Kyle Glass: Warning. Pro Tri News is a podcast with different opinions, knowledge, and possibly fake news about triathlon racing. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and some stories may be dramatized for comedic effect. Enjoy. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Pro Try News. We were unable to get the band together last week. We were all exhausted. We were all on different parts of the world, all traveling. But we are back. We're back for the rest of the season and into championship season. So without further ado, we got Mark Matthews, Patrick Lemieux, and Talbot Cox. Patrick Lemieux, you have a special ⁓ jersey you're wearing today. What what is that? Funny you ask. I for those watching on YouTube, ⁓ I'm officially now the big man in red, white, and blue. So yeah, I I went ma ⁓ my masters nationals were in ⁓ Milwaukee this year, so that's where my in laws live. And I went there with Gwen, did some bike races, but I I got fifth in the criterion, I think which we talked about on the pod two weeks ago, and then the road race was three days later. And I ended up winning the road race. So I'm the thirty five to thirty nine national champion in the road race. look I think th these are gonna be some sponsor plugs, but they're absolute truth. ⁓ I did I was super super stoked on the fueling that I did with from precision fuel and hydration. So I do a start bottle that's a hundred grams of carbohydrate that I take five minutes before the race on the line and then that's got a thousand milligrams of sodium in it as well. So the the race was super hot and it was ⁓ y you know, gonna be a big burn. It was a two hour and fifteen minute effort. So I start with that and then through the rest of the time I'm having ⁓ I've got that same concentrate mixture in my first two bottles and then I've got caffeine gels for the finish. So use code PTN fifteen at checkout. If you haven't tried ⁓ yourself, you'd be doing me a huge favor in the how did you hear about it? ⁓ if you heard it from Pro Try News. So please make a mention of that. But yeah, an no joke about that. That those gels I also did a gravel race this past weekend, got second at that ⁓ and that was done exclusively on precision fuel and hydration. I have zero, zero stomach issues. So Talbot, what was your question? This is my question and it's probably very insulting. I'm looking at and Mark will laugh, I'm looking at doing a 30-foot flagpole out in front of our house. So I'm needing I'm Googling what size flags we need. So it it estimates for a 30-foot flagpole. You either need a five by eight feet flag Or a six by ten. Could you mail your jersey to my house and I'm just gonna put it up there and we'll see if that's the right size. I think I cut it. How could I cut it? They said when I was on the top of the podium and the woman was like, Sir, what size jersey do you think you are? And I was like, Look, I hope you got a whole run available 'cause it's gonna need you're gonna need a big one. No, that's that's Lin Lionel Lionel texted me and said Hey, is is winning the national championship and cycling like actually a pretty big deal? And I replied back to him and I was like, Well, it's kind of a big deal, but it's kind of a sad deal because like it just shows how much genuinely time you have to ride your bike. But ⁓ Pat makes a l good living, has a family and is winning national championships, and Lionel says, Yeah, that looks like the kind of lifestyle I want to live. Lionel absolutely smoked my pat. There's no way. Lionel would've got his ass handed to him. I'm not having it. It was ⁓ Would would Lionel would Lionel win a British time trial championship in his age group? No. Zero chance. And only because it's like the one sport you could pick where here there is just an abundance of turbo nerds. That is all is all they do. So he's super talented, maybe any other country in his age group. But here he'll be coming up against a guy that's spent six months of the year in the wind tunnel and the other half six months working in a dental practice. Like it yeah, no chance, unfortunately. Yeah. It's so bad you say that. My teammate, ⁓ who won the forty to forty four is a dentist. And so we each got jerseys. No, but it was I mean, look, I'm gonna do one more lap on this. It was ⁓ a great week. for the club that I started ⁓ this past year with a few buddies. So we had three of us go to nationals and three of us came home with jerseys in our respective categories. So it was a huge sense of source of pride for me just like starting something and working hard at it with a bunch of buddies. So yeah. Thanks for thanks for humoring me everybody and I'll I'll take my jersey off now. Well no, done, well done. You gotta leave it on the whole episode. Whole episode. Mark, you made it back from Roth, how was that? Roth was amazing. As alwa as I I said always is the second time in a ye that like an in a row I've been. The experience, the hospitality, everything. Obviously the race didn't go cat's way, but like it I said to someone, like you can have a bad day in Roth, but sorry, ⁓ you can have a bad race in Roth, but I don't think you can have a bad day. It's it was excellent. And then we nipped from Roth to Zurich, Switzerland, ⁓ for An on visit, which again was really, really cool and interesting. But we had dinner with Danielle Reif and her girlfriend, which was nice. And then me, Danny and her girlfriend watched the Switzerland game when they won to go through to the next round of the World Cup. That was cool. And then eventually we got home. And then England are through again, having kicked out the annoying rowing Norwegians. Get back in your boat, put a sail up, piss off home. Their job done. So yeah, it's been a good week, yeah. And and more importantly, you were you were texting us some updates on our relay team at Roth and ⁓ can you give us ⁓ a little recap on them? Yeah, so the girls did great. ⁓ Neris Nadine and ⁓ well I don't know why I've said the names 'cause I've just blanked J Jo Jo Jones and Nina and ⁓ Nina. Nina, I got it. Neris Nadine and Nina. ⁓ they were brilliant. They all got together, they kind of were like you look you're clearly way too busy to help us out and useless. Mainly I was useless. So I just handed them off their bag, they coordinated their dinner themselves and stuff, they got the race done, they all like trucked around and supported each other. they they loved it. They w it was really, really nice. ⁓ they fifth female team out of like thirty odd teams. yeah. The girl Neris who did it, ⁓ she did the long course weekend the weekend before. So she ran a marathon on the Sunday before the race and then another on the Sunday after the race. Both of them sub three ten. Fair play. It was good. ⁓ I'm gonna be honest. I think if Kyle, Mark, and Pat raced. I don't think you're going nine twenty nine, which was their final time. Fifty five split on the swim, five twenty five on the on the bike, and a three ⁓ five marathon. I I think they're beating you boys. So I I thought I had I would have had the bike covered. I'm I would have had the bike covered. I agree. I agree. Now that's the only thing. So fifty five swims real good. I'd have lost a couple of minutes to run the swim probably. Give me a fifty seven, maybe. Kyle, you running a three ⁓ five? My b no, my best marathon's ⁓ 320 after the Dopey Challenge in Disney World, so no chance. Yeah, we were getting smoked. I don't know. I think Pat might have saved the day because Pat's got a lot of watts. If we could have got Pat on a time for a bike, but the point is, you two boys are massive flaky bitches and we didn't make it. So if you can't start a race, you don't count on the results, and I we got schooled. Yeah. They did real well. So I'm super happy. Yeah, they killed it. They killed it. Talbot, how you been? ⁓ I had a good weekend. I went up to Aspen, ⁓ recorded with some former professional cyclist. ⁓ one of ⁓ five times Tour de France winner. Don't know if you guys ever heard of him. Bradley Wiggins. ⁓ Pretty cool dude. Not trying to like tune my own order. He didn't win the tour five times though. Is he a five times stage winner? No, Grant probab he w n Grand Tour. Grand Fi sorry. I for some reason I thought he went up five times. But he w I'm not sure that that's even right either. I I he won he would have won the Vuelta. You're you're gonna have to look into it or not. Olympic multiple Olympic maybe won five Olympic gold medals. He certainly was close to that. World time trial champ. A big guy. A big a big Yeah. Absolutely hilarious. His son was there too, ⁓ phenomenal cyclist himself. But we did some ⁓ recording for the feed, ⁓ met ads. He he won the Tour de France one time, sorry, in twenty twelve. But It is pretty crazy to see him 'cause you see the lamb chops like in his when he raced back in the Tour de France and all that and Bradley Wiggins and then he's just like beefed up like a Brian Hall now just would destroy you. So ⁓ yeah, that was that was really cool, but had a lot of fun in Aspen and now just at home hanging out with the fam and Kyle, you moved into a new little ⁓ pad of yours. Yep. Moved into a new house, sold my old house. ⁓ so we got new Pro Tri News head headquarters in Oklahoma City. Moved a couple of miles closer to Talbot, a couple of miles closer to my family, so It's gonna it's good. About to get married, so crazy. There we go. Biggest news on the weekend though, phenomenal racing in Roth. I mean, really, really excited racing. ⁓ I I don't I can't remember the percentage. I think it was like ninety six percent on podium picks selected Lucy Charles and Christian Blumenfeld to win. Not not Lucy Charles, sorry, Christian Blumenfeld to win though. ⁓ it was Lucy's was way less than that, but And we saw a breakthrough performance by probably breakthrough is not the wrong term. Sam Laidlow knew exactly what it needed to do