Patrick Lemieux: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Pro Trying News. If you were lucky enough to listen to our episode from last week, you may have heard some breathing. From the chest cold that I was experiencing. So if you listened to our episode within the first four hours, let me sincerely apologize for the terrible audio that you had to listen to. That's on us. ⁓ look, you would think after, you know well that's on me. ⁓ but after almost three hundred episodes, we'd have this figured out. But you know what? There's still a work in progress for some of this. you know, I'll give you one quick little story. So I'm at Unbound of getting ready for this big

Kyle Glass: Us.

Patrick Lemieux: event that I'm trying to participate in and and do my best, right? And I get a text message from my amazing smoke show of a wife. And she goes, Are you in a place to accept some critical feedback right now? And she never s she she rarely says this to me. This is not something I've had to hear in a very long time. And I and I panic. I go, Well something wrong with my parenting, my my husband duties, like what am I doing wrong here? So I call her and I said, Gwen, everything okay? And she goes She goes, Pat, what are you doing on the podcast? And I go, well, what do you mean? And she goes, the audio was horrible. The breathing. She goes, it's all I can hear. ⁓ God, I got this series going mental right here on my phone. Sorry, grandpa. So I'm like.

Mark Matthews: ⁓ my god. You're making an apologise for bad audio. We've got text messages binging in the background. You've started playing a YouTube video in the background at the same time. Like Right now, let's just

Patrick Lemieux: I apologize. Bear with me, okay? I'm working on this. By episode 500, we're gonna have this dialed. So look, we had an amazing weekend world series race.

Mark Matthews: I will say we get yeah, we get some audio criticism, but we we live in three different countries at the moment, if you throw Gwen in, four di we're in five different locations. We have to do this remote. We have to do it across the world wide web. So we do our best with the audio. We will stop Pat heave breathing down the mic though.

Talbot Cox: ⁓

Patrick Lemieux: Sorry about that. So

Talbot Cox: This is three three continents, I think, right now.

Patrick Lemieux: Yes. We've got Nan Stanford back on the show, our short course expert. So Naan, tell us where you're coming from. Last time we were I think you were with us in Vietnam or China, one of the two. Where are you today?

Kyle Glass: Both.

Non Stanford: I'm back in Australia. So yes, I am coming, I believe from a different continent to everybody else. I'm in Oceania right now.

Talbot Cox: And how and how grateful was Aaron that you got home?

Non Stanford: Probably very grateful because the first thing I had to do when I came back was cook him dinner, go to the shops, cook him dinner and then build his altitude tent. So I am currently fighting for my life at three and a half thousand meters in an altitude tent every night. And I thought he'd retired, but here we are sleeping at altitude in Australia.

Kyle Glass: A Aaron's pulling out all the stops for the para for the para games.

Mark Matthews: There's no way.

Non Stanford: He is committed, very.

Mark Matthews: You share the tent. Like there's no way. If Kat ever when she used to use one, you could not pay me to get in the tent as well.

Non Stanford: We're both in there. Yeah, it's big. It's massive. Actually, we've got a king size bed and it goes over and there's a bit of space either side. So it's a lot bigger, but I'm just in there for the, for the cheap altitude gains as well. You know, I'm burning calories at night, which means absolutely nothing, just life. I only exercise these days, but I'm going to be looking great at the end of this month. That's for sure.

Kyle Glass: What what are you what are you training for, Nan? trying to outrun the kangaroos down in Australia.

Mark Matthews: Reddit.

Non Stanford: shredded.

Kyle Glass: That's awesome.

Talbot Cox: In in in in America they just ⁓ go get a Zimbabwe. So you could ⁓ that's what they do here instead. Instead of altitude tens. Yeah.

Non Stanford: Maybe I'll have to look into that after this.

Mark Matthews: I actually googled that today.

Kyle Glass: We are all five in different time zones too. Talbot you're you're down at Lionel's getting ready for another ⁓ Lionel YouTube video, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. And then Mark.

Talbot Cox: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So enjoying and I saw I saw Sam at the pool today as well. So he is looking forward to Happy Valley. Got a pretty ⁓ I was about to say a pretty stacked start list, but I'll just say a pretty good start list. ⁓ but yeah. It's hot here.

Patrick Lemieux: Well we had the big dog we had the big dog on in our pre-show, which is off camera, but he was on for quite a bit, so it was great to catch up with him.

Talbot Cox: Yeah, yeah. Lionel came on and then right when we pressed record he walked away, so it was a little awkward.

Kyle Glass: Nice. Mark, how you doing? How's training going?

Mark Matthews: ⁓ I'm doing minimal, but a little bit. things are good, yeah, yeah, we're just we're just tapping away. Cat fell over in the woods on Friday, so I got a call off some old lady, random phone number and ⁓ she was there was she was like, It's Olivia, can you pick me up? I was like, Pff who is Olivia? And ⁓ cat was at a bakery called Olivia's, which is in the outwoods near us. She's totally fine, just rolled around, cut and scratched up a bit. So we had a couple of days off running, but ⁓ otherwise life's pretty damn good I would say.

Kyle Glass: Nice. Well, we had ⁓ pretty exciting race this weekend, the WTCS ⁓ down in Al Garo. I mean, we won't bore you going through the results. It was a very exciting race. So ⁓ World Traff actually made it free. Shout out to Alex E for kinda putting some pressure and putting putting them under under the microscope to ⁓ to kind of push it and make it free. First race of the Olympic qualifying ⁓ criteria. So super exciting. If you do not have a login. ⁓ they are actually running a discount 40% off for the whole year. So I think it's thirty dollars US for the whole year. ⁓ if you're wanting to ⁓ re-watch Al Garo and then also watch all the rest of the races throughout the year. Which funny enough, ⁓ you can also watch all the T100 races, which I guess that's what a lot of people are doing in Europe. We got a lot of messages about people not being able to watch on YouTube. So ⁓ back to the race in Algaro, you Vasca Volaka. continue his winning streak after he won his first WTC S in Samarcan. ⁓ return to racing. ⁓ looked like he got shot out of a rocket with like eight hundred meters to go against Middel Miguel H Dalgo and then Ricardo Batista, other athlete from Portugal round and out the podium. So that's your top three on the men's side. On the women's side you had Cassandra Bogrand, ⁓ her return after doing some running races, won the race. Beth Potter second place, leads to church in third. Now ⁓ I'm sure a lot of people are here to listen to all the drama and things that unfolded. ⁓ first off on the men's side, like have you guys ever seen that many crashes in a men's WTC S race in history? Nan, you've been at more of these than you can count. Is that was that un unnatural?

Non Stanford: I'm trying to remember, but to be honest with it was pretty dramatic, wasn't it? I can't remember, like you say, especially the men's race, although Abu Dhabi actually, the first few years that they had to race Abu Dhabi, it was really wet and we were on an F1 course. So that was carnage because I think all the oil came up off the road and everybody was crashing. I think 50 % of the field crashed in the women's race actually. I definitely did. I remember Katie Zafira's had a pretty bad crash in the tunnel. I don't remember if Gwen was there, if she came off. I think at this point she was maybe running, so she might have missed that. But yeah, crazy. But Algaro, yeah, again, brought all the drama. It wasn't wet, so just wonder whether it was, was it super technical? Was the road surface not great? I'm not sure, actually, but it gave us something to talk about.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. I heard from some athletes the road condition was not great. There was a lot of potholes and lot of mm, probably issues, sand on the track maybe. So ⁓ well let's talk a little bit about what some people are calling water bottle gate. So basically I I don't even know where to start. Who wants to take it?

Patrick Lemieux: I mean let's lit it we've got no, I mean I'll take it. We've got it on video. We got receipts on this. I'm sorry. So you have an athlete, Lisa Turch, who's running through a neutral feed zone where athletes can get water bottles. She takes she's first in line, she takes a water bottle and then swipes the two remaining ones that somebody else behind her is supposed to get. I don't really think that's up for debate. That happened, right? This is also an athlete that, again, not up for debate, has gotten multiple swim penalties for poor behavior. ⁓ and she's getting called out by it from her peers. That's not a fun thing to do. That's not a fun thing to do for the athletes that have to do it. That's not a fun thing for Lisa Church to go through. But this is what's going on, right? And and I'm sorry, like Your your peers are holding you accountable for your actions. You do not swipe those water bottles from somebody's hand that's feeding you. It's super simple. It's it's just not the behavior that you want to as the current world champion that you want to exhibit or exude. Your job is to be an example for your peers and for those looking up to you. Okay. Am I wrong?

Non Stanford: No, you're definitely not wrong. And I think the reality of the situation is that this has been bubbling away for years and years. ⁓ There's multiple instances, whether they've been caught on camera or caught by referees, but been going on in the background, ⁓ unfortunately with Lisa and now it's all come to the surface and has been seen by everybody. okay, mean, Jeanne throwing a water bottle at her mid-race probably wasn't... ⁓ the best course of action from her, but I can understand you're in middle of the race. Tension is high. You're fighting for a podium. There's four of them left at this point, I think. And yeah, her emotions just got the better of her. And yeah, I can understand why, but it's great that Cass actually stood up and by the sounds of it has said something to her, I guess, as world, well, she's not world number one at the minute, but the Olympic champion. Maybe she feels like she's got a bit of a duty to stand up for the rest of the athletes and probably somebody that's at the, you know, end of it all the time, always in packs with her where she's not working next to her in swim races. I mean, you saw it in Yokohama where Lisa was swimming all over Sean Rainsley, the whole swim, which meant the swim didn't really ever break up. So yeah, not ideal. Hopefully this just brings it to Lisa's awareness. Maybe she wasn't aware how much she was affecting the other athletes, but fingers crossed it settles down or not because we enjoyed the drama.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah, I'm look, for me, I'm I'm disappointed ov on the weekend that like the two big talking points for me were that Alex E got the broadcast for free to be free and that you know, Lisa Church got kind of called out on this behavior that's been going on for a while, right? Those those I wish that we were talking about the racing more, but these two things seem to be far more important to me because I think it's it like Broadcast being free is something I've been preaching forever, right? I think for this for for short course sport to grow and to be more front of mind, they have to be in line with what their peers are doing. Iron Man's got this free of charge, T one hundred's got this free of charge. I know that World Tri loves to make half a million bucks a year, give or take. ⁓ on the on the broadcast how they where they collect a fee, but there needs to be a little bit more long term approach here and going, we need to slowly build this thing and to sell advertisement against it. And the problem is if you're Alex Yee and you've got a sponsor on the hook and they go, Okay, great, like how do we watch these races? And then Alex goes, Well, you know, you've got to go on this package this private package program called Trathlon Live dot TV and then for fifty dollars you buy ⁓ the subscription for the eight races a year. And non endemic brands and even endemic brands are looking at that going, Huh? What do you mean? And so I just think that's where they've got to kinda slow down and big picture and go, How do we wanna grow the sport? And how do we accept that we're gonna remove this line item from our budget and we're gonna get it back through our own sponsorship money. Because the problem is is if they look at I'm assuming if World Tri looks at their sponsorship portfolio from the peak that was in 2009, 2010, 11. They're sitting there going, what can we do differently to return to when we had our highest sponsorship dollars? Period. So I don't I don't want to take away from the great racing that was this weekend, but that's unfortunately those are the two biggest storylines for me.

