A champion for little races! 😎

I don't know if this gets mentioned enough... but I think one big reason many people lack interest in the Nice WC ( even 70.3 sometimes) is that unlike Kona, anyone can race those courses during the year in the regular event. They lack that special feeling of Kona, where you can only race it (the full IM) if you qualify.

If you think about it, T100 for men is basically short course. The top T100 guys are generally not Ironman guys, and the top Ironman guys are typically not T100 (Laidlow is the exception I guess). But in women's, the top women are the same top in every distance. Top Ironman is top 70.3 is top T100

Every mention of Chelsea Sodaro, no matter how minor, must include the fact that she is a mother.

I know every situation is different, but the honorable thing to do is pull out of these T100 races at least one week out so you can give other athletes a chance to make travel plans and prepare for the race.

Nice? Didn’t you hear the rumours 🤔👀 what do you think about the kona rumours?

I would die if Hayden and/or Leo come to T100!!! I really hope they don’t stay in WTCS jail for the next 4 years.

Your videos are awesome. Keep em coming!

Travis...cut your hair bro!

Travis I just looked at your rankings and have the following comments. T100 is not long course. It should be moved to short course. 70.3 should be the shortest race to be considered long course. If you disagree with this then consider changing your tiers. Tier 1. Ironman Hawaii and Nice with Ironman Hawaii being 100 and all other races lower. ie Nice = 95 Tier 2. IMWC 70.3, IM Pro Series full IM, Roth, and PTO Grand Finally Tier 3. PTO T100 races and IM Pro Series 70.3

Travis I completely agree with you. The PTO rankings are bs. A full Ironman race is in a completely different league then a T100 race. A top Ironman athlete being compared to a short course athlete is absurd. Who is the best overall triathlete in the world right now? I guarantee you it is not MVR! T100 sure you might have a case at the moment but wait until the rest of the super fast short course guys start doing T100. Next year not being an Olympic year is going to drastically change the T100. We have already seen it starting to happen. A guy like Sam Long or Patrick or Laura Phillip or any other long distance top athlete will not stand a chance. I believe that the majority of full Ironman distance athletes will gravitate to the Ironman Pro Series. There may be some exceptions though as Sam Laidlow, Magnus, Kat Mathews and LCB have shown that they can excel at both. But for how long. The two distances are two different animals. Ironman Hawaii and a PTO Event should not be in the same tier. IMWC, Ironman Hawaii and Nice, should be the highest tier possible. PTO races can stay in the diamond tier. They are not even close to being the same. Money has no business determining the tier at that level. That is a huge flaw and bias. Ironman Hawaii is the gold standard that all other races are compared to. Nothing else even Nice is close. Put Hawaii at 100 and Nice at 95

A 10 month suspension for an Age Grouper testing positive for doping?!??!! This is an inexcusable problem that WT needs to fix. WT gets their panties in a gigantic bunch about having race numbers in all 3 extremity locations, (I experienced that first hand at Abu Dhabi Worlds) and they can't offer a legitimate penalty for piss stains caught doping?! If you get caught doping as an age grouper, you deserve a 3 year ban, hands down. I believe that is the case for pro's as well?

My opinion is if a pro can’t have all the gear, but regardless have a great race with a modest setup the sponsors will notice…

22:00 - I think it is disgraceful that the PTO does not make all of the regular races in the Ironman Pro Series ‘Platinum’ as well, given the $2.1 million bonus pool. Simply giving a single 5% weighting to the athelete’s best result but keeping all of the races at the Gold Tier isn’t good enough. The rankings are too weighted in favour of T-100 series athletes as it is.

17:37 - isnt there a distinction between ‘wildcard’ and ‘roll down’ selections? I thought the whole purpose of ‘wildcards’ was to allow the PTO to use its discretion to pick athletes who might ‘spice things up’ or were perceived to be worthy, even though they didnt have the rankings due to racing ITU or coming back from injury etc. This year the PTO have filled the fields typically via rolling down the rankings list, and fair enough, but not selecting Gelle based on some ‘objective criteria’ seems stupid. Just imagine how stupid the PTO would look if any of the Olympic Games medalists said that they would like a start at the PTO Grand Final only to be rebuffed by some BS ‘criteria’. The likes of Jelle (now he has actually won a PTO T-100 race), Alex, Heydon and Leo are EXACTLY what must have been in mind when considering ‘wildcard’ selections (and indeed the ‘wildcard’ picks for contracts handed out to Alistair, Javier, Martin and Max at the beginning of the year illustrates that point perfectly. Stupid stuff from the PTO.