and walked away getting confidence going into Kona, and Christian walked away scratching his head saying, Do I have enough for Kona? But let's ⁓ let's start over on the woman's race, which was just a show. Yeah, so I think we have to basically just do hot takes and impressions from the race because we're so late to record. No one's coming on to listen to a bloody race recap. ⁓ so but we need to mention the results. So Lana Siffer won Roth and ⁓ there were the race was too everyone was just talking like there was only two people that could win it, cat v. Lucy. ⁓ a lot a lot of people a lot more people picking Cat than I thought was reasonable given how good Lucy is. I think people just get excited ⁓ to see a scalper maybe late on. ⁓ but it was gonna be one of those two. ⁓ I thought Alana Sifer, I she wasn't even in my top three or four because what she did essentially is a like thirty-five minute Iron Man PB with a twenty minute Iron Man marathon run PB. And it's not like it's she's brand new to the sport. I it it's like an unprecedented performance jump, I would say. It was like unbelievably good. She ran a two hundred forty five. And what I will say is Brett Sutton has coached lots of athletes to ride really well. And I even include Daniela Reif in this. ⁓ an Iron Man, he's never really coached a great new Uber runner. You know, that's like five or six minutes faster than Danny's ever run. It's crazy. It is very crazy. I I I hate to sit here and even mention his name on our podcast, to be honest. Brett Sutton, we we bashed him the show. We got some people Sending us messages, ⁓ don't do that, don't do that. I I just would encourage you, if you don't know who Brett Sutton is, go get on any AI platform outside of Chat GBT because if you type in on Chat G B T what is Brett Sutton convicted for, it will say it violates its terms of use. That's how bad it is. So how about you just go get on Claude, Grok, any other AI platform and type in what is Brett Sutton convicted for? And it will give you some stuff that you probably don't want to read. So I'll leave that at that, but I just Yeah. She's been coached by him for a long time, and a lot of the most successful women and some of the men in the sport have. ⁓ and it's it's a kind of a choice. But it's th that doesn't overshadow how good she was, you know. She got out of the second swim group, she swam really well, then she just dropped them all on the bike. Now clearly that wasn't Lucy that we've seen win fastest bike splits in world championships. But it was unbelievable. My biggest concern is that it validates her bike position. And you'll get the Brett fangirls, and they are or tend to be fangirls, and you know who you are, like talking about how the position is so unique and excellent. And my my question is like, if that is right, why is Poggy not riding it? Why is Remco not riding it? Why is Taylor? Why is Lucy? Why is this, this and this? And for but somehow he makes it work for certain athletes. It's just a bit of an eyesore. But honestly, she never looked in danger. Like from the first stride on the run, she looked calm, controlled, huge scalp. The big question is, why is she not Kona qualified or racing in the Ironman races? Like ⁓ she should be a hot it is be talking about her winning Kona. We would she would cheat one of the names. She has had a absolutely incredible off season. ⁓ the last race that she would have attempted to qualify for Kona was Iron Man Western Australia last year, where she biked four forty five and ran three twenty one. ⁓ probably not indicative of her best performance, but it goes on a line with a a lot of her other performances like Iron Man New Zealand. She biked to five fifteen and ran three fifteen. But a dramatic improvement in the offseason ⁓ led her to one of the best females, schooling two of the best females in the world, a four twenty-nine bike performance and a two forty-five run. I mean, she had an incredible off season of just consistency and ⁓ training camps and sh and she's had some pretty good results this year. G you can't take away she raced a ⁓ a short course race, a a World Traphon series race earlier this year in Chengdu. ⁓ didn't do too hot at it, but y she's been doing a lot of other things fifth at ⁓ the T one hundred Spain. That's one of the things about ⁓ Alanis that probably a lot of people don't know. she is eyeing getting one of the women's slots and being on the relay team for the Olympics. So I don't think Kona is in her ⁓ her realm of goals right now. ⁓ last I heard is Brett Sutton told the Swiss Federation, I will have two women ready for you for LA twenty twenty eight. It'll be Julie Duron and Alana Siffert and I will have ⁓ Max Studer ready as well. So basically that Julie Duron will leave the Swiss Federation and go to China? No no no no. All still racing for the Swiss Federation. He ch he he coaches both. He he has a job. So he coaches yeah, so he coaches f the Swiss athletes, ⁓ and then is the high performance director of the Chinese triathlon team, I believe. So I just I thought you meant I will have ⁓ ready for you. I just wanted to clarify. Can I do my can I do my podium picks for China the twenty twenty eight relay team? I'm gonna I'm gonna go Switzerland then China. I mean she she's gotta get better results than a fifty first at a World Cup to start getting points to be able to Do that, but I would say that that's a phenomenal result. Mark, I think the biggest question is is she's not on the placid start list. Do you see surely she's scratching her head, whether she went back home to China to do some more training or she's gonna stay in Europe? Will we see her and Kalmar getting a last second slot to Kona? I mean, if you're running this hot, why would you not? I don't This is gonna sound but I don't think she has a say in it necessarily as much as other athletes might do, 'cause the style of coaching. But I could be wrong, but she she did go on Jack Kelly's podcast and say she wasn't gonna do Kona or Kalmar or any of that. Yeah. So done. ⁓ and the women's all eyes all eyes on Nice for for Alanis. So it'll be interesting. I know other things. I thought solid debut from Caroline Pole rode really well, swam really well, blew up on the back half of the run. Daisy Davis shows herself to be a consistent, good athlete. Lucy seemed pretty happy. It was a P B run for her, fast as she's ever run a marathon. ⁓ the kit change was an interesting one, ⁓ Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, I don't know how her tri suit sponsor felt about it. But I quite liked it. Like, try something new, maybe she'll run that approach in Kona, maybe it's for heat, maybe it's I thought Reese told me it's for comfort, a lot of people wondering, 'cause she does what you need to do and pulls out the the chamois. ⁓ so she was having to like wriggle around and try and pull the chamois out anyway. So they just decided to take the suit off. Lionel's done that before yeah, Lionel's done it a bunch in the past before, right? Where y he's run a bunch of marathons in short you know, shorts and a tank top. So ⁓ I I'm I'm of the belief or the qu the the question rather, like those those suits with especially for Kona, w one, I mean the thought of me running in a chamois would just be like I'm losing my mind thinking about it. I couldn't do that. But now with the aero fabrics, have they become like a little less breathable and are the suits like getting really tight that they're simply just uncomfortable to run in. I think you'd with certain manufacturers. Well maybe with certain manufacturers I haven't seen them all, so maybe hers. I think you could say that like you could make the problem is you have to swim in it, right? So like You can't really make the suit more aero if you know you're gonna take it off, 'cause the problem isn't really the run, it's the swim. So you would still have to swim with it down by your waist. But then if you make it more heavy duty aero, you still have to get the thing on. And Lucy wants that gap, so I don't know about that. And I'm not I think with the f the heat from what I've read and looked into, you're actually hotter because your skin's exposed to the sun and sweat evaporates faster. So you don't get the cooling effect of having a wet suit. But you're a bit lighter. There's trade offs. So and I f of all the teams I'm not gonna question, they I'm sure they know what they're doing. So whether it's a contractual thing, whether it was a branding thing, whether it was a performance comfort thing, whatever it was, I I imagine there's probably quite a lot of thought. Yeah, I think I mean I'll just say firsthand with Lionel when he's done it, it was purely just on comfort. He's like I do all of my run workouts in a tank top and shorts, right? He goes, That's what I want to race in is a tank top and shorts. ⁓ Because I'm more com and we got I'm more comfortable. We Reese gave me an answer. You know, he said it was because of the chamois, it was more comfortable. It was just easier to just then remove the suit and running that. And hey, I've got no reason to doubt him, so it makes sense. Yeah, my c my question with respect to Kona is always around the UV load. Like so if you do have your shoulders and stuff exposed, I personally would get really hot from that. So like I'm thinking of you know, when Tokyo or even when Real Olympics rolled around, like Nike had these longer had these had those sh shirts and stuff with it was like a special material that had all the holes cut in it. And I would almost go towards like I'm gonna run in a t shirt effectively that's really lightweight, but it does have its you know, it's SPF fifty naturally and then like that The the UV load is the big question for me. I think it's ch I think it was honestly just the chamois thing, etc. Because you're right, like a load of the ultra runners are doing that now, right? With those those