Mark Matthews: For me, like I thought George Taylor Brown was a bit of an unsung hero, chucking the bottle across herself in the background very nonchalantly and then just happily watching them run away. Quite enjoyed that, just all round top behaviour from her. And I gotta say, I just love to see Casback winning super easy. I mean she made that look pretty sedentary, let them have thirteen seconds out of T two, ran them down, took the win, then went full Queen Bee Diva. tidied up the lease ⁓ the turch situation. Absolute full on French diva mode from the finish line to the podium and Waltz is off clearly the best in the world, clearly the biggest set of kahunas on her. That was the highlight for me, cast back on absolute full form. So yes, I know what you mean. They're quite big stories. The men's race was Carnage as well. I mean the dropouts, you know, like we didn't mention Alex he was there. Like it was It was good racing and it it makes me do it makes me remind myself why I do try and watch the short course stuff when I can. The broadcast thing, yes, we've harped on about it a lot. It should be free. My only reservation is that Triathon's tried to market itself for TV for so many years, so many different platforms. And just by turning it free, I don't know actually how many more viewers that's gonna generate. And then lastly to cycle back to the the YouTube comment. as I keep saying, whenever we bring up the T one hundred viewing figures, we do need to be a bit responsible for not quoting their poor viewership figures based on the YouTube. Everyone in Europe has to watch it on a different platform unless for a VPN. None of them are showing up on YouTube. They're they're doing a lot better than I think the YouTube numbers suggest. But it's still not big. And if you're saying they're making half a million quid paying for it, that means they're getting ten thousand paid subscriptions. That's actually better than anyone else is doing off their broadcast. But Ultimately I do think you're right. I just think the argument isn't quite so clear cut maybe.

Talbot Cox: Did ⁓ wait bax I hate to bounce around. I don't know what format we're doing right now, but on the Lisa thing, did she just slap all the bottles away and then Georgia Taylor Brown handed her a bottle? Is that what happened?

Non Stanford: think Georgia handed one to Jeanne because Jeanne didn't get a bowl.

Mark Matthews: Mate, you've got to mute your microphone, Talbot. ⁓ yeah, Georgia got one and then Jeannie didn't get one, did she? Was that right? And then Georgia just handed it to her. That was it that was it. All I mean is like it was just in the background, like it was just quite funny the way that sort of Georgia stepped in and then she was the one that got kicked out the back anyway, but clearly was more interested in a bit of sportsmanship than she was anything else, which I like to see.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. ⁓ the thing about I mean, Mark, I I don't know how you feel, but on the men's side of of the G B team, I mean, unfortunately with the crashes and everything that happened, there was no G B men in the top ten. I mean, me as an American, I'm I'm like scratching my head 'cause I'm like, I we don't have any American male in the top twenty, pretty much. So now we're we're going into this Olympic qualification and you're like, Man, I d I don't know what's going on here 'cause you got Australia that's super strong. Now you got Portugal who had three men in the top what eight. So we have all these countries now that are that are coming up and only three or four countries last Olympics in Paris had three men. And so y you got here you go here questioning like throughout this Olympic qu criteria, it may look quite different going into ⁓ LA.

Mark Matthews: Yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: I would deflect I'm gonna interrupt. I would deflect to Nan on this one a little bit and say like let's not look too much into the first race of the Olympic period. And I think yes, there are some some clues and some signals, but I don't think that it anybody should be hitting the panic button yet. Nan, am I am I wrong?

Non Stanford: No, I was going to say exactly the same thing. You know, it's still two years to go until, until the games just under. ⁓ and things are going to change so much. mean, Portugal had three men in the, Paris, so no surprises there. They've got a lot of exceptional male athletes at the moment. ⁓ obviously bad day for, for Great Britain. Lots of instances, there was crashes, obviously Alex, hit his foot the day before Jack Willis had a puncture. And stuff like this happens all the time, you know, it's going to be, it's going to be up and down. And that's why they don't take every race into consideration. It's your best 12 results, including four Olympic distances. So, or minimum four Olympic distances, I should say, but yeah, it's, it's a long haul is going to be a lot of shifting. ⁓ I mean, even right up to the, to the close date, there's so many athletes jumping on and off. So yeah, don't panic yet. I mean, maybe panic if you're American for the men, but. Don't worry too much.

Mark Matthews: Lucky to get a relay team at this, right?

Kyle Glass: Yeah. I well, we're guaranteed a relay team. We get two men and

Patrick Lemieux: We're guaranteed we're g ⁓ we're the whole the host nation is guaranteed a relay team. So

Kyle Glass: So it's a miracle. We're good on that. So now it'll be now it'll be a question of like I mean, you got two guys that have been in the program for a long time, Seth Ryder, Chase McQueen and and Dar Smith. So three guys that have been in the program for better part of a decade. And then now you got some of the project podium guys that you kinda wonder, like, does Reese Vanderson maybe get the slot? Or ⁓ John Reed? Like i it's T B D on on kind of what they're gonna go with, but

Mark Matthews: Yeah.

Kyle Glass: As you guys said, it's it's a long road to ⁓ to LA, so we'll see kinda where we go from there. Talbot.

Mark Matthews: He's thumbs uping. Talbot's away, like he said at Lionels and he's got a bit of a dodgy mic peep, so just bear with him while he sorts that out. Because we can't do that again.

Kyle Glass: All good. ⁓ the only before we move on from the WTCS race, non, you race at this high level for a long time. Is there like with the water bottle thing, is there a lot of like unspoken rules that are rules in the sport that maybe us as like the couch viewer doesn't understand or doesn't get? Like you guys race each other year round, travel in the world, the traveling circus, and I'm sure there's things that are said behind closed doors or even like at dinner tables that are rules that we don't know about.

Non Stanford: Yeah, I mean, it's just general good etiquette, isn't it? And I think you get them in all sports. Yes. If you have a water bottle and you're running with a group of people and clearly people didn't, you offer them the water bottle. That's just what everybody does. You see it in loads of races. The commentators normally make a big deal out of it, but it's happening all the time. You pull turns on the bike. That is also an unspoken rule. And also you don't beat each other up coming out of the swim.

Patrick Lemieux: I I'm just gonna f this a lot of this falls under just general life rules. Don't be an a-hole. Like it's it's really that simple. And like a lot of those moves were just a hole moves.

Non Stanford: Yeah, you're right.

Kyle Glass: Yeah, I did hear I did hear that Cass talked to her again off camera ⁓ about the whole situation. So maybe we'll see in a couple weeks in Kibiron if there's changes in people's actions or if this drama's just gonna keep overflowing throughout this whole Olympic criteria, but makes it good for for us as viewers, so quite good.

Non Stanford: Maybe we need to do an onboarding manual for everyone that steps up to World Series.

Kyle Glass: ⁓ That could be something too. ⁓ another race that happened over the weekend was Iron Man Brazil. You had Willie Hirsch ⁓ end up winning the race there. Yuri Cool in second place and Arnold Gillow third place. That's where all the three Olympic or ⁓ Olympic Kona slots went for that race. And then on the women's side, Romina Bigallo. Maybe that's close. ⁓ Pamela Oliveria, second place, and Julia Imolo in third. And those are where all three of the ⁓ the slots went for the women. The kind of some talking points from this race, Yuri Cullen made his debut. ⁓ he switched coaches over in the off season, so that's gonna be probably something that we'll continue to follow. Yuri's race super well in the heat, so I I mean, I don't wanna read it too much into this race in Brazil, but The fact that Yuri in his first hit out could go and get second place bag of Kona slot, like that's that's kinda huge. Obviously Kona is a hot and humid race as well. And Yuri winning in Singapore a couple of years ago, like I I I think that I kinda would put him in the realm of like a top five, maybe in Kona.

Patrick Lemieux: Got I got three words. Back on track. Yuri Coolin. So I mean that's that's for for me, he's he's back on track. I don't want to say he's a favorite for for Kona based on a race in Brazil, but to podium, he's got some some there's obviously some stress to just try and earn the Kona spot because that window is closing. So he earned it. I mean, kudos to him. Mark, what'd I miss?

Mark Matthews: No no, I just saw our post about fastest Iron Man debut ever. And we had like ⁓ Vincent Louis in Texas but he'd already done Roth, so that doesn't count, surely. And then we had Christian Blumenfeld in Cosmel, which we all say he swam thirty eight minutes. Bullshit. That doesn't count. So Yuri's got it. I I don't ⁓ like there's no debate. Yeah, like I don't know how anyone was voting for anything else. You can't give someone that's already done an Iron Man

Kyle Glass: So you're giving it to your eight.

