hats off to him. Grace Alexander won the women's field, Victoria Lopez second and then Daniel Lewis. On third place, the swim was shortened to about six to 700 meters. I think that this if you're a pro and you want to go do an event that the swim is shortened, just DM Greg Harper or Mark Dubrik and ask them where they're racing next, because they tend to just go to the events where the course is shortened. So if you're looking for that extra boost, do that. Jokes aside, think some of the are the athletes were a little upset. They wanted the pros to do one loop. At least they're getting in the water. I don't know. I wasn't there. I don't know about much about the conditions and stuff. It does bring an interesting point, though, because with Seth Ryder hanging out around 20 seconds down from Sam Long finishing 120 down, ⁓ I hate to say could have would have should have. But with the swim here, I see Seth Ryder taking this W. 100%. 100%. So, yeah. Which is hard for him. So yeah. If we just, this is a recurring problem. I know I've done a lap on it before. Like it, it becomes a threat to triathlon if we get into the realms where like 20 % of races have a shortened swim. Because people just can't, they're not buying a known product. They don't know what they're getting in for if it's such a high risk. So like, while safety has to be paramount and yes, Ironman had a death in the swim at Texas, they've had a few, it's actually rare. It's never really to do with weather conditions. It tends to just be heart conditions or illnesses and stuff like that. They're like, individual organizers really need to be pushed to not be brave and not be dangerous, but not just be quick to pull the trigger on it. You know, it needs to be a must happen decision, not a, ⁓ it's just easier if we don't do it. But however, at the same time, this venue is the same venue that hosts Ironman Florida and Ironman Florida Swim's been canceled or cut short, I'd say nine out of 10 times. So I'm not really surprised that they had to shorten the swim here. ⁓ It's just a matter of, like Mark said, we need to make sure that we're still maintaining the integrity of the sport. ⁓ is that the Ironman Florida course where they swim around the pier a couple of times? Yeah. Yes. Yes. You're exactly right. That's a gnarly swim even when it's on, right? Even when it's calm, that's quite a gnarly swim. Yeah. And I think this was more of a point-to-point swim, but the woman's woman's side of things too, think Victoria Lopez finishing 20 seconds down would have been, that's another one that she really, really... She needed a good result. mean, she'd been... injured and struggled with finishing some 70.3s over the last couple years. So, yeah, it would have made for a really good race. Grace had a phenomenal swim as well. mean, she only swam six seconds slower. So you just wonder if that would have maybe broken that elastic strand or Grace is probably just like, bro, come on now, I could swim with the best. Yeah, it is unfortunate. Don't think it changed. mean, Mark Dubrik, I don't know if the changes result much. It probably is unfortunate. Maybe maybe two minutes faster, though. Like, does he put another two minutes into Sam? Does he beat Sam Long? Is he Mark Dubrik beat Sam Long here? I mean, he outran Sam Long here. I wouldn't be surprised. I that's close, but we're just kind of guessing round. Let's say this is a small race and I do also feel like events tend to be more likely to have a swim when it's a big profile race and all the Ironman CEOs and stuff from that are there. And I also think Ironman pick venues for their big pro series races and stuff based on variability, maybe a reason South Africa got dropped for instance. So like if you're going to go pick these smaller races, maybe we should start to be that things are going to be a little bit more local feel than the full sweet T100 Ironman Pro Series kind of effort. I've said this kind of stuff all the time. This is like going to a Conti Cup or a World Cup in South Africa and being surprised that there were live animals or potholes on the course. So you kind of have to like there's a level of, hey, I know I'm going to a tier four race. I can't expect tier one amenities when I'm out on course. If that happens to be the case and there's an amazing bike course, amazing run course, amazing swim course, beautiful. But I would not, that's not where I would be setting your standards when you're going to a silver level race. No disrespect. That's just the way it is though. Yeah. So another, another mentioned Ari Clow, a flat tire finished six minutes down. So that would have been interesting to see. But the main thing I think I want to chat about is a 149 32 bike split is. I I'm curious to I've been excited to ask Mark this question. I don't know. Not saying this to other athletes can do it, some professional cyclists can do it. I don't know if a human on this earth in a solo time trial. has ever rode this distance that fast in history. This might be the fastest 56 miles a human has ever gone on a bike. Not saying this and pro cyclists can do it and not in a cycling race, of course, their groups will move 30 miles an hour and stuff like that. An individual time trial. so Mark, we'd have to cross-reference that with like. Certainly there's some hundred K British TT record where somebody's gotten this. That's where I think Talbot might get away with this. So what was the average speed? The distances in the UK are 10, 25, 50, 100. So unless they're like so maybe because there aren't many time trials that are 56. Do you know what mean? Because I bet there's I don't know the 15 mile time trial is, 49.1 K an hour. Like if you let me come back to that after the chat, but I reckon like, let's just go national British time trial record. ⁓ no, I can't do the typing. I'll get murdered again. I mean, we'll just, we'll, I mean, we'll just talk about it. I mean, the speeds obviously incredible. There was talk. mean, the road, sounds like the road was freshly paved. mean, the kit from when even Sam Long's career hasn't been, he feels like a veteran in the sport, but he's still rather new. mean, he came in, he came up and, and prominent to prominence during COVID. The equipment and the evolution of the equipment during his time already in the sport has been incredible. So like we had a graphic or he posted a graphic of what his position looked like in 2020 versus 2026. Massive, massive change, right? And so you do that across the board, not to mention with the fueling. I mean, we've talked about this, you know, at length on this show previously, but I mean, this is what it means. This is what it means. Come race day. You're going to see some, you're going to see some records broken. ⁓ and I mean, and his, and the crazy thing is, is dude, his setup is pretty much stock across the board. He's on envy wheels, Trek bike, like none of the, none of that stuff is bad, but none of it is like super, super progressive either. You know, he's wearing a stock suit, stock helmet, like, you know, the aero bars are semi custom. But imagine if there was somebody that really went crazy on the bike that was on there this day too. I'm not taking anything away from them. just saying like, this isn't going to be the last sub 150 we see. No. So I've just done a bit of looking around. This is why I always say about that. And Pat knows the British time trialing scene is absolutely mental. The 50 mile time trial record in the UK is set by John Archibald and he's raced track team and stuff with Dan Bingham, the aero experts. He's an