12:20- the equivalent of most of those customised parts can be acquired at a reasonable price from Tri-rig - which make them to be super adjustable. The 3-D printed versions of this exotica put the price up by an order of magnitude and any further gains would be super marginal and largely dependent on the objective results of aero testing - windtunnels, velodromes and ‘real world’ road testing. Magnus and Sam’s team probably do spend close to $100K on the combination of parts and testing. However, great ‘bang for buck’ could be obtained for about 1/10th of that cost: still expensive, but a $10K outlay will get a pro within a few watts of what Magnus can achieve and hence well and truly still in the game.

This is what separates Ironman from road-racing. You can innovate on the fly. But in road-racing [UCI] you can innovate, yes, but your innovation has to be made publicly available, even BEFORE the event! I think a combination of BOTH things should be installed in Ironman. We deserve it!

I agree, the season is too long. I disagree, from the way he looked, I was not sure Sam Laidlow would make it another 100 yards out of T2- just pushed it too hard early in the race in the heat & humidity of Kona, easy to do. Hundreds have done the same.

Honestly, honestly 😂 great video Travis. Nice to see you competing out there too. Your channel brings to life this sport and the journey of the pro-athletes. Thank yoy

Great video as always!! 😊

Thank you for speaking out in favor of Kona! :) Great reporting as always

Congrats on your finish!!! Way to bring the best out of yourself and push through the suffering during that run-that’s what our sport is all about! It was a pleasure meeting you in Vegas, I always look forward to your videos.

Ben Reszel doesn't coach Hayden Wilde. See Fitter Radio Episode 590 where this is confirmed with Hayden's actual coach Craig Kirkwood. But Ben does coach another New Zealander, Braden Currie.

Sorry but age group competition is a sh?t show with lots of PEDS and giant egos, and the budgets to spend tens of thousands each year.

Vegas was brutal but awesome also can’t wait for next year

About the advantage of some pros having more expensive cockpits and everything .... The really unfair point is to see age groupers competing with 2000usd bikes against 15000usd bikes . Even more unfair is the amount of draft on those races, for AG and pros as well .... pros should be 20m (this way probably Lange wouldn´t be able to run 2h37 ) , and allow fewer AG on the race and more officials and penalties

The Wild card rules were emailed to athletes so not publicly available but he didn’t race enough T100 races to “qualify”

On the T100 KZbin channel they did a walk and talk with Martin and Jelle after the Vegas race. In it they talked about the rules for grand final wild cards. They said you had to do two races to qualify and since Jelle only did one he doesn’t qualify.

Ben Rezel does not coach Hayden Wilde…

I like those "fairings"on the bars, don't kill innovation like the UCI does. As long as its safe, lets go..

If you have ever been to race or spectate at Kona, you realize it’s a very small town that is simply overwhelmed for1 week a year, brings in millions into the local economy, but for the locals it’s a pain in the ass, and most don’t appreciate how much of a financial loss to the community if Ironman leaves. no way they are ever going to allow men and women on separate days, the mayor was almost voted out of office after that cluster.

I don't get your comment about PTO ranking. The ranking is based on SOF, position and race time. If the same athletes show up for one PTO race and one IM race, they will have the same score. Where is the biais? Sam is objectively ranked higher than Patrick. He raced a lot more ultra stacked races and have therefore more score.