Mark Matthews: Vincent Louis it and you can't give someone swimming down Niagara Falls it. Like you've got to give it to the guy that did an actual Iron Man. Yuri, fastest AW Iron Man ever. Like absolutely, it was an incredible race. And ⁓ to be fair, what an ex I wish that was properly televised, because him and Willie Hirsch ran within t ten, fifteen seconds.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah, of course. Yep. Yeah.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, but they ran within fifteen seconds of each other for thirty five K. We don't see that very often, like actually going that that long, that hard. of course Brazil is famous for some fast times and, you know, you wonder course accuracy, bitter moto stuff, whatever. But that is a really strong debut for him and it shows that group out of Girona are doing some really good stuff because Vincent's Texas was absolutely excellent. Like he Martin Van Riel flying at all times. Now Yuri coming out of that same sort of Girona click. Like they're getting a lot of good work done out there.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. I'm still gonna defend my boy K B. I mean K B to Yuri's time is like eleven, twelve minutes, so I don't know if a downriver swim's gonna be like that big of a difference, but

Mark Matthews: Ten minutes. The swim was like ten minutes faster than he swims normally. Generous as well. You know, and then then you swam ten minutes less. You're out of the water. You start and the the whole time you're swimming, you can't carb. So it's even less time. You're just digging a deficit. You can get the gel-in early. Nah, Yuri's having it. KB's a rubbish triathlete. We're not giving it to him. ⁓ name me anything. Name me a single good result he's had after Cosmel. Nonsense.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. Yeah. Ha ha ha. ⁓ that's good. That's good. ⁓ the big I mean, also there's another thing that happened in this race. Probably not a whole lot of people talking about it, not a whole lot of people maybe know. ⁓ the fastest run split of the day actually wasn't a professional athlete. It was an age grouper by the name of Diego Arantes, who ran a two thirty seven dead. So shout out to him for ⁓ showing showing the big guys how to how to run in the race. So the Other race of the weekend was seventy point three Kreitsgau, which it was going to be probably a pretty good stacked race. ⁓ and then we had some people pull off kinda late. ⁓ Lasse Priester pulled off with the D S. ⁓ Kyle Smith pulled off. Fingros of Frieza ended up racing ⁓ the seventy or the challenge race in Saint Poulton, and then Jan Stratman pulled up with an injury. Also he had Laura Phillip who withdrew, but she's racing this coming weekend in Hamburg. So ⁓ It was gonna be pretty stacked race and then all of a sudden in the end it it kinda wasn't. But it was won by a new athlete, ⁓ Cedric Osterholt won on the men's side, got the single cone slot there or single knee seventy point three world slot there, and then on the women's side, Danielle Kleiser won for the women, ⁓ na nabbing the cone slot for that one. ⁓ Danielle overcame a six minute deficit to be able to win that one, ran a one sixteen. That's not a easy course to be able to ⁓ both on the bike or on the run, so her having performance like that was was pretty good. So niece slots. I keep saying Kona slots. Niece slots. So

Mark Matthews: Knee slots. Knee slots. Yeah, it was a bit of a it was a bit of a low field 'cause that's often a race you might get a Laura Phillip out or something, isn't it? You tend to get a real big name there. And it just lacked a bit of that over the weekend. B best race of the weekend. Go on.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. And then the other ⁓ challenge Sam Poulton. Is that the best race of the weekend?

Mark Matthews: That is not what I was gonna say. I was gonna say it's W T WTCS. By far. Like we often get these big Ironman races, seventy point three races, by far the most entertaining race, WTCS. Challenge and Poulton, we're doing that. Okay.

Kyle Glass: What what what race were you saying? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The just I mean, winning the race was Fred Funk. He hasn't won a race in roughly three seasons, so big shout out to Fred Funk for doing that. And then Caroline Pohl now goes three for three of ⁓ for the season. So going into I believe her next race is Challenge Roth, so going into that race for her debut ⁓ Ironman distance race, so huge. ⁓

Mark Matthews: Yeah, and that's off b that's back to back weekend wins as well. So pretty strong around from that.

Kyle Glass: Mark, we got away from doing chapeau of the race or chapeau of the weekend with all the races that happened. Who are you gonna give it to?

Mark Matthews: Easy. It's Cassandra. Full on D.Va. Bags the dub. Creates the controversy. Follows it up with a comment on our post. I'm a hundred percent Cassandra. Anyone else?

Kyle Glass: Cassandra. Nan, who are you going?

Non Stanford: Just the change up. think Vasco's finish was incredible. ⁓ Hidalgo is not a slow runner and the way Vasco took off in that last K was amazing. And just really cool to see. And the video of his family watching the race is ⁓ really nice if you haven't seen it and they're just going crazy. And yeah, just shows how much it means to everybody.

Patrick Lemieux: I'm gonna I'm gonna shout Yuri Coolin. This is a guy that had a a severe heat injury ⁓ you know, three seasons ago roughly, and and to come back in a place like Brazil that's super hot, super humid, and have what I'm gonna call the fastest debut ever. I I mean how can you not applaud him? Super, super happy for him. Like and he he's in the mix.

Mark Matthews: Come on then Carl. Right, that's three different you've got three choices, Carl. You gotta pick one of those three, what you saying. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Glass: Of those three, I'm giving it to Cassandra. Just because I know that ⁓ she's sh obviously her being the Olympic champion, but knowing that she's had a conversation face to face with Lisa off camera about the situation that happened this weekend, I think for me that's kinda huge and probably not a whole lot of fans or even ⁓ some of the under other pundits know that they have those conversations. So ⁓

Mark Matthews: Yeah.

Kyle Glass: I mean we'll see if it we'll see if it changes anything.

Patrick Lemieux: This I'm gonna just close the chapter on WTCS El Garo. This for me is a weekend where the Olympic the current Olympic champions fought for the future of the sport. Cassandra wants to make in make and ensure that there's fair racing on the field of play. And you got Alex Yee saying, more people got to watch this and let's remove every barrier possible. So I think I want to commend those two in a massive way. It's important it's super important that those two things are defended.

Kyle Glass: Alright, topic of the week. We were gonna do one and then Pat just threw us a carved ball 'cause he was down there at ⁓ at the race down at Unbound. While you're in Umbound, Pat, did you stick to your nutrition plan?

Patrick Lemieux: Here's the deal with my nutrition plan. So we had this race 100 miles for me, unbound. Super simple. I do a hundred gram bottle, I got two 900 mil bottles, 100 gram of carbon each of them. I've got a backpack with two liters of water, and then simply I've got ⁓ roughly 15 gels, all precision fuel and hydration. I keep my plain ones on the left side, my caffeine ones on the right side for later in the race. ⁓ But in the middle of this, at about kilometer thirty-five, we come across this section that is completely covered in mud. And when I say covered in mud, it's unlike anything I've ever ridden. My bike comes to a complete halt. The drivetrain is completely locked shut with peanut butter mud. I have to make a decision. I've the only water I have is in my backpack, can't get that out fast. But I take my two nine hundred mil bottles that have got a hundred gram of carbon each of them and I'm just spraying it on the drivetrain to get that. And then I take it to a creek nearby so I can kind of limp it to a creek and then I'm got my bike in the creek dumping it. So I want to give a massive shout out to Precision Fuel and Hydration. I still did not bonk because I had the fifteen reserve gels in my back pocket, no stomach issues. These things Yes, they sponsor the podcast, but I'm telling you, I love having these things in my pocket. So PTN fifteen for your chance, Adam. How did you hear about us? It's from Pro Try News. Thank you, Precision Fuel and Hydration.

Kyle Glass: I'm surprised I'm surprised you're not using the chewy bars. Those are my favorite. They taste like freaking marshmallows.

Patrick Lemieux: When I'm when I'm racing I need those things down immediately. Mark?

Mark Matthews: I honestly thought you were about to shout out precision hydration for their drive cleaning products. Like I I thought I thought they were coming I thought they were coming after Markov there.

Patrick Lemieux: I mean it was it was t it was terrible. It was terrible taking these, you know, expensive bottles that I made and just so ⁓

Mark Matthews: I was gonna quickly do the maths on ⁓ how many grams of carbs you were planning on carrying there for a hundred mile race. Like, if you've got a hundred in each bottle, fifteen gels, thirty grams of gel, that's like four fifty. Like

Patrick Lemieux: Yep. I'm I'm planning I'm doing a hundred fifty an hour is what I'm aiming to replenish. Yeah. Yeah. And then but I do a I do a start bottle at the beginning. So within ten minutes of the race, I have this hundred gram bottle that I douse right at the start. So I'm I'm topped up. look, the unbound weekend for me was a bit of a mind opener from a couple things. One from an event standpoint, and two, I always think, how do we compare this to triathlon?

Mark Matthews: Right, okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Glass: Non does the same thing in her altitude ten.

Non Stanford: You're not wrong.

Patrick Lemieux: And Unbound for me, given the weather and given the course, they achieved this moment of virality ⁓ over the weekend. And and this is a race I've been asked about, frankly, more in the last 72 hours than all of my racing combined in the last year. And why did this happen? It's because Unbound allows for GoPros, cameras, et cetera, on the field of play. So whether it's professional athletes, age group athletes, ⁓ any sort of amateur, anything happening on the side of the field, they're allowing that and to be shared afterwards. And effectively the five thousand age group athletes are becoming a in s well, it's a free and insanely effective marketing tool for this event. And so my reflection on upon it the last three days is saying, hey. I really think that Iron Man needs to adjust or edit their rule that strictly prohibits athletes from using any device to capture photographs, videos, visual images during the race. This includes action cameras, example given, GoPros, smartphones, recorded ⁓ recording enabled glasses. Athletes caught recording or taking selfies will face immediate disqualification. Now The caveat would be I think that the eyewear piece should remain. 'Cause I don't think you should have anything that's potentially taking your focus away. But if you wanna have it No, but I think

Kyle Glass: You don't see you don't see that with those though. I see, I would be on the side of like those should be allowed.

Patrick Lemieux: I'm just saying if you wanna put an action camera on your bike, that's one thing. If you wanna carry something while you're running, but I just think something on your face, maybe like we could just move away from that. 'Cause eventually there is gonna be the ability to take on information through the through the through that. Mark.