absolute gun. He did a 50 mile in one hour 30 minutes, which is 33.3 miles an hour for 50 miles, 53.6 K an hour. But to be fair to Sam Long, he's gone 31 miles an hour or 49.9 K an hour. So he is considerably slower, but it's not a different world slower. Now, Sam doesn't have quite the same aero rules like that he can have the bottles between the bars and stuff, but I guarantee you John Archibald is more aero, way more. Those boys are crazy on it. So Talbot, I would guess, yes, people have gone that distance faster, but not by a lot, mate. It's a fair question. That is seriously fast bike riding, seriously fast. And then he has to run off of it. Yeah, pretty impressive. I mean, if you were to guess Sam's weight, I think you're looking at like 4.55 watts per kilogram an hour. I know that Rico Bogan posted some nasty T100 bike splits last year, like averaging 380 watts, which I think for him is like 4.8 watts per kilogram, which is mental as well. The watts per kilo is honestly irrelevant. I know that's what they share their data in, but on that stage, on that surface, it's just outright power. And if anything, it's your power divided by your CDA. but that's not really a number that's used by anything. So like a tiny little rider like Remco or someone like that will push way more watts per kilo, but your sheer power actually generates the speed. Hence why riders like Ghana and Josh Tiling in the cycling world or all the pro triathletes that the best riders in the world think about them. Outside of maybe Hayden, it's Rico Bogan, it's Sam Long, it's Sam Laidlaw, it's the big boys with the big power, Magnus Ditlev. Robert Callen, you know, they're all bigger guys because we're honestly in triathlon talking watts per kilo is such a misnomer of how you're actually going to perform on the road. Speaking of Wimps, Trevor, you are a free agent going into this season. What made you decide to go with Wynn for this upcoming 2026 season? Because I push a lot of power and I've never been to the wind tunnel, so at least I could do is ride the fastest kit, some watts. yeah, I have Sophia and I also have a a big age group team, like mainly in America, but all around the world. And as we build that team and community, it's really important for us like to make it, you know, all encompassing of a team. Like we really want to have team kits and shirts and hoodies and all that fun stuff. And Winter Republic is like a really easy option for us. So now all the Foley Athletics people have like sponsor correct kits that are same as mine, purple, white, win, blah, blah, blah. Super cute, fun. It's awesome. And if you want to get 15 % off when visit the show notes and use the link to direct you there. do Lucy Charles Barclay, Magnus Ditlev, Holly Lawrence, Rudy Von Berg, Sam Long, Trevor Foley, Morgan Pearson, Gwen Jorgensen, and yours truly Patrick Lemieux all have in common? That's right. We all ride Woeve saddles. This Boulder based company has been an absolute game changer for especially me and my wife. Look. My wife, Gwen, tried over 40 saddles during her career, never found one she liked. Last March, she went out for one bike ride on a Woe Mags saddle, looked at me and said, this is the first time I have ever ridden my bike without pain. At that moment, I knew we had to become investors in this company. Look, whether you're looking for a saddle for your road bike, triathlon bike, or your gravel bike, Wolves got you covered. This Boulder based company has got three amazing saddles, the V8, the M8 and the Mags. If you have any further questions, please DM me directly at Patrick Lemieux on Instagram. Nutrition is important and what's in your bottles actually matters. There's a reason why the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 world champion all pick Precision Fuel and Hydration. They have a free fuel and hydration plan on their website. So if you visit the link in our bio or the link in our show notes, you'll be able to create your own fuel and hydration plan. Their fuels are incredible, both the gels, the 100 milligrams of caffeine or the non-caffeinated perfect for going out on your next workout. Also the hydration, whether it's the tablets of 500, 1000, or 1500, those can get you topped off and feeling hydrated for your next workout. They're gonna be on course at every Ironman in the world. So be sure to try these out before race day so then that way you can be dialed as well. Yeah. So we've traditionally seen to kind of like what you're adding onto that mark is when the humidity it was 91 % and then the temperatures are high too. They're at sea level. It was just makes for very high speeds. But I guess that brings to question on our amazing website, we have this thing called the record book. We in triathlon records, we say on here times are irrelevant. ⁓ But it is fun to look at and glance and say, ⁓ this is the fastest time in history. There's a on our record book, we tried to have some asterisks if the swim is canceled, then the overalls don't count to some is shortened. If the swim is ⁓ assisted and just things like that. But A record like this, there was some ⁓ conversation online and I think Kyle, you posted something, but Kyle, maybe you could lean into kind of what you posted and the response from the community and stuff. And I mean, would love to ask you guys your opinion on it. Yeah. So we posted the we did a lot more research on this, like before we launched the website and then did some analytical findings for like courses and like Verifying on Strava files like how accurate courses are and stuff like that and we had to pull we actually pulled the challenge London race down because the challenge London race it turned out was was like 10k short so ⁓ Maybe even more but ⁓ Basically, we put up a poll Whenever Sam posted this split and said basically ask ask everyone What are your thoughts like does this count? Is this a record based on like? Are we judging it from a triathlon standpoint? Are we judging it from like a accuracy 70.3 course? I mean, 66 % say no, that this is not a record on one of the polls. And then another poll, it was 71 % that say that this probably shouldn't count for the record book. Personally, I don't know if I agree. I don't know if maybe we can just set a number and be like, hey, if this portion of a swim or this portion of a bike or this portion of a run is shortened or canceled, maybe those don't those races don't count. Maybe I mean, pretty interesting. Trying to generate something that lasts maybe anything where a portion is deliberately canceled shouldn't count. like running. Running they do that. Yeah. And I think like if we give the like we can verbally say Sam, have a ride. but we're not going to post, maybe we shouldn't post that because an element of it is canceled and then we get into the murky realm of how much, you know, then it becomes too discretionary. And I remember like the overall going through these with you, I remember when you sent them to me and I went through like the Ironman overall records and the 70.3 over records. And because of the way it works, there were some names in the top 10 that I didn't even know who they were from like 2011 in an obscure race. So you do have to do a bit of manual filtering and It doesn't take you very long to find like, of course the top 10 Ironman female times of all time are names that we know. Like, of course they are. And so when you get these freak anomalous results in there, it's not hard to have a look on Strava and just find out. So, okay. So, so here's my question. And we've talked about this before