exact same tops in the really hot races. We we we talk a little bit about Lionel though, but Lionel's rare to full on singlet. This is more like Ferris Al Sultan, like kind of the crop top. Yeah. It was it was an ad Adidas track race kit or marathon race kit. ⁓ sorry, ⁓ Asix. That's what it was. Which is what Ferris even wore himself back in the day, Cross and Kona. ⁓ I I like it. I also do think, ⁓ not to knock some of these suit brands now, but sometimes you can't really see the sponsors. I feel like for the first time in the last couple of years you could actually see all of Lucy's sponsors as well. So I'm sure like Wahoo and a lot of her premium sponsors that pay for her spa ⁓ logo or placement on the front of her kit probably liked it as well. Maybe not Ryzen but I'm gonna tell you I'm I'm gonna tell you this this is an agent. That you you would be upset if you were the suit sponsor and and like it the athlete didn't win in your suit for the run if that was not said ahead of time. Period. They would be upset. How do you know that they didn't tell ⁓ ahead of time though? No they could've they could've. I'm I'm not sa I'm not saying in one way or another. I'm just saying that would be like the expectation would be, hey, you know, I mean this is part of the reason why one of my clients doesn't have a suit sponsor is because he wants to be able to do whatever he wants to do with respect to the suit. So I think I'm just saying like if you're gonna change, the suit manufacturer when they signed the deal had an expectation that you were going to be in the suit for swim bike and run, not just swim and bike. Yeah. And and lastly, I think something that a lot of people are also forgetting is That a lot of amateur athletes do more than the ⁓ pro athletes. You do gotta take a poo a lot on the run. Is there any of that involved in this at all? Because I know both male and female athletes. Lucy's never she's got guts of steel, that girl. I think it's probably sh I've never seen her have a problem. The cat had her first in this race, so the tri suit wasn't the swiftest, but that's fine. ⁓ I don't think so with Lucy. I think she grew up what smashing blocks of raw jelly on pool side like the kids used to do the swimmers, I reckon she's guts are steal, no problem. Didn't we see her though in Kona take a porta potty break? I sure but I don't think it's that. Yeah. I think I think what please gave us the answer. This is I think we've done enough on the I wanna talk about I wanna talk about the men's race. Yeah. Well let's let's let's highlight the podium real quick. Daisy Davies, like is she gonna be a feature for years to come? She another Brit athlete that's just come through. I mean we had f Brits second, third and fourth like The British Federation is super strong both at short course and long course now. No, no, no. The British Federation does fuck all for any of these athletes racing. The British long distance scene is super strong. And the British Federation with their girls is super strong. But don't you know, you're not having that. They're not they don't get they don't get to claim those girls. Daisy Davis did come up through it a bit, to be fair, I think. That's that that's true. So yeah, and Daisy Daisy Davis third, I think she's just continuing to improve. Super strong athlete. Lucy Charles, I mean, not not magnificent for her. I think, you know, any real strong race should have gone with certainly gone with Alana Sifer, maybe not let them ride up to her quite so easily. ⁓ and then Alana Sifer, we've got to see where she's going next. And Kat just had gut issues as we've talked about and was vomiting up stuff from about forty K into the bike. pretty much continuously. She she has clearly clearly an off day for Kat. I think clearly an off day for Kat. One of the most consistent Iron Man athletes out there. And I think that it's one of those races is from a fan standpoint it's like this is not does not reflect her or her result. ⁓ very off for her. So I think that it i it has no indicative on the her future Kona performance or anything like that because it was just clearly an off day. You've seen her phenomenal results at Iron Man distance before, so think just it's a ⁓ maybe even the Kona gods saving her from trying to go to the well, ⁓ so she could do it in Kona. So Yeah, we were just she was chatting to you before. It's funny, isn't it? Like you can have a horrendous day like that 'cause of something like a gut issue. But then you clear it out after the race, right? And the next day you feel great. Because you know she still ran like a two fifty four or something. But if you're capable of ten minutes faster, the mechanical load less that it has, I would still you know, I w it doesn't matter how fast I run it, I'd be absolutely crippled. And you guys have said this about Lionel, like if he has a really bad race, she's actually pulled up, like she'd done a decent training session. She's like completely fine two days later. It's so bizarre the level and all pros could do this as well. If you just take the speed down, they just bounce back. It's bizarre to see. Hey Pro Chi News listeners, it's WinRepublic co-founder Luke McKenzie here. Welcome to the second half of twenty twenty six. It's been a huge year for win so far, but trust me when I say we're only just getting started. Stay tuned over the coming weeks and months for some seriously exciting news, especially for our friends in Europe. Today I'm excited to bring you the last of our 2026 Pro Series collaborations with none other than Kat Matthews. This all-new collection is designed alongside Kat in two unique eye-catching designs and available in both cycling and tri-suit options. These items are available on our website on pre-order now through July 5th, and we're shipping worldwide. As a Pro Tri News listener, you can claim 15% off any WinRP purchase, including the Pro Series collections, by heading over to winrepublic.com/slash ProTri News. See you at the races. Let's go. If you've been following Triathlon, here's one thing you've certainly noticed. Sure seems like everyone is on a wove saddle lately. Hey, if you check out the bike of Lucy Charles, Magnus Ditlev, Trevor Foley, guess what? They're all riding a wove saddle. I'm riding a wolf saddle as well. You might not look up to me in the same way that you look up to them, but here's the deal. I've tested saddles, I've been riding bikes almost 25 years. I absolutely love this saddle. It's been a complete game changer for me. And here's the deal. Wove Now is going to offer our listeners a 30-day money back guarantee. That's right, you heard it. You don't like this saddle after 28 days, send it back. But if it's you've have your experience anything like mine, you're going to absolutely love it. Can't wait for you to try out. They've got three models right now, many more coming. Check them out. Let us know what you think. All right, men's side. Fastest ever full distance time, Sam Laidlow. Huge. I mean, Sam's won now every race he's done this year. Three for three. And it weren't even close. You know, like and I saw him a lot. We had dinner with him a bunch of times, coffee and stuff like that. Cat's good friends with his girlfriend Milan. I'm decent mates with both of them. We watched the England football together and stuff like that. He I tell you what, he was before Wednesday, no chance he was winning that race. He was so rocky, so nervous, everything. He did a monster training session on Wednesday before the race. ⁓ just what we would consider monster, but this is all different. And he's he was so much better. And he said to me afterwards that he only knew he was gonna go well the morning of the race. He woke up, just felt really good, and was like, I can do this. But he it wasn't one of these like you're gunning all week. It just it was it was genuinely quite on edge. ⁓ it's it's hard to This is this is the biggest thing that I take away from it is if you are a Christian Blumenfeld, where do you find more time? Where do you f like i if you look at it from a fan perspective, he's not running two twenty five. I think everyone knows that. I mean Christian ran a two twenty nine thirty. Insane. I I just I think the front of the ri this is the this is the pinnacle of what an Ironman athlete can do and I think that we will only see the bar raise more and more and it would just be made up time on the bike. And I just ⁓ look at the f this makes me so excited for Kona. Look at the firepower coming out of the water. Mark, let me ask the tough question that nobody's talking about. How much slower is Christian's bike than Sam's? On paper? Bike and setup. Like I mean, we're talking double digit minutes in it, aren't we? ⁓ yeah. I and and Sam's a considerably taller guy and probably heavier. I would say Sam's overall C D A is way lower. The amount of research, the amount of tech he's putting into it, it's not just the bike, it's not just the new Canyon versus the CadEx, but there is some serious stuff there. It's the the the detail, the research, everything. I mean Sam is beyond dialed and he will say himself. He he he's not like, ⁓ it's all me. He he'll say, you know, like, I reckon I'm pushing twenty watts less than Rico, who rides with it. You know, he he knows this detail is there. so that's a big part of it. I also think Talbot, like What if Magnus was still riding? Because Magnus was starting to tow Sam back and blew up a bit. So if you get a really fit Magnus and he holds the gap to five minutes, then that's different. The other one is what what we've never seen before is can you ride that hard and still run well in the heat of Kona? Now you might be able to do it in Roth and he cracked at the end. I don't think you can at the moment. Yeah, he was cracking the last couple kilometers for sure. And if you crack her there in Roth, well, at what point do you crack in