Mark Matthews: problem ha the problem I have is and I I agree and like seeing the onbound footage is good. But if you ever stood at like the the mount line of an Iron Man after the pro maybe maybe an hour after the pros have gone out. Half the field can't get on their bike. And then if you go to the dismount line, they can't even get off the bike. Like i if you then get someone pulling a camera out of their pocket mid race when they're on an out and back stretch to get a little footage because they're they wanna they wanna tag the sponsor they've got a five percent discount off of. Like Carnage, mate. Like it like the speed is different. It's one thing if you're in a glorified cyclocross race, which is what crav li what unbound look like this week, and you're going at ten K an hour and if you fall off you land on mud and you don't have onbound traffic. But if you're on a semi open highway pissing around with your camera And if you've got it mounted on the bike, like I see what you mean. Like they should encourage roadside support, they should encourage like athletes to have you know, people out filming them. Maybe on the run, it makes no difference. But the courses feel quite congested in Iron Man at a level that's a little bit more dangerous than unbound.

Patrick Lemieux: Okay, so then let's move to another example of how in cycling and in procycling, Velon has taken that charge of most of the on bike footage, right? I just think what I don't wanna have happen is triathlon misses this moment of virality. Unbound will get more people to register in twenty twenty-seven. Because of the footage that's been out this past 72 hours. I don't want triathlon to miss that moment because we're afraid of something that might happen that's bad. There were tons of unexperienced people racing this past weekend. To my knowledge, nobody got hurt because they were filming.

Non Stanford: Can't we just make a rule that they have to be, if you're on the bike, it has to be mounted to your bike and you're not sort of riding around holding, holding the camera. Just yeah, fair enough. Mount it to your bike and on the run, do what you want. That's up to you. Most people or the age group is a jogging around anyway. So yeah, exactly.

Patrick Lemieux: Leave it to a woman for some leave it to a woman for some common sense. I mean that that seems to make a ton of sense to me.

Kyle Glass: That's why they live longer than us, Pat.

Mark Matthews: Totally like I totally agree. There's no real I don't see an issue with that, like makes no difference if it's mounted to your bike. I don't know why you wouldn't do that. I almost prefer it 'cause then you're not running into the change tent with it and stuff like that. Like that's probably a a a sensible space not to allow cameras as well. Like but the rules shouldn't be so hard cut.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was that was one of the that was one of the scenarios I think with the meta glasses, right? Of like going into the changing tent with them. ⁓

Non Stanford: Yeah. I think in World Triathlon races, as long as you get the permission of the head referee, you can have a camera mounted to your bike, like a GoPro mounted to your bike. I'm pretty sure that's happened in the past. mean, World Triathlon have put cameras on athletes' bikes, but think athletes have also done that themselves and created some pretty cool footage, especially in the bike packs in the races. I guess it's quite exciting to see. exactly what's going on. So it is happening and I actually think the glasses, especially like World Series level should be allowed. And you know, maybe that's the next step anyway, getting live sort of feedback.

Kyle Glass: Man, that would have been so cool to get that of Jean Le Hare doing that at the race this weekend in Algero with the metal glasses on.

Mark Matthews: from Jean De Hare's perspective, just the hand comes out.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It would have been so good.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, I I am in go on, I mean go on pal. Go on, go on.

Patrick Lemieux: I I think what happens is a lot of times triathlon, we we have very little to compare it to, right? So you so the T one hundred they always say, Well, compare it to tennis, compare it to golf, compare it to this, compared to that and what they don't have is a sport that's about equal in size, right? And where I looked at Unbound and I thought, okay, this is a this is a niche endurance sport. This is funded and brought to you by like Lifetime Fitness, which is a you know, decent sized company, but it's not massive. They've got 5,000 age groupers. This is the this is a peer of Iron Man. This is who we can look to. This is somebody that was brand new, you know, five years ago and they're coming up at warp speed. And let's just look at the things they're doing right. And lifetime will also look at the things that Iron Man's doing right and say, hey, how do we mirror and emulate that? But I think what what what what I saw this weekend was an opportunity to invite people that are adjacent to gravel racing. And now they're highly curious and they wanna do it. Iron Man needs and triathlon, frankly, needs to focus on that and go, hey, what are gonna be these moments? We don't need to find F one customers, people that are watching it. We gotta find people that are doing stuff really close and really parallel to what we're doing and try and bring them in. And let's get them to do a seventy point three or an Iron Man or a T one hundred. And and I think if you celebrate the GoPro's footage, the meta glasses footage, you have that opportunity in a much healthier way than if you decide to just close it off completely. And my fear is that Iron Man's afraid of the worst case scenario. They were highly reactive to the Justin Reale footage. Even though that footage was celebrated as a first response on how Iron Man handled that, that was only

Kyle Glass: May not there may not be a whole lot of people that know that. So for for background and context, we received the video from one of the bike neutral bike supports about Justin Realli's crash and how responsive and things like that they were. We posted it online and were pretty much ⁓ asked pretty strongly to remove that.

Patrick Lemieux: was viewed publicly as overwhelmingly positive. Overwhelmingly positive. So I just think it's one of those things. This would be something that they can look at and go, let's just let's just maybe really think about what we're trying to do here. How do we get more people to do the sport?

Kyle Glass: ⁓ correct, yeah.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, yeah. I I just agree with you now. I'm I'm sold. I like non's point mounted to the bike. The glasses for was short course is an absolute no-brainer. Like I'm I don't know, like also if you're an Oakley sponsored athlete and you asked Iron Man, I don't know, it's KB Oakley, someone Oakley, like the whoever. Yeah, like can I can I grab them off someone and put them on for the last two hundred minutes of Kona if I win? Like great for Oakley. Great for Iron Man, because that footage will be sick.

Kyle Glass: Maybe he's okay, yeah. Yeah, that would that would go viral. Viral.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah, but they don't but but the difference is Iron Man doesn't see it that way. They see it as you're poaching our event versus saying we Ironman saying we want that money first and then we'll give it out versus what World Triathlon would say is World Triathlon would go to Oakley and say, Hey, look, we would like you to sponsor our event, our series, and any athlete that doesn't have an eyewear sponsorship, we'd like to give them meta glasses to run in.

Kyle Glass: Yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: And we're gonna take this footage for bike and run afterwards and we're gonna display it. And frankly, that's what Ironman should be going to to Meta and to Oakley and saying, hey, we want you to sponsor Iron Man. And anyone that doesn't have an a sponsorship can wear these glasses and this is how we're going to use the footage on the other side. It's a huge moment because look, Oakley can't do this with NFL, Oakley can't do it with golf. This is like a no-brainer to bring them in this way.

Non Stanford: From an outsider, so you know, an outsider of the Ironman world, sometimes the stuff I hear about Ironman is that they're too arrogant for their own good. To their own detriment.

Kyle Glass: It's it's a big I I was actually talking with someone this week about it as Iron Man moves like a giant and T one hundred moves like an agile startup, which they are.

Non Stanford: I mean, yeah, they're a huge company, aren't they? And they're obviously doing, generating a lot of money. But I just sometimes think some of the stuff I hear, just feels like you're banging your head against a brick wall with Iron Man. And I just, think it's being awkward for the sake of it with some of the stuff.

Patrick Lemieux: This this again, this would be such an easy one. If I was doing sales for Iron Man right now, I'd be saying, give me the ability to sell UTMB and Iron Man to Oakley and particularly Meta. And we're gonna run a ton of campaigns of the athletes that don't have sponsorships and they're all gonna be doing our f our races, our branding's gonna be there. This is like such this is such a home run slam dunk. And instead they went the exact opposite and said, Hey, we're gonna completely not allow any of this.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. You s someone that should be doing this is Super Try. Super Tri should be doing this for all their races. I mean, they they can move so agile and just be like all of our athletes are gonna be in these classes.

Mark Matthews: Sold.

Non Stanford: They definitely would, I think, if that was put on the table for them.

Kyle Glass: Yeah.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, they don't have the same reach though. They probably can't get meta on the phone, whereas Iron Man definitely could. Yeah.

Kyle Glass: Iron Man probably could. Yeah. That's a good that's a good topic of the week, Pat. I'm glad that we pivoted away from from what our original plan was and and you've got us all I mean, I think that before we started recording, Mark was gonna be like the the the he was gonna be the heel and then all of a sudden you got him to turn and

Patrick Lemieux: wanted it to be a topic of the week. It turned it turned It turned out I didn't mean to turn it into soapbox of the week, but my my point is is that yeah.

Mark Matthews: No No, we we came up with sensible concessions and get to a solution. Democracy in action, people.

Kyle Glass: Boom. ⁓ well, we got some big races this weekend. We got two races with podium picks. So if you've been playing podium picks, this is another opportunity for you to get a T one hundred score in and a full distance Ironman Pro Series score in. We'll start with the first one, ⁓ on Saturday US time at six thirty A. ⁓ We have the T one hundred in San Francisco. I mean, to be honest with you guys, I have not been as excited for the T one hundred this year, but looking at the start list, I I'm fully on board for this one. You got Hayden Wilde, who I I messaged him just to see, like, are you still sick? Are you coming? You gonna do the race? He hasn't messaged me back, so I'm assuming he might be on the flight. You got Mika Newt, Rico Bogan, who won last year, Morgan Pearson making his start of the triathlon season, Jason West, Jake Burt Whistle, who's having a heck of a season, Sam Appleton, one of the winningest half distance athletes of all time. I I mean, kind of the list goes on. It's it's a pretty Good looking start list. Leo Bergier making his return and then Justin Realli making his return after his injury and or his crash really and surgery in Oceanside. Who wants to start it?

Patrick Lemieux: I mean, for me, this has always been a race of we thought the swim was gonna matter, right? When year one of this event, we thought the swim is just gonna be total carnage. And I don't know the proper swim term, but it basically just ended up being a downhill swim or a down river sw I mean it just everybody just got pushed to shore, right? And there's been no carnage. Sam Long came out of the water year one, I think he was fifty seconds down, which is like a lifetime best deficit. And so I just wonder, is there ever a year where they place the pontoon or the the boat somewhere where it actually impacts the swim?

Non Stanford: Is that possible to move the pontoon? It's quite historic, isn't it, with escape from Alcatraz? I know we're not allowed to call it anymore, but yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: I d I I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

Kyle Glass: Well they they don't have the pros go off the pontoon anyway. They they are basically on like a glorified yacht and then they just go around the aquatic park area. It's one of the things that Greg Harper from from the Triathlon Hour kinda just harps on a lot is they they barely swim one K. Like

Patrick Lemieux: So so that's that's my question. I mean that th that's what we've always heard is that the boat shifted in or that like I mean, i i is it gonna be like a true distance, you know, a true swim, I guess, for the distance. And then, you know, does it matter if it's a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, or like where does it end up, right? And I think I I just feel like we're bound to get one of these years where the boat's dropped in the right place for chaos for the swim.