where we said like, Ironman could identify certain races where they want to deem this to be like a true, like a validated course, right? And I think for me, I personally, you know, we don't talk about times in triathlon, but here we are. We're talking about times again. We're one, we're asking if it matters. My question is, or what I would propose to Ironman is saying, hey, you guys have a huge list of stuff you need to accomplish in the sport and as a business. I probably recognize and empathize that, ⁓ making sure courses are validated to a certain distance and there's some sort of record system is very, very low on that list. But I do think that there is something here and I do think that this could, that this could peak the interest in part of the sport. I think that I would love if they had some sort of system moving forward where yes, we could recognize this result or validate this result or We can go to sponsors and say, this is a big deal that I now have the Ironman world record. I would love if that was the case. My issue is, dude, it's just at the bottom of their concerns. And again, that's not saying like it should be at the top. I'm just trying to empathize with them as an organization. They got, they got up, they got a sort out. They should open up disc wheels at Kona before they worry about stamping world records somewhere. So. I love this. love the banter. It's just, I would love if it was professionalized and, and we can acknowledge the races that are short or the distance is incorrect for one reason or another and slash those from this. Pat, did you not get the internal memo? Kat has a new wheel setup. So we're, we're anti-disks in Kona now. They're dangerous. I've always said they're dangerous. should remain banned for the safety of all athletes involved. ⁓ I think you're right, I think like what we can... Well, also we're doing it. We'll do it for them. And I think we've got one wrong on the Ironman overall. Otherwise, I agree with them all. The one that we can't get right. because it's impossible to do so, is the swim. The swim records are ridiculous because we just don't know. So many of them are pre-GPS watches in the swim and stuff like that. So don't don't go on our website and grill us over the swim records. But I think now that KB has it in Texas, Cozumel should be chopped. is. And that's what's really cool about what we could do. And I'm glad you said that, Mark. Cozumel, we removed it from here. The reason why we did have it on there is We were kind of working in conjunction with Iron Man on our website and Iron Man does recognize the Cosmell time. So we unhit it. So there are analysts that are looking at our record book because there is no place to look at all these times. So we unhid Christian's Cosmell record, but I since just now have removed it again, ⁓ which makes it stand that Texas is the fastest time in history. But I'm glad you said that because At the bottom of the record page, there is a challenge, a record book in the forum. We want this to be community based. If you are a former athlete and you're like, wait, no, I bike this time and I have this GPS file and I can show you this message us, let us know. I mean, like this is community feedback. We want like we can't do all this on our own. Like we aren't like the triathlon record book police. So there's a link at the bottom of that that you can click. and kind of dive into it and see. But we would definitely love to hear you all's feedback because I mean, at the end of the day, it's numbers on a page and we like to look at it for reference and they will continue to be broken as the sport advances. And ⁓ we just wanted to create a place where pro athletes could come, commentators could come, fans could come and just look at some pretty crazy numbers. But so what if what if what if Ironman T100 uh, challenge, et cetera, drew a line in the sand and said, Hey, moving forward, we're going to start it. We're going to open up a proper record book. We're going to start it in 2027. We're going to acknowledge fastest swim, fastest bike, fastest run, fastest overall time. And Hey, guess what? If you set one of those records and it's held at the end of the year, we're going to pay you a bonus accordingly for swim, bike, run overall. Boom. And we think that this is an opportunity for. non endemic and endemic sponsors to come on and sponsor a swim bonus, sponsor a bike bonus, sponsor an overall time bonus. You've got the Quintana roof world record bike split, you know, and ideally they get, but I mean, because of course if the records done on the Canyon, no, no, no, of course, but they got it, but they've, but they got to try and sell like they could sell something, right? It would, it would need to start in 2012 because Dr. Amanda Stevens has the fastest swim time and she's from Oklahoma. So we need that to stand in there as well. I imagine Anne Howe could have something to say about that if we just chop her Roth record straight. She's retired. See you later. Well, that's like the funny thing is whenever we were making this, I sent a picture of it to Hayden because he technically is the third fastest 100k distance time because the fastest was ⁓ Gustav Eden. in Daytona back in 2020. And so I was like, well, there's still stuff for you to chase. So you can keep winning races, but you still got to chase down ⁓ some stuff in the record books. So I think it's a fun thing to still have. Like my argument now and forever will always be like, if times don't matter, why do we have a, why do we have a clock at the finish line? The Sombardi quote, isn't it? Yeah. The score doesn't matter. What is it for winning? It doesn't matter. Why do we keep the score? Yeah, I like it. And I like Pat's idea of like, it's another way to add a sponsor on it's another incentive for athletes. It's definitely something athletes go after. Because KB was very quick to say, like, does this one count? Because previously, you know, was because we all just counted Cosmo. Now he's got it. Like athletes care. Definitely. I don't know about the individual. I think the bike split and the run split. No, I don't think anyone cares about the swim because we all know it's so, so much harder to regulate, so much harder to control. maybe like on a specific course like Kona, but otherwise no one cares about the swim records. Bike records different because it's sexy. Run records is different. I think run records has seen different because it's mental for amateurs to wrap their heads around how fast they're running. Yeah. Yeah. think record booking Kona is the one that really matters. I think everywhere else, like you could have a salt water or freshwater wetsuit, non wetsuit. You could have six buoys, or you could have two buoys, or you could have a freaking line under the water like they do in Placid. So there's just, there's so many different variables for the swim, but I think the bike and the run, mean, that's an important thing to have probably. My thing for Ironman is this gives them something else to talk about, and it gives them the chance to set up a fast race. They can cherry pick a course, be it a Hamburg or be at some other venue that they want to do. where they say, look, this is where you come to take down the time. And I just think it's, I think it could, it could breed some real positive ⁓ life back in like into this part of the sport. think there's a storyline there. If I was, I would be trying to champion this internally with Ironman and saying like, Hey, look, like we got something here. Like this is exciting. The athletes do care. And it's