Hey! My 93 year old mom was just prescribed hydrochlorothiazide as her kidneys might not be working properly. She'll get another blood test in a couple of weeks to see how it's working. She'll have to hide from the WADA testers... haha

So much to talk about in this episode! - TFoley was my dark horse in Kona. I think too many people are missing the fact that he definitely over biked and/or under fueled and would have likely blown up just like Sam. Yes it was a mistake coming into T2... but it was the exact type of mistake when you've bonked. - Any time I see LCB content I always think about the insane amount of sponsor assistance and advantage she has over most pro's, it's wild. However, outside or race day, I say "go for it" take all the advantages you're afforded. On race day though, I think it needs to be a fair race and any equipment should be stuff that anyone can obtain. All the new bike fairings or whatever people are adding this year is BS and shouldn't be allowed. - I raced Vegas as well and 100% the T100 puts on an amazing race experience, far and away better than anything I've ever experienced. The price was close to half of a 70.3 and the swag was better, the race was better, and the whole weekend was just unbelievable. Like walking down the street and saying " oh there's Taylor Knibb hanging out" , " there's Flora Duffy" like what world am I living in right now! I literally have a picture hugging Paula Findlay when I crossed the finish line 🥰 - Dubai T100 confuses me... they say 10-12k participants but they only opened registration like 3 weeks ago? I very curious to see how it actually goes.

1:48

Hey, Travis. Today I got a slot for Challenge Roth 😂🎉😅😅😅😅😅

I think the claim that not all pros can access aero development is a bit of a red herring. With a power meter, a speed sensor, patience and some smarts, you can get at least 90% of the way there with field testing and the Chung protocol. Apps like Golden Cheetah make it even easier. Will having an expert on hand make it easier? For sure. Is it necessary to get good results? Nope.

Incredible day. It’s a shame that we have to wait another 2 years for this current group of men on this course.

At IM Lake Placid, any woman who just finished the race was offered a slot to Nice. One day. One race. Kona. My wife and I spectated in Kona this year, illness kept me from doing my 30th Kona, and she said that something was wrong, no women. RE: Locals. Apparently rude behavior was rampant enough to turn many locals against the event, which was not an issue with the women last year! 5k for a one piece arm rest/fairing is legal. 5 cents of duct tape to seal the space between arm rests is illegal. Way to go IM. And WHAT did they DQ Magnus' bike for???? 20m draft zone and use USAT rules which allow a passing rider to slot in, the passed rider having to back away. And PLEASE get professional caliber commentators for the live coverage!

Why do the ironman age group results show Timmo Jeret as winning the age group race? Miao hao finished 3 mins behind him according to the ironman app.

Nobody is beating Hayden Wilde at 70.3 world's, i reckon that's helped with the decision for quite a few pros to stay home

Chinese winner out of nowhere, 35/39 AG is interesting!!

Great video!!!

nice. thanks

Double check, I am pretty sure that Ashley Gentle had her 11th win at Noosa.

it is not a surprise AG are doing those things .... plus what about the consumption of EPO?

Matthew Marquardt shared some interesting comments with Jack regarding drafting on The Triathlon Hour. And based on Jack’s post about the age group race, I absolutely thought he was insinuating the winner had something to do with it… I also find it interesting that everyone talks about people having a chance in two years to do things differently. Totally bypassing next year’s race in Nice. I think that itself speaks to the fact that Kona is where the race should be. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Great content as always!

Hey Travis, so great meeting you on Hawaii! Great recap once again. BEST, Folkert

Jelle was not offered one because there's apparently a requirement to race at least 2 times before the final

I really hope triathlon stays in Kona, and I think Ironman as an organisation simply has to do more for the community there to make it so that they actually embrace having the event there, if that’s actually possible. You’ve also convinced me about the drafting. I really hated seeing it during the event, and was salty that Lange could conserve his energy while Laidlow, Ditlev, and Blummenfelt (basically anyone trying to make a break for the win) all blew up. But if it was made to be 20m it could make for some really stale racing, which is the biggest problem with T100. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Nothing would make triathlon more exciting than getting rid of power meters. It’s the only thing that would shake up the boringness of triathlon pack dynamics. We need to see more people taking a chance and blowing up. It’s the same thing that makes the of track athletics and Olympic swimming exciting - athletes taking a chance at glory. Which is why I’ll always applaud Laidlow for what he did in Kona. He shook things up and took a chance, and things would have turned out very differently if he had just been patient enough to wait for Ditlev. That was his one mistake.