Kona? Okay, yeah, but crack is a is a 236. And like just historically, you look at Christian versus Sam and Kona. In 2022, you had a six forty was the difference in the bike split. And then it increases in Kona twenty twenty-four is an eight twenty-five. It comes down a lot in Nice. I think we all know Nice is a completely different course. It was one fifty there, but then a nine ten, and I just It it shows you it does show you that that pack, that that big train, there was no one. Christian was doing if you look at the tracker, Magnus did a little bit of work. Christian was doing this th it was a this was a individual time trial for Christian. All him versus them. Because Sam will will say Rico did a lot of the work on the bike as well, very openly. Rico was real good. It often showed like he was just ⁓ Sam was always on the front of the tracker, but Rico did plenty. But you g y I still think Sam can absolutely win Kona by the way. I'm just saying I don't think this is just indicative that he'll walk away with it. But you then give KB, Gustaf, and Casper. You you give him the firepower to share. You know, like and he has all the other there's so many more good athletes come into that group. And the athletes that can make the Sam group at the front, the respect for Jamie Riddle and that, they can't contribute to that pace. They can't write with Rico and Sam doing that. So Sam doesn't get the f extra firepower in Kona. K K B does. KB gets a whole bunch more firepower in Kona. Yeah. I want to be a little more direct though. Where where can K if if you Mark, you're a tech guy. If you were trying to get KB to scoop up a little bit of speed between now and Kona you go ⁓ yeah, I know I'm sponsored by Cadex, but l we all know that you're basically the same company as Giant. And I'm You pick up a new Trinity. I would like a Trinity. I can't ride the Cadex. It's it's way slower. And I need to then do a full bike fit on the cadeks and I need to spend a better time doing the nerdy details that Sam does. ⁓ and I think I I I mean I you ⁓ he's got minutes on the cad between the between the Cadeks and the Giant, I genuinely think it's minutes. That's not you and I just like BSing over beers. K B's leaving minutes on the table right now on the bikes. And and it's closer to ten than it's closer to two. I ⁓ because for instance he had to ride the CADEX for sub eight. I mean it was still around on Sub 8, when was that? Twenty twenty-one or something? That's when it came out. And ⁓ the people involved in his bike team also had to then ride the CADEX and they were begging them to let them ride the Trinity, which was the old rim brake Trinity at the time, because it was faster. Sam did ride a brand new the brand new Canyon Speed Max that is ⁓ kind of I wanna say a little bit of a copy of the older version as far as from a aerodynamic standpoint, but there is so much intricate of really thought over nuances of ⁓ water bottle placement and just all these things that just more convenient than ever. ⁓ go check it out. I actually did go to go to the launch. Mark was there as well. It's hard to not be biased, but I would say almost Every single bike brand will go buy one of these and look it over and copy every little intricate thing that they did because they thought of every little thing for this bike and it is pretty incredible. I will say on the bike though, the fastest person that's ever ridden that bike. I don't want to name names. Mayo ⁓ said it's much faster than his old bike. Rico Bogan? No, Sam. It's much faster. ⁓ like It's pretty insane. Well I can't I won't talk numbers, but he's like Yeah, it's he's very, very happy with his new toy. There there was some numbers shared just one V one at the media event. ⁓ just go watch some of the Global Triflo Network videos. They did some videos on it. It is a pretty insane bike. Pat, do you wanna take a shot at Felt real quick? You usually do that in these moments or ⁓ I just I wanna no no no I wanna I wanna sorry, I wanna do this bike thing. I'm not ready to be done beating this horse yet. Craig Alexander, fifteen plus years ago, holy shiv, left his bike sponsor in the middle of a deal because it was ten minutes slower. Is there a world where this happens with KB? Yes, because he did the same thing with his contract his running contract with ASICs. He left them in the middle of his deal after Kona, after Gustav ran in the ones, and then all of a sudden KB wasn't with A6 anymore and he's with On. It it it's happened before. So yes. Yeah, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna hold your feet to the flame on this one 'cause your boy's with him, but like I mean, is this a possibility? Do we think he's thinking about it? Is he looking around? Yes. Yes he is. I think Yes, he is. Well, you gonna speak for Christian and his mic sponsors? I don't know. I have I have I don't I don't I don't believe so I don't believe as far as this year. I don't see I don't think we see that going into Kona. ⁓ I do. I I just I bet I bet he's on a Trinity. I bet he's on a Trinity. Okay, but I w I asked Mark, you stepped away for a second. I said does he does he exit his deal early to get on a different bike? No, but I reckon they'll get him on the Trinity early. I I've heard some stuff but I don't think that that's I don't think that that's the direction pat that you're thinking. I won't say anything else but He would go to the felt but it's too heavy so got that felt there is to heavy isn't it? Hold hold on a second. Also too, like speaking of new bikes, are we gonna see Paula on the new specialized T T making a comeback into triathlon? That that that we're still that bike the new sh specialized is well that's still too early for that. We're but yeah, we're gonna see it. You're gonna see it, you're gonna see it in the next time trial. Yeah. You're gonna see Remco on a new one, but that's it. Yeah, yeah. So only Rimco. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But do you not think they were like Paula, Remco, cute girl, Rimco? That's what they should be thinking. Paula's a lot more likable than Remco. Yeah, so that's why I would have went with Paula. She's certainly less volatile. Yeah. All right, let's get back on track. What what do you guys think about the new bike course record, Rico Bogan? I mean, his debut at the Iron Man distance, pretty incredible that he threw down a three fifty four bike split. ⁓ matches John Ferdino for the second fastest German time ever at the tri battle. Rico Bogan, I if I'm if I'm Rico's coach, if I'm Philip Seep, I'm saying to hell with the rest of the season, we're going to Kona. Rico, I will say as well, he ran pretty damn well off it. You know, he he went and he went hard for a long, long time on the run. Philip was happy, like Philip was in good spirits all week. You know, he's exceptionally German as always, but he was he was pretty made up about that and I think so was Rico. You've got to you've got to say that that is one hell of an Ironman debut. I mean kind of aligned perfectly with the people he had. You know, it's really helpful that he's not riding 'cause if you take Sam and Jonas out of that race, he's riding a hundred K on a hundred and eighty K on his own, total solo. And that is a mind fuck for a young lad doing their first race. But he mixed it with the big boys. ⁓ I don't think he should try and go to Kona this year 'cause it means he has to recover from this, do another Iron Man race and qu to qualify and then do a third. So he essentially does three Ironman races between July fifth and October eleventh or whatever. That's why you're a coach, Mark, and I'm just not our character. It's just hard to look at numbers and say, Yeah Swim forty six minutes bike three fifty-four and then run sorry, sorry. Swim forty six minutes, bike three fifty four and then run two forty-three off of that. ⁓ yeah, you're getting third. You're like, wait, like if could you imagine saying that five years ago? You'd be like third to who? What? It's the same as like we've seen a few of these races like Kat and Hamburg last year goes eight ⁓ five gets second. You know, y ⁓ you see these crazy races at the moment and th these levels are just stepping on and on. I you know, Roth is it's not the flattest bike course, but it's a c couple of K short and the run's what, eight hundred, seven hundred metres short. Like the the times are always good there, but it's not fast. Like I it's really not that fast. The run's not pancake flat, it has the hill at the end and the bike certainly isn't and it blows hard. So they are comparable times. ⁓ it's incredible. It's a hell of a debut. I mean, Canyon releases a new bike That bike goes top three fastest bike splits. Little pretty means. Maybe a little ⁓ hint. ⁓ there's part of it. I mean I much I'd love to pick up the sponsor. They also sign very smart, good athletes, and if you want to advertise bikes, sign up Rika Bogan, Jonas Schomberg, and Sam Laidley. You know. Yeah. Have to. ⁓ so now I guess since he's probably not doing Kona, all eyes are on the T one hundred and seventy point three World Championship in Nice for him. So He'll be back. He'll he'll he'll go Iron Man next year for sure. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. ⁓ I I was also kind of impressed. Fourth place Meno Kulhas ran a two thirty. I don't think we've seen Mennow run run that fast before. So And came to the after party. ⁓ yeah. He's he's he's a shoe in for another top five in Kona, for sure. I mean ⁓ shoe in shoe in top ⁓ five Kona. I'm gu I I'm with Kyle. I've I'm I'm I'm calling it. Mino he's an absolute top bloke, really nice lad. ⁓ he just said he didn't really have quite the bike legs he wanted, he didn't drill T one quite fast enough, etcetera. W unbelievable run. Super impressive. ⁓ just a good all round performance. If if if few few things with Roth real quick before we move on. Most ever streams, three hundred and seventy four thousand streams, insanity, seventy five hundred volunteers. ⁓ wish I was surprised. Felix is like one of the greatest humans in the world. ⁓ record number of spectators on course three hundred thousand. I mean what is there in Kona? Five thousand? One thousand? Yeah, something. I mean ⁓ I reckon there was I reckon there was I reckon there was twenty minutes on race day where Felix wasn't crying with happiness. I think maybe twenty minutes. He listens to this. I think twenty minutes that maybe Felix wasn't crying. Just twenty minutes for people. Yeah. Hey, what let's let's cut to it. What were Antonio and Sam doing there? Wondering how to put on a world class event? Trying to bag it. They th they gotta I reckon they'll try and do something long next year to grab a few of these athletes back and they'll try and I don't know. In some way incorporate it into 'cause they bought Challenge. It doesn't include Roth. No one cares about anything else Challenge does now. They don't even have St. Poulton. So then how you know and Like they don't. So then like They got Sam R they got Samarin. They got Samarin. That's that's great. ⁓ I think they desperately need to do something long to get a few of these people back and interested at some point. What it could do for like say hype like say you're Felix, you pay all these pros to turn up good amount of money. They a couple of great freebies in. They Lucy and Magnus in for bugger all towards like very late. So they got a couple of freebie big names in, but they sh shelve out a load of money for the other big names. T one hundred put it long. What if they whether they just rather to cover the pride the the pro invitation fees, give Felix a certain amount of money that he can use at his discretion? They call it a T one hundred point scoring middle dist ⁓ long distance event. What if they do something different? Yeah. They buy Iron Man. No no no. No no no no no. What if what if they make it its own one day world championship? So they call that the the challenge world championship. No, no. The I was in World Triathlot. That's the world triathlon. long distance world championship. They lose the long distance world championship. And they just make that the pro one and then they just have an age boot one for the rest of those. Yes. I hear memes put out. I'm looking clicking through right now, looking panically looking for it. There's such a funny meme. It's like it shows Sam Renoof and he's like when when it says that he purchased Challenge Family but then he realized and no I mean we I don't wanna I no, I truly I'm not I'm not this is I've I've I've taken some shots at Sam. But I'm actually saying that's what they do. This is the whatever they want to call it, but it's their world championship. It would it would it would just uplift the long course game more. That's what I'm saying. Like it would it would be so good for the sport of travel. Or have they just missed it by a year? K B's just done it, Lucius has done it, Kat's just done it, Laidlow's won it couple of times in a row now. Matt like Rico and that have debuted at it. They've they take the Roth box, we're on to Kona next year. We'll focus all in on Kona. And so then they just kinda missed a bunch of Dude, this is here's the thing. I mean, this is everybody that's gone to Roth, I have personally not been, but we've obviously I get touch points from a lot of people that go. From an expo standpoint, it's superior than Kona. And it's not even by a margin. Not even close. It's not even close. It's not even close. Yeah. No. So you dude, you've got the people standing in line sleeping overnight. To register for the following year. Think about this. And don't you know, and it ⁓ give me a twelve buck big wave served by a grumpy waiter I have to tip twenty percent versus a five euro German Weissbeer. The after party, the atmosphere, the environment, the food's cheaper is my point. I was just picking Mike. Laser shell. Okay. We can now confess we can now confess to Felix because we went back and I was at it this year. That me and you after the race last year, we got home, I'd raced, you had no excuse, and we went, ⁓ Felix wants us to get back to the laser show. And He could cut he could save some OpEx if he got rid of the laser show. We went to bed and we did not come to a laser show in twenty twenty five, Carl ⁓ Felix. I'm really sorry. And w I think we might have even then played to you and told you how good we thought it was. Can I it wasn't this year and it was unbelievable. So what if he did the laser show at the mo in the morning? To get everybody excited already. You can't do a laser show during the daytime. No, in the morning. ⁓ no, at sunrise to get everybody excited for the event. It doesn't need to be. The stadium is rammed. People love it. They cue to get in the place. Okay. So what I'm saying what what I'm saying is Felix needs a bag from Antonio and Sam, and they need to figure out how to get that race. on their calendar. I don't think that Felix needs them. They need Felix. Yeah, that's There's a big announcement. There's a big announcement on July twenty fourth at four thirty in London. The Trathlon World Tour. We gotta save the date. So we'll f we'll find out. If you entered the podium picks, we have selected one random person. We went and checked that one random person in a very unfortunate circumstance They were not following Challenge Roth, and that was one of the requirements. So we are redrawing again. make sure this is a kind of a shout-out. You better go follow Challenge Roth on Instagram because we will be redrawing it again. We check checked them just before the show, they weren't following. So make sure you go check. We will announce that on Instagram this week. We will draw until the person follows Challenge Roth. ⁓ so this is your shout-out, your last second warning before we draw your name. If you did play podium picks. We will announce that this next week on our Instagram. So make sure you're following our Instagram as well. And you do not have to fly all the way to Roth and sleep outside in line with f however many thousands of other people. Two thousand people. Two thousand people. ⁓ We need to move on from Roth. Yeah. Seventy point three European championships showing Seventy point three European championship happened the same weekend as Roth. Lasse Priester won the race, new European champion. Second place Fabian Kraft, third place Harry Palmer. I mean, when you look at the results of this race, you're like the fact that Lasse Priester ran another one ⁓ nine is crazy. ⁓ European champion. Now he's like fully embedded into the Long Corse scene after his essential like coming out party at the the T one hundred in San Francisco. Even though he got third place at Ex in Provence ⁓ before that. So it'll be interesting to see him Provence Ex in Exim Provence. We call it that, don't we? Exim Provolone. That yeah, that's it. Sorry, got it. Yeah. And then on the women's side you had Bianca Bogan win the race, second place Marjolaine Pierre and third place Anastasia Dam Nielsen. I mean, that that that race, usually European championship, I would like to see it going forward to be a pro series race, my opinion. I don't understand why they have this separately. The North American Championship is a ⁓ pro series race. I don't believe the Australian or the Asia Pacific one is. I don't believe like I don't understand why no one else can do that. But that's just my bit. Yeah, I totally agree. That it should be. No one really cares in Europe about the European seventy point three championship. They're not putting it in their bio, they're not talking about how consistent it is. I think it's you guys are a bit more patriotic about like homegrown sports and stuff. So it doesn't really matter to us quite as much, I will say. Well it can't be, and we go on to the race from this weekend, can we? It can't be Swansea. I that I that I think and we c we know we get called pro Iron Man News all the time. I found that really uncomfortable to watch because that bike course is too dangerous to be a televised race. It it was d it was It was gnarly watching it and because Kat had been there last year I'd actually didn't watch the coverage 'cause the signal was real bad. So I don't think I've realised how bad it was, and I think maybe it's got even worse. the road surface is crap. The roads are really narrow. There's just it looks naff because there's just parked cars on the middle of the course the people having to drive around. There's ⁓ there's out and back traffic on single lane. Like I don't mean I don't basically mean you know, two l a lane each way. It you know, it's like literally like one American width. lane. That they have out and back traffic on essentially, that are completely blind corners, going into dead turns, going into potholes, ⁓ bloody cows on the course, which is all very fun and scenic if you're an age group of trying to get around in seven hours and you don't care. If you're coming down a hill doing sixty K an hour in the T T bars and there's six cows on the course, it's not ideal. It makes it look a joke on the coverage. And then after all of that, eventually the predictable happens, Mika Newt's flying down a hill, and there's Contra fly traffic, so riders coming up the other way, him coming down, he's the first one on that point, of course, so he's absolutely flying. They're not expecting him. An ambulance is randomly parked on the road. There's no hard shoulder, so it's on the course. So age groupers are then coming into Rico ⁓ Mika Newt's lane and he s voids it, does what he can and spanks into the side of an ambulance, snaps the bars off his shiny new canyon. I did for a second think the bars had just snapped off and it had caused him to crash, and I was like, ⁓ My god, this is bad for Canyon. It wasn't that. He just spanked straight into the side of