not something that really like, again, we're not asking, Hey, can you We're not asking for them to pull a million bucks out of a hat and put it up for the athletes. So that's, that's my point of view. ⁓ the, last thing before we move on, there is a lot of nuance. We'd love for everyone to go to our website, check out the records tab. You can even, one of my favorite things to do is you can click on the, ⁓ open rank and you click on most wins. Daniela reef has the most wins according to our database, 47 wins. And then On the men's side of things, the greatest short course athlete of all time, Javier Gomez Noya. 56 wins. Wouldn't you agree, Mark? Greatest of all time. Short course. When it comes to winning lots of meaningless races, he was certainly better than Alistair. But no, Javier and also he's the nicest bloke. He coaches the Spanish national team now, doesn't he? I'm not surprised. Number two though, Talbot on the most wins. Come on. You can read that out. Talk about some sea level races. I'm just kidding. Lionel Sanders, 44, Alistair Brownlee on the female side of things, woman side of things, woman side of things. Daniela Reif. Pat, can you say that name? Because I don't want to butcher it because it deserves a lot of praise. Yeah, that's Ayu Aida. Ayu Aida from Japan and then. with 35 wins and then Gwen Jorgensen 33 wins. Ayu Aida and Gwen battled a whole lot and one race they did battle a lot at was WTCS, Yokohama because that's where she's from. And Gwen is two wins away from breaking into that thing. WTCS, Yokohama, Pat, you just dropped off your wife at the airport. Is she on her way there? She's on her way there. Yeah, I think I don't know how many times Gwen's race to Oklahoma. Maybe the first was in 2011, I think. And then obviously she wanted a bunch of times and then it's had a big break. Uh, she was fourth there last year. It's always a race that's been good for her. It's been on the calendar for all, I think since almost the inception of the WTCS back in 2009. Oh, uh, this is a big one on the calendar. a, it's a little bit different race this year because Normally, this is opening weekend for Olympic points to start. nobody can, I've yet to get a clear explanation of why opening, ⁓ why the Olympic points start right after this weekend. So there are handful of people not making the trip to Japan, both on the men and the women's side. ⁓ But you've got the champion, the woman that won in Uzbekistan, Beth Potter. She's making the trip over. So it will be some great, some great racing. And we either there's either there's two weather forecasts for Yokohama. That's either hot or it's raining and it's raining and this weekend, ⁓ right now the prediction is for heat. So we'll see, we'll see if that holds. But, ⁓ yeah, I would say, you know, across from both of them, both on the men and the women's side, this is a race that normally historically comes down to a run battle, both on the men and the women's side. expect to see that. This race is decent viewing times here in the US. You don't have to stay up too late to catch it. So yeah, definitely tune in. Pat, what is the importance of Olympic qualification points? This is the beginning of how nations will determine how many spots they get in the Olympics. So don't quote me on all the new on all the new and updated rules and regs right now. got to study that study up on that, but it's, you know, imagine if you have three athletes ranked within the top 25, you're going to get three athletes in LA. If you have two athletes in the top 50, you're going to get two. There could be a fall off from that. There's also going to be, there's a larger importance this year on mixed team relay or on this cycle. So for instance, we had a mixed team relay in Chengdu over the weekend at a world cup. huge attendance. Mixed team relays are really important. So you're going to continue to see that. So for mixed team relays, WTCS is that are paired with a mixed team relay. You'll see those events be red hot and you'll see smaller countries that will maybe sit athletes out of the individual race to have them rested and ready for the mixed team relay so they can give their entire effort to that. So that that'll be one strategy that you'll see employed. This weekend it's an Olympic distance so there is no mixed team relay. But that is the nuance of the sport and the nuance of the new rules. You're going to see a renewed importance on mixed team relay. Speaking of Olympics, yeah, they start the day after, which is, we should even reach out to them and kind of get why they wanted to do that. But the Olympic champion is finally returning back to short course, Alex Yee. ⁓ Will bless us with his ⁓ presence on the screen. So super, super exciting to watch. Don't know what to expect. I mean, he's been ⁓ chicken away, chipping away at the marathon distance for a while. have Matt Houser, Luke William, Tim Hellwig. mean, pretty stacked list. Definitely a notable missing name, though, who has not decided to make his return yet to the WTCS level, I guess, is Hayden Wild. Kyle, do you know why he's not racing? Yeah, he said he's going to do T100 San Francisco. He's already back in Europe and so it's just a big travel to get back to Japan. So he's going to, he's putting all his eggs on the T100 San Francisco and WTCS Algaro. He'll be coming back. Yeah. Yeah. And just, and, one thing for, for a name like Hayden Wild and from a country that he's in, there's a nuance here. Hayden Wild will have a, New Zealand will give him A very clear runway to get into the games and and I don't want to say they're gonna roll out a red carpet for him for LA But he will be one of the athletes that has the closest thing possible to a red carpet So, you know this given that there aren't the men at his level he earned a medal Their country's gonna get a spot. He's got two medals Their country's gonna get a spot. So they're gonna say hey look man, you just do what you want to do What do we how can we support you to get a gold medal? Yeah versus There will be other countries that will say like the German women, for instance. There could be five women within the top 40 and they're all chasing the top three qualification spot. there is. Are they racing seven women at this one? Is Japan in the U.S. or sorry, ⁓ Germany in the U.S. So that's the nuance that's built into it too. So we'll keep you updated on that the next two years. But I think that's as a spectator. That's that's what you got to how you got to observe a lot of this. And obviously, the Olympic record speaks for itself, right? He's got two Olympic medals and he wiped France out of the relay in Paris. So his Olympic performances are exceptional, but I'm really excited to see Alex. No, I'm The crazy stat on this, 19 months since his last triathlon. Mental. Yeah, it's incredible. This is Alex E. Yeah. I thought he did a couple of super tries. So. yeah. Depends on if you count 19 months. So I think Taylor Nibb Taylor Nibb is another one she hasn't raced. She hasn't raced short course since the Olympics. So Taylor's no longer, she's no longer racing in Yokohama. She's not correct. not coming through for a minute. Sorry. I was going to say, I mean, what I'm really intrigued to see is Matt Hauser surely is looking at Alex here and being like, I don't really want to run against you. And I bet you haven't been doing that much swimming. So I think we're going to see a Matt Hauser start. Like we saw at the end of last year, or was it early this year? Just an absolute gun start in the swim. and really drill it to see if he can put Alex to the