Kyle Glass: I I think that this could be the year for it. Maybe T one hundred's looking for ⁓ probably some some good talking points and having some swim firepower in this one, ⁓ it it it would make sense for them to try and put the boat a little bit further than they've been putting it in the past. How do you how do you guys see this one shaken out?

Non Stanford: regardless of where they put the boat, it is gonna be a Hayden Wild procession. And I enjoy watching T100. I'm excited about second, third, fourth, fifth, but to be honest with you, I can't see anything else other than Hayden running away with it again. And nothing against Hayden, but it's getting a bit boring.

Kyle Glass: У

Mark Matthews: Okay, great. Hay Hayden will be at the front after the first hill, even if he is a minute down off the bike, out the swim. He'll just blitz that first hill. He'll go straight off the front on the second hill. Rico will be made to look like a bad cyclist, and then Hayden will run away with it. And even if Rico has a wicked bike leg, Hayden will run away with it. Unless he's really sick. Now I don't want to wish someone's actual sickness on someone, but for the sake of entertainment, if it was a bowler, then it might be a close rate. If it's anything less than a bowler, he's gonna just romp away with it like one said, I reckon.

Kyle Glass: Ha ha Let's let's go with ⁓ let's do who are second through fourth places. Since we all think Hayden's gonna win the race. How do you guys feel about that? You like that? Okay. ⁓ go for it, Pat.

Patrick Lemieux: I like this Kyle. I like this. I like this. ⁓ Okay, I'm gonna go Morgan Pearson, Jason West, Jacob Burt Whistle. Second, third, fourth.

Kyle Glass: That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Nan, who you going?

Non Stanford: I'm a big Leo Begier fan, so I'm really hope that he has come back well from his injury and go Leo Newt and then let's go Jake Birtwistle, cause again, big Jake Birtwilves fan.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, I've got I've got similar. I'm gonna go Morgan Pearson, Leo Bejer, Jake Burt Whistle. I don't know why, I just think Jake Burstwhistle's now going really well. ⁓ he's looked pretty strong. He's I think he's gonna be good. But and Leo I think is a bit like non. I think we're both just want him to do well 'cause we both really like him. It's a bit of a tall ass coming back from that injury, but ⁓ Morgan I think is gonna be really good.

Kyle Glass: He's Yeah. Jake Jake's an interesting one just because this season he's had he had a fourth place in Geelong behind obviously KB Hayden and Yella. Fantastic race for him there. And then he was sixth in Singapore with a pretty stacked start list, and then turned around a week later and won seventy point three Western Sydney. Pretty convincing fashion. So ⁓ Jake's gonna be one one to watch for sure. I will go second place. I I'm pretty high on Morgan Pearson right now. ⁓ obviously him starting the season a little late. There was a bit of an injury, he was the only with so ⁓ he's starting the season now he's gonna race back to back weekends this weekend and happy valley so it look for look for him being one of those athletes that maybe he could challenge Hayden maybe he can even win the race. ⁓ but yeah I'm gonna go with him for my second place. Third place I'm gonna go Rico Bogan and then fourth place. I to be honest with you, I'm getting pretty high on this Will Draper kid. He's he's someone that's been pretty fast at the bike in the run and As far as the swim's concerned, like if the swim doesn't matter here, like i ⁓ he's definitely an athlete that could wind up in the top five.

Mark Matthews: really like Will Draper, he's a lovely lad. If he podiums, that would be a career. He's won you he's he won that challenge Al Maya, that Iron Distance race, didn't he? He's won a bunch of other short ones. If he podiums here against those names, that's a huge, huge step forward. Okay. Okay. I like it.

Kyle Glass: We said we said fourth place. Fourth place. Second, third, fourth. So I think I think he I think he could crack the top five. We'll see. We'll see. So ⁓

Mark Matthews: Is Jas is J is Jason West riding his Ventum road bike again? I remember watching that there, thinking, ⁓ my god. Yeah.

Kyle Glass: ⁓ yeah, that was that was a couple of years ago.

Patrick Lemieux: Not doing that again. No.

Kyle Glass: No, surely not. Surely not. I think at the time people thought that that course was much more technical than it ended up being and yeah, that was that was a tough watch.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, they thought the descent was gonna be technical then half the women's field, let alone the men, were getting air on one of the speed bumps coming downhill 'cause it was so straight. Yeah.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. Anything else exciting, you guys, about this T one hundred San Francisco start list? You think we got it all covered?

Mark Matthews: just a shame it's only one race. This is the big one. I'm I'm I'm disappointed there's only mail on because this is the best course they have. This is the most exciting race they have and we get one race not two. That's a shame.

Kyle Glass: Cool. Race it will be Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. So be sure to do your podium picks. There's a lot of people we had a little bit of an error just for you listening t today. There was a little bit of an error on our podium picks, ⁓ at the end of last week. So right whenever it opened, there was some people on the start list that have now pulled off Yellow Geans, ⁓ Gregory Barnaby and ⁓ Jamie Riddle. So if you made your picks really early on last week, be sure to go in and redo your picks because if you ended up picking Yellow Geans like Obviously it's gonna be an empty slot and we want you to get as many points as you can. So

Patrick Lemieux: Well and I in we in in I think in Texas we had people dropping out the day before. So I mean this this is something that you do have to kinda stay up on top of because people can get sick the night be Cassandra Bogran can get sick the night before Samar can and you gotta change your picks. I mean these these things happen. So the

Kyle Glass: Right. Yeah. Well people people ask us, they're like, Can we add a body bonus pick and stuff like that? And I'm like, Bro, you can't do that on DraftKings for NFL or NBA or any of the other games you watch. What do you think we're gonna make you let you do that on here for? So crazy. Eventually we'll get to the point that we can just push out a push notification 'cause maybe Pro Try News will be on a app, maybe eventually in the in the future. So Alright. Iron Man Hamburg. Huge race this weekend.

Patrick Lemieux: Ha ha ha. ⁓

Kyle Glass: There's a couple of talking points before we get into the race itself. ⁓ Iron Man changed the bike course from what it has been the last two seasons to now it is pretty much identical to the course they used back in twenty twenty three where there was the incident on the course. ⁓ tragically where someone passed away. So that's that's one thing that I'm just I'm a little confused on why Iron Man moved to that course again. looking at it, it's the out and back course, you're gonna have age groupers, it's two loops. Like ⁓ Why why would why would they go back and do this? Maybe they couldn't get approvals?

Mark Matthews: Yeah, it me 'cause it the the one they went to had a bit more in the city. ⁓ I think it does help having the just a pro female race here, whereas before they had the men and the women, I believe, or it was a men's it was much bigger. Hmm. I I'm not sure how they're gonna handle it. It's a it's a bold call. I think they'll have no motos for that stretch or one. You know, they're gonna have to really cut down. ⁓

Kyle Glass: I think it's men's only. Yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: cut they're gonna cut the additional traffic on the road. And and so so medium motos they're gonna give they're gonna give one support bike, they're gonna give one media moto for the camera, and then they're gonna say no photographers, no nothing else. They're gonna cut all that out.

Kyle Glass: You think so?

Mark Matthews: Yeah. Yeah, totally. 'Cause it was the Yam it was the Yam procession, wasn't it? There was like dedicated bikes for all sorts of stuff. Yeah, yeah, that was super dangerous. The weather's looking the weather's looking ⁓ could be a bit rainy, pretty cool, no wind. It could be absolute lightning fast, to be honest.

Kyle Glass: That'd be that'd be the right call. Yeah, there were so many bikes that year. Yeah. Yeah. You think you think anyone's gonna sub eight?

Mark Matthews: Well, I heard on a different podcast that Solvig Lofseth been a bit ill. so if she's off form, that's a big ask. And Laura Phillip hasn't shown this year yet that she's on that level she was at in Hamburg last year. So I think if anyone's gonna do it it's Solvi. ⁓ I think she'd have to ride solo to do that because if she's gonna do it, she needs to ride so fast that no one else will be able to keep up anyway. And it's whether she's a bit ill or not. ⁓ I'm gonna say no. And I thought it would earlier in the year, if you'd asked me, I thought it would be this, but I think maybe ⁓ maybe no, but i d I wouldn't be surprised if it goes.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. If if it does go, do you think it's just one just one woman or you think it'll be multiple?

Mark Matthews: Yeah, it'll just be Selby. Aaron is looking very lean and very tanned for someone that's retired.

Kyle Glass: Yeah, that's fair. Aaron Aaron just popped into the the the stream if you're watching on YouTube, so

Mark Matthews: Yeah.

Non Stanford: I'll speak on his behalf. is also fighting for his life in the altitude hence why I am and we're in Oceania so hence the tan but yeah, they're seeing you look fit and tanned. I'm just concerned why she's going to the number three triathlon podcast. That's all I've got to say.

Kyle Glass: Whoa.

Mark Matthews: Number three. So on your left first.

Kyle Glass: know what numbers I don't know what numbers you're looking at, but I yeah, I guess on your left first and then and then on tryathlon and then your so here.

Non Stanford: He's conveniently disappeared.

Kyle Glass: That's right. Yeah, he doesn't wanna he doesn't wanna talk about numbers. So moving on. So Hamburg, let's talk a little bit. You have Solvay Lofseth who has won three Ironmans in a row. The only Iron Man she's ever done that she hasn't won is this race last year where she got third place on her debut. ⁓ you got Laura Phillip who's defending champ here. She's won here. I I don't have the the number handy, but You also have Lisa Perter, Holly Lawrence, who were fourth and fifth in Kona last year, Marjoleine Pierre, who's coming off for 7.3 eggs and Provence win. And going further down the list, Kidi Kivi Oya for her Iron Man debut. Looking at this, you have six slots available for the women. ⁓ with Solvay already having a slot, Lottie Wilms already having a slot, Katrine Christensen already has a slot. I I don't need to name all these. You can go to ProTrendnews.com, look at the start list, and you can sort it by who has Kona slots. Now, looking at this, there's six slots available. Lisa Perder, who was not at the Cosmel ⁓ award ceremony. I'm not gonna get into the controversy. We get so many DMs about this thing. So Lisa Perder, she's gonna get one. Holly Lawrence, for sure. W barring barring something crazy happened. Marjoleine Pierre.