a an ambulance, wiped himself out, road rash everywhere. Bloody ambulances still sat there for ages. Whole thing's carnage. Can't be a pro race. I know we'll talk about the races and the brilliant performances in a second, but up front, that's a hard no from me. I think that Talbot, you wanna say something? I I do believe just to be clear, they are in contact with Iron Man. Iron Man is assisting Mika and his team. I think that more important thing is is thank the Lord we didn't see a situation similar to Egon Bernil. ⁓ that is a career ending unfortunate result. ⁓ we've seen that a lot of times in our in the sport of triathlon, unfortunately, and also in the sport of cycling, and just thank God that it wasn't that bad. But I do believe that Iron Man is assisting him in whatever capacity. And if we get more words or assist ⁓ terms of what that even means, then we will let you guys know. But it is there's some courses we've talked about multiple times on here. The Chattanooga two loop Iron Man course is another one that is j it's just like that. There's there's some courses that just should not be they're not made for professional athletes riding at thirty miles an hour with their heads down. Full stop. It's the speed. That's just all it is. It's just the speed. Absolutely, sure. Crack on. Some of the age groupers are running that fast too though. Yeah, but they're not surrounded by four bloody camera motorbikes as well. Yeah, true, true. They're not amateur athletes, if they're riding, trust me, they're doing anything they can to get their pro license to register for an Ironman event for free. They ain't riding thirty miles an hour. If they are, that's only in one or two events. Any age group athlete. But the other thing is, age groupers choose, complete choice. Now pros can choose, but it is also their job. You're paying them and you're putting series money on the line. I do think, you know, you you then there is a bit more behind like you do have to deliver a product that someone can perform their job in safely. And it is definitely a speed difference. ⁓ yeah, so whatever, w whatever to the race. In the end, there was some pretty damn good racing and the expected people I would say didn't win. And The person I want to give a massive like a massive shout out was the male winner. Harry Palmer. Harry Palmer. I think Did he get knighted? Look, some of the Pro Series races aren't that good because you even Harry Palmer can win one. He's won that three times now. And he beat some genuinely yes, Mika would have won. Fine. I I pr I I don't think it's controversial to say that Mika Nuke would have won that race. But it doesn't matter because he's still rolling off the likes of Like Pierre Lacor with with absolute ease. He's rolling off like big name athletes that we know. Like Kieran Linders goes away from Simon Vienne, absolutely blows up on the course, and he's an Uber runner. He's run some insane run splits. So absolute shout out, Harry Palmer, three wins at ⁓ Swansea. Kieran Linders, really good seventy point three result for him. He doesn't normally perform as well in seventy point threes as he does full distance races. We know him as being in the front of the races in big races like Frankfurt and even Kona, etc. Like some really good races. ⁓ and then Dreisen from Germany took third place there. ⁓ that was the men's race, and then in the women's race. I think she's raced this every time it's been on, ⁓ Lizzie Rayner to take the win. And she cave towards the end of the run. It looked really comfortable, but ⁓ in second you had the French athlete Annie Sophie Pierre who was like running her down and came second by fourteen seconds, and then Lagoink ⁓ out of Poland. ⁓ in third place with another really good runtime. Indy Lee had a crash on the bike as well. She was probably the favourite going into the race after Solvi Loth Seth dropped out. We should talk about that. ⁓ she had a little crash but like she said it was rider error rather than anything else. Solvi's an interesting one dropping out. I did enjoy her on the commentary. ⁓ she's incredibly lovable. But she came on, she went down she watched the race she stayed with people she went for fish and chips she's had like Pretty good at her time here, and she said she just really struggled to pull up since Hamburg. So Pro series What do you think of the pro series now? You got Kieran Linder's just shot up the pro rank pro series and now he's tied for third with Gustav Eden with essentially three scores. Some more racing to go. I don't know if Kieran Linder's gonna do too hot in Kona or 70.3 worlds. He won't lose crazy time in Kona. Yeah, like Kieran Linders is someone that I didn't even think was gonna be a feature in the pro series and now he's in third place off three races? Like if you're not a Norwegian that's in the fight to win Kona, you can't bank on you know, you have to be a big name we talk about here. We have to you have to be a K B, you to be a Laidlow, Gustav, Kasper, whatever, to like think you definitely beat Kieran Linders in Kona. 'Cause he swims real well, he hangs around, he runs well in the heat. I think he's set himself up pretty well though. I mean if I'm Kieran though, I don't think that he should go to Nice 'cause he DNF there last year. I don't think that course is like suited for someone like him. But I could see him going to Zell ⁓ C and getting good points and then going into Kona and and having being in a good position. Pretty crazy. Yeah, I I agree. I think I think that's exactly what he should do. I don't think Nice is his cup of tea. I think he should do Zell 'cause he doesn't have another seventy point three score yet, does he? ⁓ he has one no, just one seventy point three score and then he did Texas and Hamburg or Frankfurt. Yeah, I think he goes to Zell as well. And then chips his way into Kona, runs well in the heat there. Half the people in front of him blow up and die 'cause it's Kona. You know? Any of those guys can run a three hour marathon in Kona. Like you did plus. You just don't know what's gonna happen. Yeah, fair enough. another race that happened while we were away was Iron Man Switzerland, where you had Julie Duron and Imogen Simmons snag their Kona slots. ⁓ Julie Duron made pretty easy work of Imogen T B H. She won by over thirteen minutes. So Julie Duran in in monster form going into ⁓ championship season. The thing with Julia is again it's out of that Chinese Brett Camp, like is she even gonna do Kona or was this just her one Iron Man of the Year? She should. She she'd be we'd be we'd be talking about her as a massive threat if she does. She'd be one of the favorites. But we just don't know. I I would I would say she does Kona. That last year she went over to What island did she go to? Guam? Yeah, the the popular training camp spot over in Guam. And did some ⁓ training over there going to the World Championship, but I think picked up ⁓ Mono or something going into the World Championship so dropped but she crashed last year as well, didn't she? She had a bit of hand in it. ⁓ but but could definitely be a outlier for Kona. do another Iron Man. We've not seen her race an Iron Man in a very long time. Back to Kona. Yep. So ⁓ seventy point three Venturi Gasites was on the weekend as well. Natalie Van Coverdin won that race and a Frenchman, ⁓ Damien Le Messinger won on the mid side. It was forty degrees, if not hotter. I think it hit like forty one or something that day. Because that was right. Yeah, but they don't the fr the Spanish don't cancel races like the French do, so no, I surrender. ⁓ WTC S Hamburg, do you guys watch Short Course Race this weekend? ⁓ I did. I did. I I did. And I bloody enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the relay. ⁓ the the men's race was I mean, could so predictable for the win, right? Surely. Did you wish you I mean Matthauser Matthauser's just better right now. You know, yeah, yeah, you said Gaps Hayden in a swim. See ya later. They drill the bike and he's just by far the best runner in that that field over five K. Yeah, he he is a phenomenal. I I went for it. I ⁓ picked back ⁓ Vasco Velasa to win and was just trying to get some points and be right. Matt Hauser just showed he's just by far the best in the sport right now. And we were kind of even I don't want to say hating on him last year, but kind of like, ⁓ well We're missing Hayden and his game. We're missing Alex and blah blah blah. And he has just slowly shown that he is ⁓ one of the favorites, not or the best in the world right now, as especially at short horse racing. I mean just ⁓ beast, beast beast. But yeah. And then in second you had Vasco Velaka who is just having another good season. He's so consistent, like especially on the sprint distance. He's unbelievably good with Henry Graf in fourth. I'm sorry, in third. ⁓ The other then onto the women's race was really like a good race. That there was a bit of a procession on the bike. It was a little bit on the dull side of the bike. ⁓ but then Leonia Perriolt and ⁓ Lisa Tirch took off on the run and ⁓ they gapped the whole field and then Leona Leone eventually just pushed on to ⁓ to take the win ahead of Lisa Tirsch. really good run, fifteen fifty six to Matt Houser's fourteen eighteen, so like not a massive gap. She was j gesticulating a little bit at Lisa touched. Well no, it was on the bike 'cause Lisa wouldn't come through on the bike and stuff like that. ⁓ but yeah, really impressive for her. The one I really enjoyed watching was the relay. Did you boys watch the relay? ⁓ I did not watch the relay very unfortunately. This is this is my bone to pick, you ready? I'm like getting boxes unpacked and stuff like that. I'm trying to get it turned on my Apple TV. Travel on Live is so like unwatchable on an Apple T V, it's insane. I had to pull it up on my phone, so I wasn't really watching it, I was just listening. But that's I'm