sword, split that group up. And it could actually make for quite an exciting race, because I think they're going to really try to get rid of Alex early. Yeah, that totally makes sense. And the guys that are racing that race last weekend in Chengdu as well, like Luke Williams, he raced last weekend. Couple a couple of others that race and were part of that sprint finish. Probably not not not too far of travel for them. Men race second on Sunday, but the woman race first. Beth Potter. Or Linderman, Lee Sturge, Gwyn Jorgensen, Taylor Spivey, Casper. mean, this is about as big as it gets. We don't have the likes of Cassandra on there. Hold on a second. The race is Saturday night, Friday night for the US, just FYI. Yeah. The why do Kyle, do you got any insight on to why Cassandra is not racing? No, I have no insight on that. I believe that she was sick and then she probably went back to Europe and so she'll probably do Algaro and that lot. mean look, here's the thing. Gwen just left this morning from Denver. It's Denver to Tokyo direct flight, 12 hours. If you want to go from one of the major hubs in the, basically you can go there from Amsterdam, London, etc. It's a 14 hour flight because the Russian airspace is still closed. So this thing is a bear to get to from from Europe as well. So it's not a, this isn't like a hops, mean, it was still, it always has been an 11 hour flight, but there's a big difference between 11 hours on the Big Bird and 14 hours on the Big Bird. Yeah, that's fair enough. We do have podium picks for this race. We spent a lot of time on this WTCS Yokohama race. However, we do have podium picks for this. If you want to get in the running for the season long standings, you have to play at least two short course WTCS races. So I'm sorry. I know that all of our listeners mainly are long course people, but you're going to have to just throw your hat in the ring and just hope and pray for the best on picking some short course stuff. we have, we have a bunch of good, not only in the season leaderboards cash prizes, we do have the likes of a Roka Swim Skin for the best swim picks and you can't just pick. ⁓ Mark Dubrik coming out of the water first at every 70.3 because you got to do the short course races as well. make sure you jump in there. Woe of saddle as well for the whoever picks the fastest bike times and then for the run, get a win Republic CDA tri suit, which is the same suit that Kat Matthews races in. Right, Mark? So I'm guessing it's the same suit that Pat's going to be racing Rothen because he keeps dodging. that he is doing the bike leg in Roth and he keeps going, have we got a relay in Roth? But I'm going to say it one more time on the show Pat, you're riding 180K in Roth. Any thoughts, mate? ⁓ mate. Yeah, I'm... I know you need some more cycling kits, so you can go to winrepublic.com and we have a link with ProTry News. get 15 % off. visit the show notes and get yourself a new kit. Here's the deal. I haven't been sleeping well since I had to pull off the start list for 70.3 New Zealand. And frankly, it's been eating me up. But something that's been helping me sleep is this triple magnesium from Pillar Performance. This new flavor that they have is... an absolute game changer for me. This lemon lime, listen, I love the coconut, but this lemon lime one just takes it up to another level. So if you're training for your races, if you're having a hard time sleeping, recovering, two products that you need to try is the triple magnesium from Pillar and also the collagen repair. These are two game changing products. And if you're having a hard time still getting sick, the ultra immune C. If you visit the show notes, The Pillar link is listed below. If you use code PTN15 either on Pillar's website or on the feed if you're in the US, you're get 15 % off. These are three products that you gotta have in your cabinet. Let me know what you think. This episode of Pro Try News is brought to you by Rhythm Health, the monthly at-home blood test designed for people who actually want to understand their body and not guess about it. Here's the truth, most athletes get their blood done once maybe twice a year and that leaves huge gaps in understanding what's really going on internally. Rhythm helps fixes that and sends you a simple at-home test every single month. No lab visits, no big needles, just a quick sample at home and then you mail it back. Within days you'll get a full digital report with insights on the things that matter most to triathletes. Hormones, recovery markers, inflammation, iron levels, metabolic health, all those things that quickly can derail your training if you're not tracking it. Because it's monthly, you can actually see the trends over time so that that way you can adjust your training and nutrition and recovery before the small issues become big ones. So take control of your health and performance and the data that actually matters. Head to the link in the show notes to learn more. The other big one we got, X and Provence this weekend, 70.3. The big news out of this one, I mean, this is the first pro series race that Christian Blumenfeld hasn't had his name on a start list on. So this is going to be a good one. Also, I noticed on her season announcement Solveig Losseth had this down as a race, but she's not on the start list. Probably because she banks really quite good points in Oceanside. She wasn't that far behind Taylor Nibb. She got the dub in Texas, so maybe she's just keeping her apples dry for Hamburg. She's off the start list giving a bit of more clear run to some of these other athletes. The men's start list is still stacked. mean, because you've got Rico Bogan, who'll just light it up. He's got some bike competition in Christian Hogan-Halke. Jamie Riddle's there. Pierre Lacour, I think, is probably my favourite for the race. He's racing Rudy Von Berg, who we should never forget. He's always dangerous. Less so at the 70.3, but still reliable. That's his new slag. Kyle Smith is an interesting one. I didn't know he was over this way. but he's super good at the 70.3 and Ironman distance. Sorry, 70.3 and T100 distance. That's the men's field. I don't know who to pick. The most reliable thing is probably Rike Bogan comes off the bike with a four minute lead and then dies at about 17K on the run, but he might be able to put it off like he did in San Francisco. And then on the women's side, you've got Laura Philipp. Back on a start list after her did not start in Texas was Lisa Pertera. Really looking forward to seeing her. She's been putting out some really good workouts as well. Imogen Simmons, very, very good at this distance. Fenella Langerage, had a bit of time off, has had some success at 70.3. Indy Lee, you would have to say, goes into one of the favorites. I heard from a birdie she's not racing anymore. Indy. Yeah. No, she's not. You're absolutely right. She lives a mile and half away from me. I don't know why I've said that. And then Lizzie Rayner and Marcella Impiere. All of those athletes can do really well in this. fact, any of those least minus Indy Lou who isn't racing, ⁓ Lizzie Rainer can podium, Modine Pierre can podium, Imogen Simmons, but the top two favorite for me are Laura Philipp and Lisa Perter. I just need people to sometimes tune into YouTube and actually watch the feed because what happens when Mark speaks or when the other speaks is I usually click over to mute, but then Mark can weave some really good jokes in. So I'm over here pissing myself on mute. And I just think it would be great for the audience to be able to see this because he does drop some great jokes in that that really make me laugh ⁓ I'm in shock right now that mark Just said Indy Lee lives a mile and a half away from me guys. I think we're slowly converting him Yeah, you should have said 2k guys. Yeah, I know UK roads are miles. We use miles an hour. It's miles here We just use K for sport because all of Europe does. We invented the mile. Obviously, you stole it off us. The rest of the world changed. We didn't. We are miles. ⁓ I'm 120 miles. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're miles. I never knew that. Miles. Our speed limit is 70 miles an hour. Man. I've never been to the UK. So that probably tells me why I never knew that. Maybe this year. There you go. Something interesting for this race, I don't know if it's for the pros only or also for the age groupers as well, but I believe they're allowing disc wheels at this race. Has it been allowed the last couple of years? And then this year it's permitted. From what I heard. I honestly didn't know it wasn't disc wheels. Yeah, that's just from what I heard. Maybe that's an omen. Never know. Changing the rules up. Right. Let's not forget this is a pro series race. You tend to get slightly lighter fields at the pro series 70.3 just because there are more of them and athletes have a chance to pick and choose which races they're going to do. And the 70.3s maybe drop off a little bit through the year as the likes of Christian Blummefowl, et cetera, have banked. He's already got maximum points really on pro series. He's got two wins. Why would he do another one? He's got Roth coming up, stuff like that. So as these athletes have ticked them off, the list gets shorter. But for someone like actually going for the series, I would say it's interesting because there aren't that many athletes here scoring massively for the series. Rudy Von Berg, potentially. Benito Lopez will be looking for it. Laura Philipp isn't in the series. Lisa Pertera after Texas. I'm not sure she's going to catch up unless she does Hamburg Lake Placid double like Solve did last year. So it does seem like a bit of a light pro series field, if you ask me. One name we haven't mentioned that is on the start list, or gets two names, Pierre Lacour, ⁓ who I thought would have made a bigger impact in the 70.3 scene. We haven't traditionally seen him race too well. And then ⁓ Jamie Riddle. was only, was it not only Geelong that he dropped out of? I thought he'd just done a couple of 70.3s and won them both easily. He was fifth in next in Provence last year and sixth in Venice, Jaslo. He had terrible bikes, but crazy run splits. You're right, Talbot. Yeah, he's begging for a win because his bikes improved a lot. You know, the way he rode in New Zealand was actually really strong. Obviously he was done for come Zilong, but I've got him as my favorite, except for the likes of Kyle Smith going with Rico Bogan. You know, he's then actually really quite a dangerous runner and it gets quite hard work. I could see Pielo Corp going pretty well here. got something, I got a bone to pick with you guys before we move on to hot takes. Here's the deal, is we saw some pretty fast run splits at this race last year by Christian Blumenfeld, I think he put down maybe a 107, 106. And this bike course is about 4K short from a full 90K bike. Like if someone puts down the fastest run split ever in this race course, like... Are we going to sit here and say that there's an asterisk? Because if they run faster than Casper Storms10602 at Nice a couple years ago, are we going to say that this is the fastest run ever? Well, I think what I left our conversation for for Topic of the Week was I almost feel like we're going to set the new boundaries for this moving forward. We're going to be the ones to dictate it. I mean, for me, it's an absolute yes, it counts. Because the bike course is hilarious. It's horrible. It's a hard hard bike course if it's 4k short, it's still infinitely easier than golf coast It's actually harder than golf coast and the run I don't know how I watched the run by the way and then think about the time that KB run It's it is horrible. There's no way anyone's breaking a record here except for the likes of KB because he's a freak Yeah, Kyle who who the likes do you think is going to run this time? Pierre L'accord? Pierre He's done the crazy run times in the past Yeah, I mean his fastest is the 106 that he ran last year. So this is a pretty fast run course in my opinion. I think it's I mean, you never know. Maybe maybe maybe Rudy Von Berg or Jamie Riddle. I mean, you never know. Yeah. Is this is this a race for the first Frenchman across the finish line? I mean, they could do we count Rudy as a Frenchman. They can pick and choose. for America for so long. He's raised for America like 10 years. Plus. So. There is podium picks for this race as well. Make sure you guys tune in. ⁓ It is a lot of picking this week ⁓ with the two races, but it is a lot of fun to participate in the season long series. There's two other races on this weekend as well. Well, multiple races, but Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga with you have the likes of Sam Long. Matt Hansen, Paula Finley, Sky Munch. Is Paula Finley still going, Yeah, they're podcasting right now. I a text to her and asked and she said, we're podcasting, but yes, I'm still racing. Nice. Can message her back and just say it's not called podcasting, it's called pod. Yeah, I'll tell her that. It's called pod. It's woman. But we do have some hot takes. Woman. We do have some hot takes to get into. We've already hit on a few of them that we've already wrote down. Do want to go into community hot takes first or pro try new side takes first? Let's pro try new side takes first. All right. Alex, he's come back Olympic qualification over. Kyle, you want to hit on that one? ⁓ What are we just saying? Like where he's going to finish? Yeah. I'd say Alex goes top 10. It doesn't matter with Alex, the GB Federation, ⁓ they got some people there that are super sharp at their job. They're going to give him a pathway and a runway to go and defend his title. Do not look at Alex's result this weekend because I personally think he's going to, I don't think he's going to see the front pack because Matt Hauser is going to absolutely nuke it. And it's going to be a small group on the men's side. Alex, he will not factor this weekend. and that will have nothing to do. This is step one of him defending his title in LA. I think British draftsman also maybe know they need to make the pathway really quite smooth for fear of losing him to the marathon. Because there's got to be a nagging thing that he's like, I could marathon qualify for my country and just go and run the marathon instead. I've already got the goal. But got two goals in fact, because he's got the relay, hasn't he? So yeah, I'm I hate to say I'm with Pat on the logic of it. He is first on my picks because, you know, obviously, but I think think Matt Hauser is going to nuke it and I think it'll make no difference to him, whatever. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I that's why I love having our podcast because I need to make my picks and I love that Mark said that about Matt Hauser because it makes me change my picks around. But. Now looking at it, you're exactly right. This isn't going to be an easy ride for Alex and Matt knows exactly that going into this weekend. So top 10. It's Community hot takes. Yeah, let's hit some. Let's fire through some. All right. ⁓ I'm going to read off some. I'm going to kind of go through the top 10 and we'll read off some other ones as well. We kind of found last week ⁓ We don't want to just stay too focused. We want everyone to go fire the ones they like and stuff, but we don't want to stay too focused on that because sometimes we were maybe a bit too harsh on the T100 last week, could you say? Yeah, I think that there were just too many hot takes that were exactly the same that all basically slacked the T100 off a bit after we'd done a show that was a bit T100 heavy. And I think we can be a bit more nuanced on how we picked them. So just because something's voted higher, Please don't get angry if we don't read it out. It was probably just because we covered it in the show already. The first one, with 14 likes, I am Will D. Lionel should be required to sign a contract that Byron McKyle, committing a felony, he is not allowed to fire him until he officially retires. I mean, we... I'll go first. We haven't even seen him race since being back with McKyle, but I'm inclined to agree. Yes, I am Will D. Probably sensible. I'm with Will D on this. think it needs to like a mega contact. Linus get like an Iron Man tattoo across his forehead if he fires McCall. I talked to McCall about this hot take actually this weekend and he thought it was hilarious. He just had another fight, didn't he? Yeah, they did. Congratulations. mean, Linus blessed to have McCall in his corner. That's where I'll leave it. Yeah. Number two with 11 fires. found watts and I just want to going. many guys have we seen post about saving 48 watts after aero testing or finding 32 watts with the bottle placement calf sleeves only to have basically the same performance on the race day. OK, a lot of this is true on the surface. However, This is part of a slow evolution as to when we had Crowey on and he said to 15 years ago, I ran a four 23 didn't think anybody was going to ride faster than that at Kona. And then Sam Laidlaw goes and drops a three 57. Two things can be true at once. Yes, you can go and find some time and some speed in the wind tunnel and it may not impact your performance, but that's because everybody on the whole is also getting faster. Everyone's got better race suits. Everyone's got better bikes. Everyone's got better nutrition. Everyone's got great coaching. The game is getting faster, but it's not like when Joe Schmo from Kokomo goes and gets 40 watts in the wind tunnel. He's not alone in that anymore. Every one of his competitors has gone and done it. This is what I want to know. As someone who's never been to the wind tunnel, do you just go to the wind tunnel and then they're like, you have 20 to 30 more watts. Do I look down at my power meter and then it's 20 to 30 watts less? No, Mark speaks to this. Explain it to the... No, so basically what the number means if you haven't been is say you've got the wind tunnel testing at 45k an hour, right? And you tend to test a bit... It's easier to read small differences the faster you go. So a lot of pros will go and test at 50k an hour. The amount of power you have to push to go 50k an hour may have been 350 watts. If you save 20 watts or they're telling you save 20 watts, it's because you're pushing 320 watts to go 50k an hour still. So don't get more power, you require less power to go the same speed, at a set speed. Now the problem with these tests and the numbers is, never believe the overall number. Because there's a bit of an unknown thing about like accumulation factor, that if you find eight watts on the calf sleeves and you find 10 watts on the helmet and you find X on the gloves, they don't all add together to then become 30, whatever. So that's one factor, because you go faster. And therefore they have a different difference. The other one is we tend to test faster than you would race. So of course, if you find five watts at 50k an hour, that is not five watts at 40k an hour. It might only be two because you're going slower, you're overcoming less density of air resistance, et cetera. And the other one is I think the sensors are a bit oversensitive and generous to giving you savings because they're all marketing these products. You're paying over a thousand dollars to go to the wind tunnel minimum. So they want you to come away with findings. What I would say is the tunnel is really useful in knowing if the decision, like, so if you have to pick between two helmets, this one is faster. Don't read in too much into which, you know, how much faster just base the decisions around what's faster and potentially ignore the end number. Because if you, if you believe the end number, when you come to racing and you're still getting dropped or whatever, it's pretty disappointing. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, yeah, go ahead. That was submitted by Boards Sports Reports. like I said, you can submit your hot takes at prochinese.com. Click on the podcast page. You can submit hot takes. This next one is submitted by anonymous. ⁓ And I'm really curious to hear Mark and Pat's on this one. Are pros taking peptides for recovery and or human growth hormones? They not many seem to be regulated. Well, one, I mean, the Test for human growth hormone has been in every drug test for quite some time. So absolutely like if you were taking human growth hormones, that's illegal. Peptides are something that are brand new and that are named in a lot of stuff. So you'll see a lot of things like collagen peptides. Typically those are fully NSF certified. Not a problem. You just toss those in with some sort of drink that you're having. What's becoming much more gray zone now and that the WADA did make a classification on this past winter in their latest rule change for 2026 is there's a whole in the US, especially there's a whole market and a whole program for injectable peptides. Those are absolutely illegal. So if anybody's doing the injectable peptides or human growth hormone, 100 % those are illegal. There will also be, there's another class of peptides that are, would be, ⁓ You would see them listed on a bunch of stuff that I'm sure would be NSF certified like everything Don't take a vitamin from you my if I'm saying hey go take magnesium you have to be responsible for everything that you put in your body and responsible and and know that everything is cleared by water or your national ⁓ Body that does the drug testing mark. Did I cover that well enough? Absolutely perfectly and Talbot. You'll enjoy this Kat's dad obviously goes through the top submitted hot takes and submits his opinion on it beforehand to keep me informed. And he's pointed out that the growth hormone releasing peptides, like Pat said, were added to the band list over the winter. So that's completely perfect. I'm sure some athletes do take some of the milder ones, but by and large, peptides are now pretty banned in sport. And if they're not, it's probably because they're not effective in giving you an actual advantage. Next one. I just want to add one hot take to that. What do you think is consumed more in the amateur field? Peptides or tic tacs? perhaps that's the big thing in America. You guys get on this stuff because you love these longevity idiots. Like you love a bag of vitamins injected to like regen the collagen, I don't know, anal bleach or whatever. It's truly bizarre. No, no, no, it is growing. It's definitely growing. But no, no, no, but this is a non, I mean, this almost should be moved to a topic of the week in my opinion. And one that I think Scott would hate to actually comment on. prevalence of TRT being handed out to women and men now over the age of 50 as a protocol