Mark Matthews: Definitely. She definitely gets one. You would think so. Definitely if she's anything like Ax Aix Provence where she was really good. Yeah.

Kyle Glass: Alright, let's go. Laura Phillip. So that's four. And then now you're looking at India Lee.

Mark Matthews: In delay.

Kyle Glass: Is that five?

Mark Matthews: Christina Christine Cas she's got one, hasn't she?

Kyle Glass: Yeah, yeah, she's already got one. So th the thing is is this this last slot, you're looking and you're like, Okay, Justine Guard, who's ranked in the top forty of the Iron Man Pro Series, Kidi Kivioya doing her Ironman debut, Fanella Langrich who's sitting at twelfth in her in the Iron Man Pro series, she's gonna be one that obviously she's raced in Kona before she's coming back from from an injury. Well I mean, that that would be kinda where I would think that that next slot would go.

Mark Matthews: I reckon it'll be a name we've we've not mentioned.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah, some somebody one of the names you mentioned, somebody I mean just just the way it goes, somebody's going home empty handed. I mean, I I really underestimated the strength of field here and just the actual talent that's racing here. given the c conditions, I mean, Mark, do we have to maybe think about is Lisa Purder somebody that could win this race?

Kyle Glass: Really.

Mark Matthews: problem I have is well I also don't know I I don't I if Solvi's anywhere near full fitness recently Solvi's been swimming with her fairly comfortably. Lisa ain't dropping Lov Seth on the bike. There's just there's just no way. And then Lovseth's about a runner. Like

Kyle Glass: I don't think it's hot enough for her, to be honest.

Mark Matthews: I so if something happened to Solvi, could she beat Laura Phillip on the form that Laura's currently showing? Yeah. Because she could get out of the swim ahead of her, she can hang with Solvi for a while, she could have a big enough gap off the bike and run it in. S d a hundred percent Lisa Percia is a top three here. It you know, she's had a bit of a nightmare recently, but she is she's really very good at this.

Patrick Lemieux: So now does the only thing that potentially change this, if you're Solvig, and the game plan is like, okay, yes, I am just tapping along at 79% right now. Does she say, Okay, I'm gonna just ride this and run this a little bit differently to ensure that I win the pro series? Is there a bit of defense that's played here that changes the the outcome of this race based on Solvig?

Mark Matthews: ⁓ 'cause yeah, Salvi just has to score pretty decent points here and not lose too much in the next two races and she'll win the pro series. But I I can't s she's Norwegian. I mean, what are you talking about? Have you ever heard of one of those guys be like, ⁓ I'll just chill out and take it sensible today? Do you know what I've guys I've been tragically sick. I've got a broken femur. I'm just gonna jog it in, not a chance.

Patrick Lemieux: I would I I would suppose okay, so in that case she's gonna swim as she would. She'll she'll bike kinda as she would. And then maybe the only thing that happens is she said, Look, I okay, I'm not in two forty eight shape, but I'm gonna run two fifty six and that's probably still enough to win it.

Non Stanford: I think the reality as well is that Solvee is somebody that is now dictating races. So everybody else is probably racing defensively to what she's doing because she's probably the favourite. And I think that changes race dynamics and she's probably now somebody that changes the mindset of everybody else in the race. And they're just watching her.

Kyle Glass: I mean she she hasn't lost a race since this race last year. Like she won Kona or sorry, before that she won Lake Placid, then she won Kona, then she won Texas. Like going into this race has to be the outright favorite. Even even ahead of Laura Phillips.

Mark Matthews: Definitely and I agree with what Lon's saying, like being in the favourite, you know, does start to weigh a toll on you, but then she did a pretty t tidy job in Texas as a favorite, coming back as an Ironman world champion. I think the problem is like I don't know how you react to her because like what do you do because she rides so well. It's not like you can change your race plan. So like if you're racing Laura Phillip, you try and get rid of her on the bike. And if you're solve it you have to just get rid of Laura Phillip on the bike. But if you're racing reactively to solve it, you're just hanging on for dear life. Like if you're an Uber swimmer, you have to have a massive gap so that by the time she steamrolls past you you don't lose too much, possibly. But like I don't know how you react to her that much. I mean you just kinda watch for when she goes. She definitely surges at certain points in the race. But ⁓ she's very hard to beat on a flat course like this. If you put a load of elevation in it, she's a bit more vulnerable. She's not a great climber at the moment, I'm sure she will be. But like on a flat course this is hard.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. Sylvain and Laura swam together last year. There was obviously not the swim firepower, ⁓

Mark Matthews: There's no swimmers there. The cat was the best swimmer there, and that's saying everything you need to know about that race. No swimmers.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. This year this year though you got Holly Lawrence, Laudie Wilms, I mean, I don't know, India Lee, do we put her in that conversation to be able to swim there? Finella Langrich. I I would say those four probably get away out the swim. And maybe Marjoleine Pierre can either make that pack or be that middle middle pack with maybe Lisa and Solvay and then a couple minutes back Laura.

Mark Matthews: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, she'll be in there. Not leading that pack, which yeah. The thing with Yeah, the thing with Fanella in a race is as much as it can be a bit frustrating to watch sometimes, you know she's just gonna take the swim out. Her and Lottie, they do it every time. So she's gonna definitely take the swim out. and that they will gap Solvi and Laura and that. ⁓ it's wet I think a lot of the others, if they don't make that, they would quite like to gap Laura as well. But it's a wetsuit swim, it's pretty simple, it's quite hard to do. So I think you're right, just two groups.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. It will be broadcast on on YouTube live, so ⁓ that's gonna be something that we're gonna wanna watch pretty closely. ⁓ in the end we'll we'll find out who ends up with those six Kona slots, ⁓ and if Silvay can continue her her winning streak or if the defending champ from last year, ⁓ Laura Phillip has anything to say about it. So cool.

Mark Matthews: If Selvi snaps a chain, I'm not gonna lose sleep over it, I'll be honest.

Kyle Glass: Do you guys want to do picks? Do you wanna l do you wanna leak your picks? Do you wanna do what we did for for San Francisco and say you're picking second through third fourth? All right.

Mark Matthews: Yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah. No, no, no. This is I think a first through third situation. I'll go I'm gonna go first here. I'm gonna say Solveg Lovseth. Lisa Perder, Holly Lawrence. One, two, three. Boom.

Kyle Glass: Jeez. Alright. ⁓ I'll go next. I think Sylvay's gonna win outright. ⁓ contrary to what happened on on the on your left podcast where Jackie mentioned that she'd been sick. So ⁓ I'm gonna go Silvay for the win. Second place I'm gonna go Laura Phillip. And then third place I keep going back and forth between I'm gonna go Holly Lawrence, third place. I think that she's been firing. She had a great race at the T one hundred race in Spain, so Holly Lawrence rounding out the podium.

Non Stanford: I'm a little bit annoyed because I actually have that written down here. So had Solvee Phillips and then between Marjolaine and Holly, but I was really impressed by Holly in the T100 in Spain. So yeah, a bit torn between third, but I'll go Marjolaine just because you went Holly.

Kyle Glass: Do you really? When Yeah. That's good. That's good. Mark?

Mark Matthews: I'm going to go solvi lisa indile.

Kyle Glass: ⁓ so you you spent some time with Indy yesterday. Do you have some inside knowledge that she's she's going quite well?

Mark Matthews: No, she's going well. We we just went for a barbecue for her birthday on Sunday night. I think that Solvial come through on the bike on everyone and I think Indy's one of the few riders that can go with her for a very long time and she'll also have a gap on her outer swim so she won't have to ride with her the entire race. And in this race it's actually quite hard to build gaps 'cause everyone's going so fast on the bike so the gaps become effectively less. And I think that'll drag her far enough up the road to put in a good result. That's my theory there, whether that comes true or not. I d ⁓ what I'm struggling with is w just because she's had a couple of average or an average seventy point three race, Laura Fit is a marathon and Laura Phillip has ran two f thirty eight high here or something. And you know, you can beat her at a seventy point three, but like, really? How many like how many girls run within ten minutes of her? Even if she runs insanely slow for her, which on this course is a two forty five, how many women in this race actually can run a two fifty five? Solving? That proven and done it? I I think it's just sol I don't think there's others. That run within t maybe just under it.

Kyle Glass: Lisa Lisa, I think, maybe. Maybe Lisa? Yeah.

Mark Matthews: But like the number of women that've actually ran within ten minutes of a two forty five, and that's a bad run for her. ⁓ so I I c I kind of I don't Yeah.

Patrick Lemieux: She gets it she gets a lot of ground. She has got a lot of time and space to make up time. There's there's no doubt about it. Yeah.

Mark Matthews: Big time. Does I tell you about the altitude tenth last yet?

Kyle Glass: Yeah, I mean Lisa Lisa's Lisa's best run was in Lake Plaza where she ran a two fifty five. So

Mark Matthews: Yeah. So on Laura's worst day, you know, like that's ten minutes. Which is a lot. So I tell you last year we turned up at the hotel and they had a race hotel there and ⁓ Laura arrived and she'd come down from St. Maritz they obviously if you come down from altitude you like either come down like two weeks before or just before. But they kinda came in that awkward middle ground, maybe the Wednesday or something. And ⁓ in the bug in the baggage rack Good old Philip Seep has got an altitude tent generator and everything to bring to the race hotel that they installed on the bed for the for those couple of nights before an Iron Man just to make sure she didn't come down too early. That's the level of detail these lot of are playing around with. So just because she's had a bad race, don't think they can't turn this around pretty quickly. So I'm gonna go I'm I don't know what I said, but I'm gonna go solve Laura Endylee. I've decided I've changed my mind, Solvi Laura Endy Lee.