gonna get on soapbox later on about that. But anyways, no Mark, I didn't watch it. I watched bits and pieces. It basically came down to it it did it it was really good from the start. They just kinda whittled it away. There were gaps going, there were gaps coming back. Taylor Spivey, great in both races. Really good in this on the Saturday, really good on the Sunday. Like she put down an all round really good performance. Max Stapley absolute gangster performance from him. We were gapped a little bit and then by the time he hit the start of the swim, his dive was just unbelievable and he was suddenly in the lead and he was drilling it and he was pushing the pace. Then there was Seth Ryder had a brilliant leg for the USA team, got them right back in the race. And the kind of like the at the end, by the by the time we get into like the last leg, it was France, Hungary, Great Britain, the United States off the front. And ⁓ they duked it out. ⁓ the United States sorry, France was dangling off. Dorian Connix like dangling off the front of the bike for nearly all the bike, and I thought he's blown his chance here, he's blown his legs. And they cracked onto the run. Morgan Pearson had an absolute shocker in T two and lost like the whole group putting his shoes on and was out of it. And then it was GB Hungary and Great Britain running. And quickly Hungary drilled it, and I haven't got the name off his top of his head, so if someone could look for his name, best hungry. Sungar Lehman. Thank you. Unbelievable start to the run. And I thought he's got this easy. And but then we I just remembered like, well hang on, this is gonna come down to a sprint finish with Dorian Connecticut. No one beats him. Absolutely no one beats him. He was unbelievable. I I dread to think how many sprint finishes we've seen him do like that. So France take an automatic qualification straight away, four athletes, job done off to the Olympics. It was a really good race. ⁓ Hungary second. Amazing performance for a country we don't talk about in triathlon a lot. And G B took third ⁓ with a just a solid race and probably not our age. team necessarily you would say. USA fourth, that's a step forward for you because you were ready to write them off a couple of shows ago. But it it i it it is interesting to see that some of these teams don't even have their best teams. They don't even have Cassandra, who's outrunning the national record in the ten K or sorry, ⁓ ten five and two K. Yeah she's done one she's done like a a ten of five indoors or something. She's done all three basically this year. Yeah. But yes, Mark ⁓ we have not written off the USA team yet. ⁓ it's gonna be interesting once we start putting our athletes through. I think Seth Seth b pretty much demonstrated in this race that he he should be the the men's pick for LA twenty twenty eight. He's a hundred percent. He can call the more gap that the front athlete might leave. A hundred percent. And Morgan Pearson just has to pull his finger out on the run. Like you you were there. There's nothing with it. Yeah. And then you add like a Taylor nib who will probably be More in tune, better for ⁓ race day that we haven't seen in a while. It is interesting to see someone's already punched their ticket to LA very early, very few sports have done that. But also too, none of the athletes are guaranteed to go to LA. So you know what I mean? It's like upset your team now. I I'd run Spivey first. Like s just run run Spivey first, ⁓ Seth Ryder second, run Nib third in case she needs to cover a gap, which she can do on the bike. And then you just hope Morgan Pearson can actually finish off the run. Like, I I think you've got a good shot. Yeah. There we there was I did watch a little bit of the race mark. There was a a moment where Sungar Lehman put his hand on Morgan while they were coming into T two while Morgan's like getting his feet out. Kinda some disrespect in my opinion, but Maybe Morgan was running his mouth. I don't know. It was putting the trainers on that cost him it anyway. Yeah. ⁓ Morgan's been doing a little bit too much middle distance T one hundred and seventy point threes, maybe. got out of the habit of doing fast T2s. we should we run through a few hot takes before I get I got called up for dinner? Are we done for racing? Done for racing. We'll do a mid season report card maybe next week. ⁓ we got Lake Placid coming up this weekend. You want to talk about that one? It's a big one. Martin Van Riel. Trevor Foley. Alright, you got Martin Van Riel, Matthew Marquot defending champion, Trevor Foley, champion from twenty twenty four. Jason West ⁓ Christian Hoganhog coming back from ⁓ what do you race, Roth? Yeah man, ⁓ Fred Funk. Yeah. Yeah, Christian has to race because I'm assuming he's trying to get a cone slot, though which he does not have yet. So Got it. There's four slots at this one. So you got Jason West, Christian Hoganhog, Fred Funk. This is the top ranked athletes. ⁓ Colin Such. ⁓ I mean, yeah, that's that's pretty much your top ranked athletes that don't have cone slots. What do you guys what do you guys got? You guys you taking Martin to to just smack the boys of an America in this one? I I agree. It's a this is a pretty tough bike course and he's really good at this. Yeah, this is just like I think he'll just thrive and continue to ride. I think you s you see a pretty good group at the front. You probably see maybe Martin Van Riel, Hoganhag, Knut, Von Berg, Marquatt, which is a pretty good pretty good size group. ⁓ and then you'll have like the the likes of Trevor Foley and them. But i i it will be interesting to see. Trevor does thrive on this course, has won here in the past. ⁓ you're gonna get a test at Cam Werf, who will be racing in Placid, a little personal throw in the show before ⁓ Kona. He instead of he said he wanted to change the season round, he qualified early last year versus chasing a slot until the very last second. So you don't know what swim shape he's in, but you're usually always in bike shape. so this will be one of those interesting ones. ⁓ kind of sharpening the tools before the big dance, I would say. But And then the likes on the on the woman's side of the race, lead partier, Paula Finley going for that Kona slot. So that will be Iron Man. Very ⁓ anticipated Iron Man debut. A lot of people are gonna be watching. I'm throwing it. ⁓ Paula Finley wins. Straight off the Iron Man debut. Swims front be so epic. Rides away. Yeah. Unless Lisa Pertera has a day like we saw in twenty twenty five, some of her races. I th I think. You haven't even mentioned a world champ doing this race, her her debut of the season. Chelsea Sodaro. Come on, guys. I think Paula Finlay ⁓ Lisa Perterer, ⁓ Grace Theck, ⁓ all of these people stand a chance. And I could be wrong. I almost want to say our website is wrong. ⁓ it says not validated. I don't believe Chelsea's allowed to validate here. I believe that is expired for her. She actually needs to get a slot. Yes, definitely. No, I don't think so. Why? Twenty twenty two, right? Yeah. ⁓ that's the same thing as Gustav Eden. Same thing as Gustav Eden. So she just needs to finish. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. So Chelsea just needs to finish. ⁓ some other names in the list, but ⁓ it will be a very exciting race. You will see the likes of ⁓ Tamar Jewitt in this race as well. So Can we do picks? Let's let's move on to some hot takes. We'll we'll we'll we'll throw some hot takes. Everyone we only care about Paula. Who cares about anyone else in this race, to be honest? Big up TTR, Paula Finley, going for the dub. Paula. I think Paula men's a woman's race. Either that or Eric's gonna have a horrible day out. It go it goes wh it goes one of two ways. I could You God bless Eric. I mean you have to say Nick too, though. I love Eric. I I just mean I know how hard it can be spectating. I'm mad. Yeah, of course. Yeah, Eric's never spectated in Iron Man. Watch a loved one. This is a long one, Eric. We I've never No sh do you have any advice? Like do you pack a nutrition? Do you stay on the carbs? Phone phone battery, forty maximum strength nicotine pouches, sun cream, small bottle of water. That's all you need. Don't eat all day. ⁓ so you get progressively more sad and grumpy or something. And don't eat the day prior? no, well no, because they're gonna be eating like rice and stuff. So I like to get like a big fat kebab and chips in and just eat it in front of her. That's ⁓ I think that always goes down well. ⁓ you know. They're my top tips. There's I will say for everyone that is going to Lake Placid, there's a place to get a ⁓ maple creamy there on Main Street. You'll see it, 'cause every time you go by, the line for the ice cream is out the door. Please do yourself a favor and stand in that line for forty-five minutes and send me a photo of you with your maple creamy ice cream cone, cause it is heavenly. That is a that is a travel to that race. Once you get there, it's amazing, but boy, that is a travel to get to that race. So me There's two buzzwords in performance sport that we hear all too often. Carbs and protein. Protein can get super confusing. We can see it in water, snacks, you name it. But about what about if we just went back to the original source? Good old fashioned meat. That's right. Visit goodrancher.com for your own box of just it can be steak, sausages, chicken, you name it. I love Good Rancher because here's the deal. I can make my own box and have it shipped to my house super easily. Check them out for yourself. Use code IRN at checkout at goodranchers.com. American Meat Delivered. And if you don't trust me, they've got over twenty seven thousand reviews and four and a half stars. Check ⁓ out. Let us know what you think. Hot takes. I mean, number one off the bat, I mean Joe Skipper just announced his retirement from triathlon. Big up yourself, Joe Skipper, an absolute MG gangster of the sport. I first raced Joe when we were twelve or something around a school field in East Anglia and he has basically never changed at all. He is still essentially a teenage boy in a slowly aging man's body. He's a lunatic, he's a lovely man, he's a pioneer in sport. He's won crazy stuff, broke national time trial records, won countless races. Done podcasts, said hilarious stuff, some of it repeatable, some of it not. He is a character that I think it's safe to say we are all gonna miss. Congratulations on an unbelievable career, Joe Skipper. And thank you. And a world record holder. And a world record like thank you for the good times. Yeah. World record holder. I mean, no one's better than Wind tunnel as much as Joe. ⁓ you you couldn't have said it better, Mark. And I I think that the only thing that everyone is Really excited to see, assuming he will do it, is hopefully we see him ⁓ go for that ultra mare ⁓ ultra man world record, which is I think it's like twenty hours, fifty seven minutes, forty six. I mean he's so good at that stuff. 