for their actual just trying to be healthy in life is a huge I mean this is against the rules unequivocally so I mean without a shadow of a doubt there are men and women age groupers that are taking TRT that are racing on the weekends at these races and and I bet that over 90 % of them have no idea that they are breaking the rules, right? But if we were to go and test for it, I think it would be, it's a, it is a very, very ugly thing that nobody wants to look in the face of. But I'm telling you the way that doctors are handing it out in the U S with good intentions here is growing here as well around the world. That's the difference. So I think that's kind of one of the big ugly skeletons in Iron Man's closet that they're going to have to have a day of reckoning with because it is going to start to ⁓ infect the results. I think you're It probably already has. you know, you're cheating. I know it might make you feel better or you've been sold, you desperately need it. The number of people that medically actually need TRT is extremely small. Just because you can get it prescribed doesn't mean you really need it. And if you need it, then you probably shouldn't be competing in amateur sport. I'm going ignore the Hayden one. We've kind of covered him a bit. Is this actually from TNib? Yeah, I want to read this one because I think it's really crazy. So someone by the name of TNibLOL submitted this hot take. quote unquote, me will be the first person to win a World Cup WTCS 70.3 T 100 and Ironman in one calendar year. This is so weird to me because first off, this isn't Taylor. In fact, I even looked at this user name, this user's name, who weirdly enough, put they made three accounts, but in one of them, put their personal emails, Oliver Wells. ⁓ Is this not a little weird that people continue to generate names for Taylor Nib and like right in the YouTube chat as if they're like an imposter, like there's someone else and they like they actually answer questions like Taylor would too. Do you guys think that's weird that you go identify yourself as another like athlete or person? I think that's weird to me. Yeah, think it's, yeah, and we're going to and we're going to straight docs you for it. That's all. Yeah, I just I don't like I don't have time for that. I think it's freaking weird to go. So, by the way, your account's been banned and you're not welcome back on the PTN website. So you as well, your social security number for him is addressed. No, all it has is username. Everything else is encrypted. But it would be cool if you had all that. ⁓ Matthew Marquardt resolving his cramps issues makes him a massive threat for world champs. 100 % Well, I don't, but I personally don't think it does. I don't think he runs fast enough. It's like a threat to who? Like to the five maybe? my opinion? was gonna say respectfully like if he was fifth that would be like absolutely insane but I realistically from six to tenth He's got his name written all over. I mean, shit, if Matthew Marquardt goes seventh at Kona this year, how is he not over the moon? Totally. And basically what he reckons it was, which I found quite interesting, because I was actually with his nutritionist last week, is that he was carb loading massively, like 14 grams per kilo of body weight the day before, which is a lot. Most people are like 10, 12. And he was essentially, it was just compressing a nerve, he reckons. He was getting so much swelling. It was compressing a certain nerve, potentially one nerve is quite vulnerable for him anyway. And then he was just cramping. That's his theory, the niche. But yes, know he's not a threat to win Kona respectfully. I don't think so. Top 10 maybe. Top five, incredible. I think he's threat to win. But I think between him and Rudy, they are the biggest threats for top American. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Cool. Dan Kyle said, yeah, sure. We moved right on that without mentioning Trevor Foley. All right. On to the next hot take. You just mentioned him for me, so it's all good. ⁓ If Ari Clow or Jason West had a commanding win at 70.3 Gulf Coast, it would change their career. mean, that's that was an old hot take. They've already lost. Yeah. So unfortunately, their career hasn't changed. I got I got one on here. Did he put Jason West did you say? Yeah, he was supposed to race. didn't end up racing. Jason West has won many. Has won 70.3s before. Yeah, he's won loads. wouldn't take him so far. Ari Klaas overdual win. I would agree with you on that. Can I read one that Morgan Pearson submitted? Iron Man keeps... The pro, it didn't make it onto our show notes. Iron Man keeps the pro swim short like races in Dallas and Gulf Coast so YouTubers can keep winning. I mean, sure. I think it hurts their brand more. I think if you think Ironman are making a decision around the pros, you're a bit naive. Ironman desperately want the swims to happen because they need the business off the age group so they don't want to lose their actual financial income base. Doesn't Morgan do a YouTube? Yeah. Sometimes, sometimes, not all the time. Morgan Morgan needs to focus on showing up to a start line before he focuses on taking swings at other athletes. No, not yet. Yeah, not yet. Almost June. things. Couple things I do want to I'm going to go a little off script on the on the hot takes real quick. ⁓ The T100 we did. I did put out an article ⁓ about the T100 and payment coming through and stuff like that from last year. And ⁓ it actually PTO did pay their athletes for ⁓ Qatar by the end of last week. So ⁓ they essentially said all money from 2025 is going to be paid out by the end of ⁓ May. So super huge that ⁓ they're getting athletes paid. Yeah, yeah. And it is it is pretty big, too, because we've had a lot of athletes reach out to us, a lot of athletes that surprisingly are even within the top five of the rankings and said thank you so much for this, thank you for bringing transparency to the table. ⁓ We've been contacted now and updated on the payments. So I think the athletes are really excited that they're going to get paid out too. I think the slight problem with the interview that I saw about it is that it sort of confirmed that they were waiting for new sponsors to pay up money so they could afford to pay the debts from last year. And to me, that's an issue because what's happening with people currently earning money? Where's that coming from? You know, like I would rather it was like these sponsors pay in January for the money that we're paying out in December. Yeah, it's hard. I know it's hard how you take a business off and all that sort of stuff, but it's kind of like writing checks you can't cash. the one thing they do have is Sam is extremely good at it and the people at the 2100 are very good at it. and they keep coming up with it and coming up with it, but it's not guaranteed. So whilst they remain good at what they do, it's not really a problem. I mean, it's disappointing because a lot of these athletes really could do with the money. For some of the big ones, it's fine, whatever. But for most, waiting five, six months is a grind. But whilst it's getting sorted, let's just look forward to seeing their next race in Spain and stay out. Yeah. Spain and San Francisco are going to be lit. thank you all for listening to this week's episode of ProTry News. Be sure to go to the podium picks page on our website, protrynews.com. Get your picks in for WTCS Yokohama and 70.3 eggs and Provence. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend and good luck to everyone watching. Thanks. See ya.