Kyle Glass: There we go. There we go. Well, you'll be able to watch it. ⁓ it'll be on pretty early European time. So if you're in the US, you'll just have to watch it either on a delay or just tune in ⁓ in the middle of the race. I'm sure you'll get a recap. So ⁓ two other races happening this weekend, seventy point three Al Garo, so not a kind of a swap out. WTCS is leaving, the Iron Man Circus is coming in. So ⁓ there's some some athletes. Michelle Bordellamy I butchered that. The Italian that won the seventy point three in Aix and Provence. ⁓ he's doing the race, so we'll see if he can continue his reign of dominance. ⁓ there's actually Simon Westerman who raced the WTCS, he's staying in racing the seventy point three, so be interesting to see how he goes. The other one is the super tri tri race all right, Mark's gonna kill me. Blenheim Palace?

Mark Matthews: That's exactly how you say it.

Kyle Glass: Naun's laughing, so I don't think that that's how it's said. Naun, unmute yourself. Tell me how it's said.

Mark Matthews: It's just

Non Stanford: It's Blenheim Palace. That was an atrocity.

Kyle Glass: Ha ha ha.

Mark Matthews: Just blend them.

Kyle Glass: Listen, I'm I'm more of a swanse kind of guy, so

Mark Matthews: I'll tell you what, they those two those two are those two places could not be further apart. One of them is Swansea and the other one is a beautiful ⁓ palace in the Oxfordshire countryside. I think it probably is. I'm not quite sure if it's Oxfordshire. It's gorgeous.

Non Stanford: Fair enough.

Kyle Glass: Ha ha. Well this Paradise. Yeah.

Non Stanford: Swansea is a tropical haven, I'll have you know, yes.

Mark Matthews: I forget non's Welsh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Non Stanford: I'm born and bred in Swansea as well.

Mark Matthews: ⁓ my god, well I was in Cardiff on Saturday and that was some sights to behold. I thought I was at the zoo.

Kyle Glass: ⁓ that's good.

Non Stanford: Cultural experience is how you describe it.

Kyle Glass: It's a pro series race, so if you if you have if you're wanting to go and you're a pro athlete, I don't I think it's sold out.

Mark Matthews: You're born and bred in Swansea.

Non Stanford: I am. Does that surprise you?

Mark Matthews: Well, no wonder you fucking moved to Australia.

Non Stanford: I was in lead for the last 14 years, but yeah.

Kyle Glass: Okay.

Mark Matthews: True, I know, I'm an event.

Kyle Glass: Guys, this super try race, I I know that Austin was probably were kinda glad that it wasn't televised and a lot of people dunked on the start list, but this one's actually quite good. You got Leone Perio who raced the WTCS. You got ⁓ Emma Lombardi, Julian Vermarian, Julie Vermilion, Jessica Folgar, Olivia Matthias, basically six of the women in the top thirty of the WTCS is doing this was and then on the men's side you got Luke William, Alessio Crossani, ⁓ Charles Paquette, Oliver Conway, hi Hugo Milner, and then a couple other Brits, including Jack Willis, Harry Leilou, and Michael Gar. All athletes that I I mean, this start list is pretty freaking good. ⁓ Mitch Colkman from the Netherlands and then if you look further down this list, y he's kinda hidden in here. Jonas Schoenberg coming in back to do a super try race.

Mark Matthews: I love that guy. I I love him so much. Cause he makes no sense. ⁓ nothing he does makes any sense. I think his calendar is more rogue than Christian Blumenfeld, and that's saying something. Like bouncing from Texas to the T100 race to bang a super try race in the middle. What is he doing? And then he's got Roth coming up, so he's in the middle of an Iron Man block. What is he doing?

Kyle Glass: And he So good. So good. So unfortunately we won't be able to tune in for it, but they're doing some sort of production. So we'll be able to watch the race probably on a recap. So hopefully there's some exciting stuff that goes on. If you're in the area in ⁓ going to watch the race or you're participating, be sure to get some videos, tag us on Pro Try News and we'll repost ⁓ since we'll be kinda dark for this one. Should we go to some hot takes real quick? I Mark's hanging on by a thread. It's pretty late there, Mark. How many hot takes can you go?

Mark Matthews: I've as many as you want. As many as n and none, just log off when you get bored.

Kyle Glass: Yeah, Don. ⁓ let's start with I had one that was said to me, Do you guys think that there's a shortage of coins? Because there were some people who they validated their Kona slots in Texas. They may or may not have been Norwegian. And they're they're pretty butthurt that they didn't get the Ironman World Championship coin because they validated. They just they got a handshake and saying, Hey, you validated your start list. Do you think that Ironman has a shortage of coins?

Mark Matthews: Right. This is Christian this this is Christian Blumenveld who, ⁓ 'cause he validated he didn't get a beret to go to Nice in Geelong or something. ⁓ or they didn't give him the finish line, the beret at the end, and he went up to the guy and asked for the the beret in this scorching summer's day in Geelong. And ⁓ then he just had this beret on whilst we went for coffee together afterwards. So i if his Christian monitor didn't get a coin I'm I'm not surprised. I maybe there's a shortage of coins, but that is top tier annoyance. I love it.

Kyle Glass: I'm I'm not gonna say Yeah, maybe he's collecting them.

Patrick Lemieux: He likes the ch he likes the trinkets. I think that's kinda cool. I think that's kinda cool.

Mark Matthews: I think we've got right, that you know, w we've done we've done doping in T one hundred, we've done draft distance in Iron Man, we've done their two big campaigns, we've done something else. The next campaign should be Christian Blumenfeld needs a coin. It's that level of issue I think we need to take on. Get Talbot now. Who can we who who needs to be who do we does Talbot need call out to get sacked from Iron Man until Christian Blumenfeld gets a coin?

Kyle Glass: Well vo The validation thing is gonna be ending, so it'll it'll be fine. ⁓ Okay, after Christian Blumenfeld wins Kona, he should track down which fifty kilometer trail race is coming up next for Jan Ferdino and go beat him to settle the beef once and for all.

Mark Matthews: Bad hot take. He he already did it. He already did it in T one hundred. He did it T one hundred. Job done. No, that was Yan. It was Jan beat him. No, Christian's lost it. No chance. No chance. You're done, mate.

Patrick Lemieux: This is a good one.

Kyle Glass: No, this Yon. Yawn beat him. He can't do it again.

Patrick Lemieux: I like that. It was a good suggestion though.

Kyle Glass: T one

Mark Matthews: Yeah, it's good though. I do like it as well. And it and also I wouldn't put that past Christian.

Kyle Glass: We Alex G is better off doing seventy point three than short course. His swim is not at the same level as many of the as the many of the other best short course athletes anymore. He has a very strong run and bike, which could lead to him being lethal at seventy point three.

Mark Matthews: Non please.

Non Stanford: This is an outrageous hot take. I'm sorry. He's the current Olympic champion and you're suggesting that he is no longer good enough to be racing short course. mean, can we just remember that Alex made the front pack in Paris when many of the other big names did not. So give the bloke a season to get himself back into short course racing, but that... I don't know who made this hot take, clearly pretty and educated in short course racing because I have no doubt Alex will be back. It's I mean, Matt has changed the swim.

Mark Matthews: It was Matt it was Matt Hauser. It says here. It says Matt Hauser here. Yeah, it says it says Alex Yeah, it says it says here Alex Ye's washed. ⁓ Nisa What sort hot take is that?

Kyle Glass: Alright, Pat, you're not allowed to answer this. ⁓ me, Mark, and Nan are gonna take care of this. Well, maybe you can give your input. The only US women who can run with the likes of Cass and Beth is Gwen. The US should try and get a domestique to ensure Gwen is in the front pack heading into T two. Which athlete would be willing to do that? I I personally don't think that that is a wise decision for USA triathlon because they have two athletes that have won a medal in the relay. Taylor Nib and Taylor Spivey and they're gonna look out for themselves and themselves only.

Non Stanford: From my understanding of USAT, are we allowed to call it that? that what it is? Yeah, can't, I don't know. I can't see any of the USA girls agreeing to domestic for anybody. I don't feel like there's much love lost sometimes between some of those women. So I think they're all gonna be there racing for themselves. Sorry if that's controversial, but I can't see that happening.

Mark Matthews: No, I think that's reasonable. I also think it's fair to say that was that was a better argument maybe a year or two ago. Like the girls at the front are running extremely fast. Gwen on a good day is running really, really well. But you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket for a race to come together. And I think you kinda have to get results to a level before you can then fight for that answer. You know, you have to win a big race in recent times off your own back, which is Gwen's won plenty of Conti Cup equivalent. I've I've actually said it before in the past, I think a couple of years ago I suggested they should do this. I don't think it's I don't think it's a daft hot take, but I'm just with non I just don't think it's a route that USCT are gonna go down.

Patrick Lemieux: I'm just gonna chime in and just the only thing I'll say is is that the the the funding on the back of winning a medal is worth per probably assessing these moonshot ideas separate from how it impacts me. This is the reason why British Try will support a guy like Alex Ye because they know the probability of him winning is super high, right? They'll give him a domestique, they'll give him a pathway to the race because they're in need of the funding on the backside of it.

Kyle Glass: L let me change this real quick to the US men. The only person who can run with the likes of Alex Yee, Hayden Wilde, Matthew Hauser is Morgan Pearson. The US should try and get a domestique to ensure Morgan Pearson is at the front of the pack heading into T two. Which athlete would you be willing to do that with?

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah, so what you would Right, right. So what you would do in the meantime is if you were an athlete that was a really good swim biker and you wanted to go to the Olympics, now would be your time to put your hand up and say, Let's trial run this. Let me show how I can support ⁓ and I think the th that that's what you'd look for.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. 'Cause I mean, to be honest with you, like the best swim biker probably is Chase McQueen. So I if I'm Chase McQueen, I'm saying, Hey, this is what I'm doing for you guys but then you also have someone like Seth Ryder who w won the relay medal for us in Paris that he's like, Hey, I want a medal for you guys, like we we gotta have a relay shot as well.