'Cause I swear he just does it. I don't know how to say it. I'm not sure he's able to process like slow level of suffering. And he's just like, that's why he can do a twelve hour time trial. He will Dominate that. And I can't wait until he does it because we will be able to compare it to some of his seventy point threes. Because he will go the same speed. Especially on the run. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. He's crazy. So yeah, hats off to Skipper. Well done. Incredible career. A lot of people are upset about this Versailles seventy point three getting canceled. It looked epic and I was excited for it. And then France just Coming in and just putting the kibosh on any Ironman races this year. Been a little bit warm there. I'm sure some people have been on strike. So they just couldn't have the race. It's a problem. Like I know I know like forty five percent of Americans don't believe in global warming or whatever, but the world is getting hotter every year, like s well by whatever reason you would like to associate it to, significantly. We have record heat waves every year in Europe, and all over the world. And do races do we have to change? Is triathlon becoming a spring autumn sport in Europe? Is the Tour de France gonna have to change to May? Like i the we are we are having these these temperature issues. So we either deal with them, i.e. just race in the heat, or which governments aren't allowing, or you have to start to think about changing dates of races because th i it's not getting cooler at any point the most I mean the most likely thing to do would be to just assess, you know, what day w the dates you're gonna have your races. ⁓ I you know, the the the difference is is obviously the threshold in France is very difficult different than the threshold that's in Mexico, right? So it's like when they did Waltuco in Mexico every year, we know it's gonna be hot. You know it's gonna be hot there. ⁓ I I just did a bunch of bike races that were, you know, I don't know, insanely hot as well. So I think endurance sports are gonna have to look at this ⁓ collectively. You know, they won't they won't do it collectively, but I think what you're gonna see is that it's gonna be done in Iron Man's gonna look at these dates differently for the races that they canceled, presumably. Right? You know, the obvious one for me that nobody can give me a straight answer on is like for the Tour de France. They insisted starting these races at twelve o'clock in the afternoon, so like their k the parade caravans can roll through. The obvious thing for me would be, hey, for the tour de France, why don't we just start if these races we know that are taking place in the south of France are gonna be hot. Unfortunately, guys, these days we're gonna have to start the races at seven thirty in the morning. They're four hours long, we're done by eleven thirty. Voila. Hottest part of the day is in the afternoon. That would be like the super obvious one. So again For triathlon's sake, Kona is kind of the like that is the limit. I don't know w where this weekend in Versailles fell above that, but I think that this sport is done in extreme conditions. But again, if a local government is shutting down a race 'cause it's too hot, like what can you do? So I mean the other thing is you just you you know, you're the customer. You choose where you want to race. Like we can't influence what the governments are gonna do in terms of their policies for shutting down sports, but If you look at a race in the last couple of years it's been has been any danger of it being too hot that it might be cancelled. You're just not sign up for it. And just pick a different race. Because like w what what we can say is it's j they just we're still gonna have this problem. You know, there there will still be hot and I'm not gonna say I'm not saying it'll be ten degrees hotter next year. I just mean that like this is going to be a recurring track. Yeah. Totally. No, I mean it was like the crazy thing we had was that remember yeah, but remember the race that we had up in ⁓ Tabo, what was the race that Lionel was gonna go do where it was super hot and then overnight the lake flipped? And so all the cool water came up and they cancelled the swim because then it was too cold. Iron Man Canada. Yeah. Yeah, but what where was it? But where what city was the race in when that happened? Pendicton, maybe? Pendicton? I thought it was in ⁓ it doesn't matter where it was. But my point is is that it's just yeah, the weather's the weather stuff is absolutely crazy. I think you know Iron Man, if I was Iron Man, how I personally would adjust this is thinking about like, look, what is a realistic way where we can shorten some of the distances in the event that okay, we have a an event booked, we have customers that have paid. Is there a way where we can cut a lap on the bike? We can put the can like to get everybody in before the heat of the day starts, right? So we've started races right, I mean when the sun hasn't even come up. We can think of St. George, we can think of Kona, Nice a couple of times. Like are there ways to shorten it so it doesn't have a strain on the the I mean the volunteers and the competitors, but we can get the race off the ground, right? Yeah. And I don't know. The hottest race I've ever done is in Buffalo Springs, Lubbock, Texas. Which is back in the day we used to race a lot. And it used to be hot as well. I at the end of the day, ⁓ towards I don't know if you guys are aware of this or a lot of listeners Towards the end of June, July and August are usually pretty hot months. So if you don't want to race in the ⁓ heat, potentially race into spring, kinda like what Mark says. In the northern in the northern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere. And kinda like what what what Pat said, it's the only bad thing about Pat that Pat is that like it doesn't matter if it's a hundred and ten degrees, these athletes will complain because they didn't get to do the full distance Iron Man, so if you shortened it to half they'd be pissed off either way, so it's just One of those just interesting ways. Let's hit it. The Norwegians do the Norwegians go back to Saint Maritz and increase swim training so that they can start closer to the front of the bike and Kona. It's a good question. Because who was it? It was ⁓ Kyle Smith had a hot take on the live pod basically. He was like Christians not making the sw front swim group by choice is in whether he means in the moment within the race or just where they train and the amount of swimming they do. He he won a w he won Olympic gold. He's a c he can swim. He's a great swimmer. And if the front swim group in Kona has twenty people getting out with it, he can swim in that group if he chooses to do that level. I am gonna quote the great Lionel Sanders here. And Talbot's heard this one. It's been a long time since we've said it. You don't get something for nothing. And and even the g even one of the GOATs doesn't get something for nothing. So Christian knows That he's gotta balance all three. And if he gives swimming a little bit more, he's giving up something else. He is putting a different tool away. And so yes, I agree with Kyle Smith. Christian's made a calculation in his mind that says, Hey, I gotta be a dynamite at debiking and running and I'm gonna give a little bit on my swim to get more at the end. Christian still he does not have unlimited tools. He's yeah, it's it's a choice, right? And that I think that's why it's an interesting question. Does he choose that? My my suspicion is no. He relies on the firepower coming back to him from the other boys and then he worries about having to outrun the outrun them more than he worries about the gap in the swim. That's my But you agree with me, Mark, he's making a choice. He's making a strategic choice. Yeah, yeah, it's totally his choice. There are levels. You can't just cho like some people can't choose to be better swimmers. But KB has been a better swimmer. So you could say maybe he could choose to be better at swimming. He could do one of three things. He could one, do nothing. Keep training. Two, the Norwegians could maybe hire like the previous German f ⁓ Federation swim coach to help him them get better. or three, they could all book tickets and go to NUSA, Australia and get coached under JR and they will all swim front pack within two weeks. So Hope you guys enjoyed the show. We we can't thank you enough for supporting if If you do listen to the podcast, I know we've said this a lot of times, make sure you follow us on Instagram. For some reason we get ⁓ a lot of downloads, but we don't have a lot of Instagram followers. So we would love to share with you guys some awesome news on Instagram as well. With that being said, we'll see you on the next one.