Mark Matthews: think the problem is you've got to qualify three to really do this because you can't just take someone that can only swim bike and have them in your relay team. You've got to have a relay team, you know, and that let us well it didn't let us down because Sam Dickinson did a solid job in the relay. But you you can't just take a domestique that's gonna let your relay team down when you've got a viable shot of a medal in the relay as well. And that's where it gets to be a bit of a tricky balance.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. After watching Unbound this weekend, it seems like everyone should be wearing a hydration bladder underneath their tri suits in Kona. Wind tunnel data shows no loss to gain. Do Kona do Iron Man rules permit this? No. They stopped doing this a couple years ago. You can wear it on the back like Lionel Sanders in twenty sixteen.

Mark Matthews: Can't do it, it's bullshit. It's nonsense. You can't wear it down the front, so that's out the window. Yeah, like I think Lance did it back in the day, but where do you put it? Because what you're doing stopping in transition, tr putting it on, tri suit over it, like it's it's all a bit awkward and th the other thing is like w if you drink it, you lose the advantage 'cause it's just an empty sack of flapping around material on the back. And if you don't drink it, you're just carrying two kilos around a bike course. It I mean one day and you know these crazy ideas come around and they come back in and we might all be proved totally wrong. the aero data does show it if you wear it on the front, sure, but that's been banned. On the back it makes you slower, it doesn't the helmet doesn't sit quite right. So observation sure, maybe they just didn't know the rules, but I think if you wanna do it on the back, you've got to put it under your skin suit. It's just a bit awkward.

Kyle Glass: Alright, I'm going on the controversial one, you ready? Since learning that silent doping bands probably exist, it really raises some eyebrows about one hit wonder ⁓ performances. Not implying anyone in particular, but it definitely looks sketchy when athletes get a wild win and then disappear or can't start due to an injury for four races. I don't know where this this has been proven that silent bands exist.

Mark Matthews: It's like ooh.

Patrick Lemieux: Yeah. Yeah. I I think what we're pretty clear of, right, is that Iron Man uses their own external antidoping that they're separate from. Th where I'm gonna I'm gonna get controversial within a controversial po take is that some group like the UCI does their own internal testing. in order to protect and maintain the image of their sport. So Yeah, but no no no but like this this is this is the point. They will let the little fish go in order to make it seem like they're doing their job. So if you're Portuguese, Colombian, etc, those guys will get done. But what you might see for a superstar

Mark Matthews: They've done a cracking job of that over the years.

Patrick Lemieux: that's on a tier one level team, is a surprise retirement. that pops up out of nowhere that seems very weird. And so I don't I wanna be clear, I actually don't have a fear of this in the sport of triathlon. That's not something that I have a lot of anxiety or loose sleep over. In cycling they have a much larger entity to protect because the UCI, you have to remember they're holding twenty five percent of every team's budget at any given time. So if a men's world tour team has an average salary of twenty-five million euro, the UCI are holding six or seven million at any time, collecting interest in a brokerage account every year on that, right? So they have much more to lose if a superstar from a tier one team goes away, because then there's a twenty million dollar sponsor that leaves the sport, which they're holding twenty five percent of at any given time. Iron Man doesn't have a conflict of interest that's that visible. World triathlon doesn't have a conflict of interest that that's that's that visible with respect to the fight against doping. So I think it's a great question, but it's not something that I have a huge amount of anxiety over or for.

Mark Matthews: I I think there's a different angle there because I think the silent doping ban is maybe being misunderstood. I think it refers possibly more to investigation. So if someone's under investigation they might be suspended pending a decision if they've appealed it, for instance, and you might see someone miss three or four races in a row and then maybe the decision is overturned, that that can happen. I don't know of any specific examples, but like in the the way the process works, that could happen. But then maybe that's just the the the system doing its job because there are certainly people serving doping bans that weren't actually doping, but there's also plenty of people that got away with them ⁓ through clever legal work, etc. I don't think triathlon has silent doping bans. I do think there's the retirement angle. That's that's a bit more interesting. But I I don't think I like I think if someone misses four races, like no one no one is getting a six month ban. Like unless it's a whereabouts violation where they've can particularly they've done a really good job of appealing it, etcetera, they might just time served six months or whatever, possibly. But like i i if they're gonna serve a silent ban, it's it's like a two years. If they snitch on everyone, rat out the doctors and everyone, I don't know, maybe there's been a scenario where they've got a year, never heard of it. But I I doesn't it doesn't worry me and I'm part of the sport and it would be really bother me obviously if I thought females in direct contentional wife were getting away with that. So I wouldn't worry about it too much people. I think it's pretty I think 'cause because the ITA, yeah. Yeah, good question. Is it were we talking about Simon Yates by the way, Yumbo Vism, Adiction of Sponsorship? Is it Simon Yates retirement? You wanna Paddy Pat did you just Paddy did you just call that Simon Yates? Okay, all right, okay fine.

Patrick Lemieux: Great, great question. I wasn't talking about I wasn't talking I didn't say any names. I didn't say any names.

Kyle Glass: Ha ha ha. ⁓ You tried to get Simon Yates to come after the pod? Come on, Mark. ⁓ all right, we'll end it with this one. A lot of people are fired up that we are twenty-eight days from the Iron Man 70.3 World Championship qualifying window opening for 2027. And we do not have a venue yet announced. A lot of people are fired up. A lot of age groupers are like, why is Iron Man waiting so long? What's going on? Is there contention? What's going on? To my knowledge, there are two races that usually after they happen are open for registration. Those two races are not open yet. So I'm led to believe that North American Ch North America is hosting twenty twenty seven. That's been a wide speculated rumor. So I believe it will be in the USA. The two races that are not open that are usually open by now is Oceanside and Chattanooga. So I personally believe it's down to those two spots for twenty twenty seven Iron Man seventy point three world championship. Thoughts?

Patrick Lemieux: Kyle, Kyle, six sixty minutes is calling my phone. They want your investigative journalism. They they would like an interview with you. They want an interview with you.

Kyle Glass: Here's the thing. Go ahead. Go ahead. Hey man. I I I get a little bored during the day and I take a little lunch break and I have a I also have a lot of age group friends that will message and they're like, hey, why why is registration not open for this? I'm like, guys, calm down. Can you all relax?

Mark Matthews: How do you have a job?

Patrick Lemieux: Ha ha ha. I think I think this is incredible. And I would tell your friends that are obviously everybody's getting a little ⁓ nervous about this whatever. How many times has Iron Man let the deadline go past where they haven't announced it? Bingo. They're gonna announce it. Okay. ⁓ Kyle, I think you've done some amazing

Kyle Glass: Never.

Patrick Lemieux: behind the scenes work. I pr I pray that it's gonna be in Oceanside or Chattanooga and you can feel right on this one. ⁓ it would make a ton of sense that they want to bring a major one for seventy point three. We're due to have one back in North America. ⁓ I I Well let's go.

Kyle Glass: I'm gonna put my Timfoil hat on even more. Are you ready? I did a little bit more digging last night. I did a little more digging last night. Mark's gonna just go cross eyed hearing about this. So Chattanooga. I think it's gonna be Chattanooga, and here's why. I did some digging on the ⁓ Department of Transportation for Georgia and the counties that Lookout Mountain runs through, which is the seventy point three bike course, and over the next two years they are investing about eighty to a hundred million dollars in repaving the roads over the next two years that's set to be done by June twenty twenty seven.

Patrick Lemieux: That's in Tennessee. You had said Georgia, but just to be clear, that's in Tennessee.

Kyle Glass: Yeah. Well the the bike course starts in Tennessee and it goes through Georgia and then back. So that road that's in Georgia that it goes through, they're investing eighty million dollars in that county on road work. So I I think it's Chattanooga. Just saying.

Patrick Lemieux: Do okay. Okay. I'm gonna broker your deal with 60 minutes for the journalist.

Kyle Glass: Okay.

Mark Matthews: I cannot believe you have a fiance.

Kyle Glass: Addie Addie would probably lose her mind if she ever listened to this podcast. She's like, This is what you're doing when we're not together and you're we're not talking, you're you're doing investigative journalism on the Department of Transportation and how much money they're spending.

Mark Matthews: Right. Podcast podcast title, twenty twenty seven, seventy point three World Champs, Chattanooga. Let's just fire it out. Let's just go out on a limb. Like we're breaking the news. And and then if people listen they'll realise why we've called it that. That it's a guest. But we can definitely put that title. What what's I am gonna do? Non, can we p c Non, can we can we call it that?

Kyle Glass: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I mean they haven't announced yet, so

Non Stanford: Yeah, absolutely. I was going to say, Carl, whatever your job is, I want it because you seem to have a lot of spare time on your hands. Do you know what I do in my lunch break? I sit down with a 20 minutes in silence because I'm glad to have half an hour off.

Kyle Glass: Well That's fair. That's fair. So thank you everyone for listening to the podcast this week. If I'm wrong and it's not Oceanside or Chattanooga, shoot me a DM and tell me that I'm wrong and I'll buy you a beer or something. So thank you all for listening. Be sure to tune in for the next couple weeks. We got podium picks going for the next eight weeks in a row. We do have an announcement. Mark, should you we announce the ⁓ Roth relay?

Mark Matthews: Well yeah, just 'cause I I guess if you got this far and you've listened to the closing and you're still listening, you get a sneaky head start. Due to some completely unpredictable and unforeseen circumstances that I've predicted and foreseen for about a year now, we will not be racing our relay team in Challenge Roth, and I'll let Pat and Carl defend themselves in a future show. But Felix from Challenge has very graciously agreed that we can do it as basically one of the best giveaways that Triathlon's ever had, 'cause we all know how hard Roth is to get into. We are gonna be putting up on the web website, linked on our Instagram profile, we'll try and drop it tomorrow. You can apply to make up the Pro Try and News relay team. So if you fancy non-Stamford's got one of those, you just tell us which leg you want non, you've got it. ⁓ you can apply to Swim 3.8K in the gorgeous Roth Swim course. You can do the 180k bike course round the Roth Roads or you can run the epic marathon that's crazy well supported. We'll kick you out with some giveaways we're just trying to put together. It's probably gonna be swimsuit like wetsuits and stuff like that. And ⁓ you can come join our team. The entry's free, the race is free, you just gotta be able to sort of have enough accommodation around the race there. So think about that. But we will put the full details up if you get there.

Kyle Glass: Cool. Thank you all for tuning in. Pat and I will defend ourselves in a later pod. Have a good one. We'll see ya. ⁓ stop.